Description de l’éditeur
Between getting into a tangle with a corrupt local judge, and discovering a disturbing black-market business, Dr. Siri and Inspector Phosy have their hands full in the thirteenth installment of Colin Cotterill's quirky, critically acclaimed series.
Dr. Siri Paiboun, the 75-year-old ex-national coroner of Laos, may have more experience dissecting bodies than making art, but now that he’s managed to smuggle a fancy movie camera into the country, he devises a plan to shoot a Lao adaptation of War and Peace with his friend Civilai. The only problem? The Ministry of Culture must approve the script before they can get rolling. That, and they can’t figure out how to turn on the camera.
Meanwhile, the skeleton of a woman has appeared under the Anusawari Arch in the middle of the night. Siri puts his directorial debut on hold and assists his friend Phosy, the newly promoted Senior Police Inspector, with the ensuing investigation. Though the death of the unknown woman seems to be recent, the flesh on her corpse has been picked off in places as if something—or someone—has been gnawing on the bones. The plot Siri and his friends uncover involves much more than a single set of skeletal remains.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In Cotterill's excellent 13th mystery, set sometime after 1980 in the People's Democratic Republic of Laos (after 2017's The Rat Catcher's Olympics), Dr. Siri Pauboun, the country's national coroner, and his friend Chief Insp. Phosy Vongvichai, who's a rare honest cop, have a grisly murder to solve. A night patrol has found a skeleton at the base of the Anusawari Victory Arch belonging to a woman who was apparently eaten by animals, possibly while she was still alive. The sensitive inquiry implicates a powerful official, placing Phosy's career and life at risk. The crime may also be connected with illegal animal trafficking. A subplot involving Siri's plans to produce a film based on War and Peace and his navigating of the bureaucracy to get the project green-lit provides comic relief from what would otherwise be a grim tale. Wry prose ("Life sped by in Vientiane like a Volkswagen van on blocks") also lightens the mood. The eccentric Siri, who's possessed by spirits (including those of a dog, his dead mother, and a transvestite fortune-teller), continues to stand out as a unique and endearing series sleuth.
