This is by Colin Cotterill, and it was published in 2005.

The setting is Laos in the 1970s, just after the Pathet Lao came to power, and our hero is Dr Siri Paiboun, 72, widower, "reluctant national coroner, confused psychic, disheartened communist", and all-round nice guy.

This is the second in quite a long series of stories featuring this endearing protagonist (15 to date). And most unusually, the only other one I'd read (back in 2012) was actually the first, entitled The Coroner's Lunch...



No spoilers, as the tension in the story is the entire point, but I will say that it's a rollicking tale, with several concurrent elements, a number of larger-than-life characters, and a worthy victory for Siri's embattled assistant, Dtui.

Cotterill spent several years in Laos, and writes convincingly of the local environment and culture.

There are lots of lovely little swipes at officialdom (aimed at the communist government, but sadly applicable much more broadly). One particularly obdurate paper-pusher tells Siri of the terrible time he'd had on encountering the redoubtable Dtui: "She marches in here as if she owns the office... I mean, ha, as if anyone can just march in and claim to be this or that and get access to my files. I mean, she didn't have so much as a P24... I told her I wasn't even supposed to be talking to her till I saw an Int5Q... She stormed out, and I suppose I eventually calmed down... I found myself engrossed in a rejac. budg. requisition that needed some backup R11s..."

More generally, I appreciated that Cotterill's "communists" are disaggregated into all sorts of individual characters, amiable and otherwise. And I liked his matter-of-fact treatment of poverty, steering clear of the supercilious judgementalism that so easily creeps into Western writing about Asia.


Luang Prabang

I particularly liked the supernatural elements, as spirits of various types are such a cardinal feature of the whole Southeast Asian region. "According to the elders of one small village," we're told, "Siri was the re-embodiment of Yeh Ming, a powerful Hmong shaman who had lived over a thousand years ago. Since the discovery, Siri had become aware of amazing powers that lurked somewhere deep inside him. As yet, he was unsure of how to use them, and in many ways they frightened the daylights out of him." These abilities certainly add a certain dash to his criminal enquiries, and his queasiness about exercising them adds to his appeal.

The spirit world goes quite crackers in Thirty-Three Teeth. We have amulets, the phibob (evil spirits of the forest), supernaturally charged puppets, a gathering of shamans, and much, much more. Fairly early in the story, Siri is summoned to Luang Prabang, which is "rather a magical place", we're told, and "bristling with the ghosts of previous kings and queens and their offspring". It's here that Siri meets the king, now "into his second year of unemployment", and witnesses the sad departure of the "kwun" (something between a soul and a spirit) from the royal line.

There's a really amusing chapter where the communist Department of Culture introduces the shamans to "the official manual... for the summoning of spirits". The government plan is to offer spirits three choices (relocation to the northeast "to join the ex-royals"; ordination as official temple spirits; or banishment). The shamans say the spirits must personally be there to hear this news, and proceed to "summon" them. It's all baloney, of course, as the shamans know better than anyone that spirits cannot be commanded, but the resultant play-acting has the officials quaking in their boots. All very funny.

(And the possession of thirty-three teeth, by the way, in case you're wondering about that title, points to spiritual calibre: It's "an indication that you've been born as a bridge to the spirit world". Examples: The Lord Buddha, the old king's uncle -- and Siri himself.)


"Siri sat on the white steps in front of Pak Ou cave. It was a pocket in the face of the cliff that overlooked the confluence of the Mekong and the Nam Xuang rivers. Its most remarkable characteristic was what it contained: there were thousands upon thousands of Buddha images of all shapes and sizes"

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I guess my only misgiving is that Cotterill's characters don't really feel very "Lao". They feel a bit too carpet-slipper familiar for that. I guess the author's reply would be that people are people the world over, and to a certain extent that's true. But it's also dangerous to expect to be able to deal with all people anywhere on equal terms, as though cultural and historical differentiation plays no role. Cotterill has rightly been praised for introducing Westerners to Lao culture, but it's definitely "digestible" Lao culture.

Maybe I'm overthinking something that is designed purely to entertain. Then again, Alexander McCall Smith has faced accusations of cultural appropriation, and I suppose at least some of those concerns could apply here too... McCall Smith is gung-ho about his endeavours, and says his work reflects "cultural admiration". I'm sure Cotterill would say the same.

I've not been able to unearth much Lao critique of Cotterill's stories. There is this, though, by Tibor Krausz: "Cotterill's realistic portrayal of Lao people and their culture has earned him plaudits with reviewers and Lao readers. 'The way you tell about life in Vientiane,' a Lao-born emigre historian wrote to him, 'is quite extraordinary and most entertaining. Please keep Dr. Siri alive!' In Laos, the first four Dr. Siri books will soon be available in English in local editions; The Coroner's Lunch is being translated into Lao." This is no easy task, according to this account...

To continue with Krausz: "'Colin takes some liberties, but remains faithful to Lao culture as a whole,' says Lao-American poet Bryan Thao Worra, who edits Bakka Magazine, a Lao literary journal. Native readers who have read the English editions, he adds, love the books...'"



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Bottom line: I'd read more. The world needs more septuagenarian, ex-guerrilla, shaman-adjacent detectives.