Dr. Siri Paiboun series by Colin Cotterill Books 1-8, 10

Requirements: ePub Reader, 6.4MB
Overview: Colin Cotterill was born in London in 1952 and taught and trained teachers around the world before settling in Thailand. He spent several years in Laos, initially with UNESCO, before he moved on to become involved in child protection in the region and set up a non-governmental organization in Phuket. He later moved on to ECPAT, an international organization combating child prostitution and pornography. Colin writes and illustrates full time, and lives in Chumphon on the Gulf of Thailand with his wife, Jessi, and a bunch of dogs. He is a Dilys Award winner.
Colin Cotterill made a considerable impression with his novel The Coroner's Lunch, a book that succeeded in being something entirely new in the crime fiction field. His protagonist, the elderly coroner, Dr Siri Paiboun, was something unusual in the genre: in his 70s, but still immensely sharp, struggling with his career in the 1970s as the only coroner in Laos, a country which is a hotbed of dishonesty and corruption.
Genre: Mystery/Suspense

1- The Coroner's Lunch (2004)
In Laos in the year 1976, the monarchy has been deposed, and the Communist Pathet Lao have taken over. Most of the educated class has fled, but Dr Siri Paiboun, a Paris-trained doctor remains. And so this 72-year-old physician is appointed state coroner, despite having no training, equipment, experience or even inclination for the job. But the job's not that bad and Siri quickly settles into a routine of studying outdated medical texts, scrounging scarce supplies, and circumnavigating bureaucratic red tape to arrive at justice. The fact that the recently departed are prone to pay Siri the odd, unwanted nocturnal visit turns out to be an added bonus in his new line of work. But when the wife of a party leader turns up dead and the bodies of tortured Vietnamese soldiers start bobbing to the surface of a Laotian lake, all eyes turn to Siri. Faced with official cover-ups and an emerging international crisis, the doctor enlists old friends, village shamans, forest spirits, dream visits from the dead - and even the occasional bit of medical deduction - to solve the crimes.
"The Coroner's Lunch is a satisfying feast for the mind."

2- Thirty-Three Teeth (2005)
The national coroner of Laos, Dr. Siri Paiboun, is no respecter of persons or party; at his advanced age he can afford to be independent. With the assistance of his helpers, the mentally retarded Mr. Geung and Nurse Dtui ("Fatty")-who has dubbed him "Super Spirit Doc"-he elucidates the causes of mysterious deaths. But he also communes with the deposed king, whose special channel to the occult has left him, and attends a conference of shamans called by the Communist government to give the spirits an ultimatum: obey party orders or get out.

3- Disco for the Departed (2006)
Colin Cotterill made a considerable impression with his previous novel The Coroner's Lunch, a book that succeeded in being something entirely new in the crime fiction field. His protagonist, the elderly coroner, Dr Siri Paiboun, was something unusual in the genre: in his 70s, but still immensely sharp, struggling with his career in the 1970s as the only coroner in Laos, a country which is a hotbed of dishonesty and corruption.
That book won the author many friends, with favourable comparisons being made to the novels of Alexander McCall Smith (but always in Cotterill's favour - his narratives wear a darker hue than that of the more cosy world of McCall Smith). And here is Dr Siri again in the equally diverting Disco for the Departed, which is in fact, the third outing for one of the most entertaining crime protagonists around. Siri finds himself summoned to the mountains of Huaphan Province -- the very region where the totalitarian Communist rulers of the country hid from the authorities before their own accession to power. But as celebrations are underway for the 'success' of the new regime (which, of course, can do no wrong), a human arm is discovered sticking out of a concrete walk, which has been laid from the president's cave hideout to his splendid new home under the cliffs. Siri is handed the job of uncovering the arm (and the body to which it is attached) and identifying the corpse. His autopsy reveals that the body was buried alive, but in order to track down the killer, the elderly pathologist has to call on some of his supernatural skill (which readers will remember from the earlier books - and the one element of Cotterill's work that some of his admirers have an ambiguous attitude towards). What Siri uncovers is a very rich brew of mysteries.

4- Anarchy and Old Dogs (2007)
A blind retired dentist has been run down by a logging truck on the street in Vientiane just opposite the post office. His body is duly delivered to the morgue of Dr. Siri Paiboun, the official and only coroner of Laos. At the age of seventy-four, Dr. Siri is too old to be in awe of the new communist bureaucrats for whom he now works. He identifies the corpse, helped by the letter in the man's pocket. But first he must decipher it; it is written in code and invisible ink. The dentist's widow explains that the enigmatic letters and numbers describe chess moves, but they are unlike any chess symbols Siri has previously encountered. With the help of his old friend, Civilai, now a senior member of the Laos politburo; Nurse Dtui ("Fatty"); Phosy, a police officer; and Aunt Bpoo, a transvestite fortune-teller, Dr. Siri solves the mystery of the note and foils a plot to overthrow the government of Laos.

5- Curse of the Pogo Stick (2008)
In Vientiane, a booby-trapped corpse, intended for Dr. Siri, the national coroner of Laos, has been delivered to the morgue. In his absence, only Nurse Dtui's intervention saves the lives of the morgue attendants, visiting doctors, and Madame Daeng, Dr. Siri's fiance.
On his way back from a communist party meeting in the north, Dr. Siri is kidnapped by seven female Hmong villagers under the direction of the village elder so that he will-in the guise of Yeh Ming, the thousand-year-old shaman with whom he shares his body-exorcise the headman's daughter whose soul is possessed by a demon, and lift the curse of the pogo stick.

6- The Merry Misogynist (2009)
Dr. Siri is confronted with a deadly Casanova targeting lovely young women.
In poverty-stricken 1978 Laos, a man with a truck from the city was 'somebody,' a catch for even the prettiest village virgin. The corpse of one of these bucolic beauties turns up in Dr. Siri's morgue and his curiosity is piqued. The victim was tied to a tree and strangled but she had not, as the doctor had expected, been raped, although her flesh had been torn. And though the victim had clear, pale skin over most of her body, her hands and feet were gnarled, callused, and blistered.
On a trip to the hinterlands, Siri discovers that the beautiful female corpse bound to a tree has already risen to the status of a rural myth. This has happened many times before. He sets out to investigate this unprecedented phenomenon - a serial killer in peaceful Buddhist Laos - only to discover when he has identified the murderer that not only pretty maidens are at risk. Seventy-three-year-old coroners can be victims, too.

7- Love Songs from a Shallow Grave (2010)
Three young Laotian women have died of fencing sword wounds. Each of them had studied abroad in an Eastern bloc country. Before he can complete his investigation, Dr. Siri is lured to Cambodia by an all-expenses-paid trip. Accused of spying for the Vietnamese, he is imprisoned, beaten, and threatened with death. The Khmer Rouge is relentless, and it is touch and go for the dauntless, seventy-four-year-old national - and only - coroner of Laos.

8- Slash and Burn (2011)
Things have been pretty hectic for Dr Siri. Now he's off on what he calls a 'therapeutic holiday' in the mountains with his wife and friends. But sadly there's no rest for the wicked - with the help of a little blackmail they are accompanying an American MIA team. Their mission is to discover what happened to a stoned airman downed ten years earlier. Could he have survived? Who is eliminating the last people to have seen him alive? And who, we ask, is lighting the fires that are shrouding the Friendship Hotel in smog? In the remote Plain of Jars, surrounded by a thousand tons of unexploded bombs, Siri and the morgue team have to discover who is the killer in their midst before they too become victims.

10 - Six and a Half Deadly Sins
Laos, 1979: Dr. Siri Paiboun, the twice retired ex-National Coroner of Laos, receives an unmarked package in the mail. Inside is a handwoven pha sin, a colorful traditional skirt worn in northern Laos. A lovely present, but who sent it to him, and why? And, more importantly, why is there a severed human finger stitched into the sin’s lining?
Siri is convinced someone is trying to send him a message and won’t let the matter rest until he’s figured it out. He finagles a trip up north to the province where the sin was made, not realizing he is embarking on a deadly scavenger hunt. Meanwhile, the northern Lao border is about to erupt into violence—and Dr. Siri and his entourage are walking right into the heart of the conflict.