The most original "detective" ever in Dr. Siri, a crotchety unwilling coroner in Laos. Love the way Cotterill combines a classic detection story with the "mystical" elements of Dr. Siri's gifts... ( )

#2 Dr. Siri Paiboun mystery, set in 1970’s Laos. Dr. Siri is the reluctant 72-year-old national coroner in post-Vietnam war Laos, as well as the current embodiment of an ancient Hmong shaman. Thus, he sees ghosts and hears spirits which help him in his mystery-solving. With his devil-may-care attitude, he is often bordering on running afoul of the new Communist regime in Laos, mostly because he would love nothing more than for his superiors to remove him from office and let him retire in peace. As with the last book, several mysteries and sub-plots join forces to make this a full and interesting book. Full of ‘woo woo’ (supernatural stuff) so if you don’t like that sort of thing, you may as well just stay away from this one. Except that Dr. Siri is such a delightful character I would recommend him to anyone! ( )

I enjoyed this immensely. It's the 2nd in a series and it's the first that really runs wild with the supernatural and mystical portions of Laotian culture and Dr. Siri's shamanistic abilities. The multiple storylines are still present as were in the first book, but there is still the focus on one particular case which indeed has a very interesting little twist. It's a clever work of misdirection that rivals anything the old Golden Age authors might have penned. While the denouement is not entirely surprising, the investigation of the gruesome killings of the women who appear to have been attacked by a crazed animal is right up there with some of the books of Dickson Carr, Queen, Abbot, Hake Talbot and other detective fiction writers who loved to combine the crime novel with the bizarre. When the finale came I was reminded of a terrible 1930s Crime Club novel long out of print (the name of which I will not reveal) that used a similar idea but handled it utterly ineptly. Cotterill's books are right up my alley. This work is far more action-oriented than the first a trend that will continue in the later books. It also has quite a bit of the genuinely supernatural (the royal puppets and the exorcism/cleansing Mr. Inthanet performs, for example). I know Cotterill gets criticized for being too Western in his writing for books about Southeast Asians and his black humor does not appeal to many readers. However, I would like to see more crime writers populating their books with these good humored, humane characters than the dour alcoholics and depressive figures I encounter most of the time in contemporary crime novels. ( )

The opening setting is Vientiane, People's Democratic Republic of Laos, in March 1977. A large Vietnamese delegation is staying at the Lan Xang Hotel. In the back garden of the hotel are some cages, one housing a mal-treated black mountain bear which escapes. The once retired and very reluctant national coroner, 72 year old Dr. Siri Paiboun, lives in a concrete mausoleum of a building in an outer suburb. On Monday morning when he arrives at the morgue for work Siri already has guests: two men found dead on a bicycle in the middle of the street.

Conditions in the morgue are primitive, and not airconditioned. Siri is assisted in his autopsies by the very observant Nurse Dtui and Mr. Geung, a downs syndrome man with an incredible memory. Siri brings to the mix "mystic connections", dreams, intuition, and visitations from the dead. Sometimes Siri has a problem in telling the dreams from reality, particularly after he's had a vodka drinking session with his good friend Comrade Civilai.

No sooner have they solved the puzzle of the dead men on the bicycle, than the rather odd team is presented with the body of old Auntie See, discovered in the bushes near her shanty, mauled to death. Almost simultaneously Siri is told his presence is required at the royal capital of Luang Prabang. He is required to discover where two rather carbonised corpses have come from. Such are the duties of Laos' national coroner.

One of the things I enjoyed about this book is Cotterill's underlying humour. There are also glimpses of forensic pathology far removed from the world of Patricia Cornwell and Kathy Reichs. For those of us whose countries fought in the Vietnam War, this is also a look at the post-war world of Laos.

Cotterill's writing style is very laconic. Reminds me a bit of William Mcinnes although of course the latter isn't writing crime fiction. It also earlier reminded me a lot of Alexander Mccall Smith's No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency, and although the setting is very different, and in many ways, more third world, the connection is still there for me. Politically it gives a picture in which the revolutionary government is being tolerated by its citizens, but there is no doubt, that despite physical enforcement, the Laotian government remains in power only because the people tolerate it.

This novel, #2 in Cotterill's Siri Paiboun series, won't be everybody's cup of tea, and there was nearly too much of the "mystic" connections for me. But then this is a reminder that in some cultures the spiritual world exists in parallel with the physical, and so we must accept that in Dr. Siri's elderly body resides a very ancient spirit. If this were medieval England we would have no difficulty in accepting a belief in the influence of the spirits of good and evil on our daily lives.

So what has 33 teeth? Sorry- you'll have to read the book to find out.

Colin Cotterill trained as a physical education teacher and, now an Australian citizen, has lived and worked in Israel, Australia, USA, Japan, Thailand and Laos. He presently lives in Chiang Mai. His entertaining website tells you a lot about him, his books, and his Books for Laos project.

Titles to look for in the Dr. Siri series
THE CORONER'S LUNCH (2004)
THIRTY THREE TEETH (2005)
DISCO FOR THE DEPARTED (2006)
ANARCHY & OLD DOGS (2007) ( )

Title: THIRTY-THREE TEETH
Author: Colin Cotterill
Publisher: Text Publishing
Edition released: June 2007
ISBN: 978-1-921145-88-9
244 pages
Review by: Karen Chisholm

THIRTY-THREE TEETH is the follow up to THE CORONER'S LUNCH featuring the elderly, reluctant Laotian National Coroner Dr Siri Paiboun.

In THIRTY-THREE TEETH it is summer in Vientiane and it is hot, bloody hot. Laotians greet each other with that phrase as they steam away in the unrelenting heat. In Vientiane, a much tormented Asian Bear escapes from cruel confines in a local hotel garden just before there is a slow build-up of viciously savaged corpses in Dr Siri's morgue. The injuries that these victims have endured appear to indicate that they have been mauled by a very large animal, but Dr Siri is pulled away from that investigation by the authorities who demand he flies immediately to the north of the country to examine two badly charred bodies. In the meantime there has been another very mysterious death at a local government building and there's a chest in the National Archives that still has to be opened.

Whilst Dr Siri is spending time in the north, Nurse Dtui goes snooping using some very ingenious casts of the mauling victim wounds to try to understand what creature could be causing these sorts of injuries. In the North, Dr Siri has got problems of his own. He's always been psychic and he frequently chats to the dead, but in the North he's surrounded by the living, the spirits, the dead, shamans, Laotian Royalty, Communist hierarchy and his own in-laws. Knowing what caused the death of the two charred victims is one thing. Getting back to Vientiane, getting that chest in the Archives open, sorting out the fate of the poor bear and stopping the mauling deaths is another thing. Equally importantly there are the more domestic problems of that blasting loudspeaker at the end of the road and watching his new Shaman friend romance his dreaded next door neighbour.

THIRTY-THREE TEETH is a little more confrontational than THE CORONER'S LUNCH from two major aspects. Firstly there are a number of animal characters in this book that have a higher profile and there is cruelty described in broad detail which could be disconcerting for some readers. There is also a much higher level of the mystical in this book than in the first, which again might worry some readers. Both of these aspects fit seamlessly in the cultural context of the book, and there is a nice touch of revenge and restitution which helps lessen any reader discomfort. It would be a pity to dodge an outing with the marvellous Dr Siri and his indomitable assistant Nurse Dtui because of them. The mystical in THIRTY-THREE TEETH has the added bonus of delivering a new side character in the magnificent shaman Inthanet whose role in the unveiling of the contents of the chest are only a small part of his overall impact on the various storylines.

Ultimately THIRTY-THREE TEETH is a good mystery with a lot of solid threads running through it, peopled by some fabulous characters, deftly drawn. It is delivered in what seems, to a complete outsider, a very Laotian style - celebrating the cultural uniqueness, whilst also pointing out the differences and difficulties that the people are managing within. ( )