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The seventh Dr. Siri Paiboun mysteryWhen a Lao female security officer is discovered stabbed through the heart with a fencing sword, Dr. Siri, the reluctant national coroner for the People's Democratic Republic of Laos, is brought in to examine the body. Soon two other young women are found killed in the same unusual way. Siri learns that all three victims studied in Europe and that one of them was being pursued by a mysterious stalker. But before he can solve the case, he is whisked away show more to Cambodia on a diplomatic mission. Though on the surface the Khmer Rouge seem to be committed to the socialist cause, Siri soon learns the horrifying truth of the killing fields and finds himself thrown into prison. Can the seventy-four-year-old doctor escape with his life?
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No. 7 in the Dr. Siri Paiboun series, and the best so far. There's a fair bit of humor in this series, and in this one it's absolutely necessary to counteract the darkness. It's 1978. Lao citizens Dr. Siri and his friend Civilai are invited to attend an embassy affair in neighboring Cambodia/Kampuchea, now under the control of the Khmer Rouge guerillas, who are not the least bit funny. A stark picture of life under Big Brother's thumb emerges as Siri finds himself at odds with a regime that has no respect for human life, rejects the relevance of human feeling, and does not take his lack of cooperation lightly. A much better "read", in my opinion, than the celebrated works of the early 20th century that make the same point.
Wow. This book left me rather breathless. Dr. Siri is a coroner in Vietiene, Laos. The year is 1978. The story is told in what seems like flashbacks, of Siri’s impending death, where and when is not revealed until near the end. Dr. Siri is called to a death scene in a formerly American compound, now home to much of the politicos of Vietiene. A woman is found dead with a sword through the heart and a Z carved on her thigh. The next day another and eventually 3 bodies are in Dr. Siri’s rather pathetic excuse for a morgue. The story was involved and intriguing. Character driven plot with humor and very dark overtones. One of the best books I’ve read which challenged me. I will be reading more in the future.
I love these Dr Siri Paiboune books. Dr Sir is so funny and irreverent towards his country's government.
He should be a retired doctor now, enjoying his golden years, but they forced him to be the country's only coroner.
In the last couple of books, he and Madame daeng have found true love together and gotten married. They're an adorable couple.
In this book, fearless Dr Siri has been taken prisoner by the Cambodian government. I almost feared it was the end for Dr siri, but how could that be, if it's a series!?
In this excerpt, we get a little bit of history about Vientiane, and why there are French buildings there:
".. and there, the old city rotted, strangled by the encroaching jungle, ignored until deep into the 19th century.
Enter show more the french. Following a treaty with the siamese, the East Bank of the Mekhong was ceded to the Invaders from europe. Vientiane was dug from the forest, replanned and rebuilt in French colonial style. Temples grew around the crippled stupas, and That Luang, the soul of the Lao nation, was recreated from French missionary etchings of the centuries past. The buildings were a confused mismatch of Asian frugality and modern European splendor. It was a typical Southeast Asian City as conceived on a budget on a drawing board in paris. Just as in Saigon and Phnom Penh, the colonists had always known what the locals wanted better than the natives knew themselves. And the children grew up believing that this was their style, their architecture, and they were annoyed that the hokey temples didn't make any attempt to fit in. But there it was, voilà, la nouvelle Vientiane, renamed to accommodate the French inability to pronounce the original name: Viang Chan."
A series of murders, committed with an éPée, the swords that are used in the sport of fencing, involves Dr Siri and his group of friends in searching for clues to who is the murderer: Madame daeng his wife, Nurse Dtui, Civilai his best friend, and Sergeant Phosy, Nurse Dtui's husband.
The rain that's been pouring for days now in Vientiane has let up briefly several chapters into the book, and that's when toads and frogs come pouring out from the riverbanks.
Schoolchildren are picking them up and dumping them in cardboard boxes and sacks to take them home to eat:
"...A lot of the stomach-turning but nutritious Fare once considered the mainstay of the ignorant country folks had made a comeback on the kitchen tables of the city.
Toads, if one remembered to remove the poisonous skin and eggs, tasted vaguely of duck. Pa dtaek, fermented fish sauce, was so pungent it had to be stored in Earthware jars as far from the house as possible. Snakes made an interesting stew. Then there were the little creepy critters: fat white grubs that smelled bad but tasted fabulous, scorpion claws, fried termites, Beetles, grasshoppers, and the absolutely delicious - Michelin five star - red ant eggs, squishy heaven in every bite."
I'm vegan, but this doesn't really gross me out. The fact is, in the future, humans will probably have to eat dead humans. Soylent green. And scorpion claws are just smaller lobster claws. Red ant eggs? Probably just like caviar.
Dr Siri has the spirit of an old shaman stuck inside of him. He has some kind of an amulet that keeps spirits, besides the shaman, at Bay. I have no problem believing in the spirit world:
"... Again he had the sense he was close to a spirit but it was holding back. He wondered if it knew it was on the other side. Some ghosts took a lot of convincing they were dead. He called out, 'I know you're here,' and his words seem to cause some consternation in the afterlife. He caught the briefest of glimpses, no more than a flash, like two people on trains going in opposite directions. And the glimpse he'd been afforded was frightening enough. The spirit was incensed, its face contorted, its middle finger raised. He was mystified."
I've never sensed or seen a human ghost, but pets of mine who have crossed the rainbow bridge, have a habit of jumping up onto my bed, when I'm reading, where they spent years keeping me company.
I love the characters in Colin Cotterill's books, but I especially love Nurse Dtui.
"... Nurse Dtui was at her own desk studying Russian. She hadn't entirely given up hope that one day in the future, she might continue her studies overseas. This éPée case- three women given scholarships - had caused her to wonder how her own course in the Soviet Union might have been progressing if only..
She'd been on her way, tickets booked, woolen hats crocheted, when, wham, she'd been hit head-on by events. A little bit of lust induced by a powerful but foolish crush, a determined sperm, rampant biology, and there she was, with child but without mate. Her sperm donor had felt obliged to do the right thing and she said, 'yes.' Clearly her mistake. Beautiful baby, womanizing husband. One out of two wasn't bad...."
I can relate Nurse Dtui.
Siri is invited as a Laotian official to Cambodia on a diplomatic mission. Something is seriously wrong in the capital of the Khmer Rouge:
"Ambassador Kavinh had heard the Khmer Rouge leaders describe it as an experiment. An experiment in human engineering. But to Siri's ears it was jealousy, pure and simple. They have-nots wiping out the haves. The country poor had swept across the country like a black-suited plague and exterminated the rich and the educated. Then they'd moved against the middle classes, the not-so-rich and the semi-educated. And when there was nobody left to hate, the Khmer Rouge had begun to turn on itself. And here, what was left of the administration, hanging by a threadbare noose. A still kicking corpse, living in fear and paranoia."
This is what they call socialism, but true socialism has never been given a chance. The same as communism.
It was delightful reading the 7th book of the series, and I can't wait to start number 8. show less
He should be a retired doctor now, enjoying his golden years, but they forced him to be the country's only coroner.
In the last couple of books, he and Madame daeng have found true love together and gotten married. They're an adorable couple.
In this book, fearless Dr Siri has been taken prisoner by the Cambodian government. I almost feared it was the end for Dr siri, but how could that be, if it's a series!?
In this excerpt, we get a little bit of history about Vientiane, and why there are French buildings there:
".. and there, the old city rotted, strangled by the encroaching jungle, ignored until deep into the 19th century.
Enter show more the french. Following a treaty with the siamese, the East Bank of the Mekhong was ceded to the Invaders from europe. Vientiane was dug from the forest, replanned and rebuilt in French colonial style. Temples grew around the crippled stupas, and That Luang, the soul of the Lao nation, was recreated from French missionary etchings of the centuries past. The buildings were a confused mismatch of Asian frugality and modern European splendor. It was a typical Southeast Asian City as conceived on a budget on a drawing board in paris. Just as in Saigon and Phnom Penh, the colonists had always known what the locals wanted better than the natives knew themselves. And the children grew up believing that this was their style, their architecture, and they were annoyed that the hokey temples didn't make any attempt to fit in. But there it was, voilà, la nouvelle Vientiane, renamed to accommodate the French inability to pronounce the original name: Viang Chan."
A series of murders, committed with an éPée, the swords that are used in the sport of fencing, involves Dr Siri and his group of friends in searching for clues to who is the murderer: Madame daeng his wife, Nurse Dtui, Civilai his best friend, and Sergeant Phosy, Nurse Dtui's husband.
The rain that's been pouring for days now in Vientiane has let up briefly several chapters into the book, and that's when toads and frogs come pouring out from the riverbanks.
Schoolchildren are picking them up and dumping them in cardboard boxes and sacks to take them home to eat:
"...A lot of the stomach-turning but nutritious Fare once considered the mainstay of the ignorant country folks had made a comeback on the kitchen tables of the city.
Toads, if one remembered to remove the poisonous skin and eggs, tasted vaguely of duck. Pa dtaek, fermented fish sauce, was so pungent it had to be stored in Earthware jars as far from the house as possible. Snakes made an interesting stew. Then there were the little creepy critters: fat white grubs that smelled bad but tasted fabulous, scorpion claws, fried termites, Beetles, grasshoppers, and the absolutely delicious - Michelin five star - red ant eggs, squishy heaven in every bite."
I'm vegan, but this doesn't really gross me out. The fact is, in the future, humans will probably have to eat dead humans. Soylent green. And scorpion claws are just smaller lobster claws. Red ant eggs? Probably just like caviar.
Dr Siri has the spirit of an old shaman stuck inside of him. He has some kind of an amulet that keeps spirits, besides the shaman, at Bay. I have no problem believing in the spirit world:
"... Again he had the sense he was close to a spirit but it was holding back. He wondered if it knew it was on the other side. Some ghosts took a lot of convincing they were dead. He called out, 'I know you're here,' and his words seem to cause some consternation in the afterlife. He caught the briefest of glimpses, no more than a flash, like two people on trains going in opposite directions. And the glimpse he'd been afforded was frightening enough. The spirit was incensed, its face contorted, its middle finger raised. He was mystified."
I've never sensed or seen a human ghost, but pets of mine who have crossed the rainbow bridge, have a habit of jumping up onto my bed, when I'm reading, where they spent years keeping me company.
I love the characters in Colin Cotterill's books, but I especially love Nurse Dtui.
"... Nurse Dtui was at her own desk studying Russian. She hadn't entirely given up hope that one day in the future, she might continue her studies overseas. This éPée case- three women given scholarships - had caused her to wonder how her own course in the Soviet Union might have been progressing if only..
She'd been on her way, tickets booked, woolen hats crocheted, when, wham, she'd been hit head-on by events. A little bit of lust induced by a powerful but foolish crush, a determined sperm, rampant biology, and there she was, with child but without mate. Her sperm donor had felt obliged to do the right thing and she said, 'yes.' Clearly her mistake. Beautiful baby, womanizing husband. One out of two wasn't bad...."
I can relate Nurse Dtui.
Siri is invited as a Laotian official to Cambodia on a diplomatic mission. Something is seriously wrong in the capital of the Khmer Rouge:
"Ambassador Kavinh had heard the Khmer Rouge leaders describe it as an experiment. An experiment in human engineering. But to Siri's ears it was jealousy, pure and simple. They have-nots wiping out the haves. The country poor had swept across the country like a black-suited plague and exterminated the rich and the educated. Then they'd moved against the middle classes, the not-so-rich and the semi-educated. And when there was nobody left to hate, the Khmer Rouge had begun to turn on itself. And here, what was left of the administration, hanging by a threadbare noose. A still kicking corpse, living in fear and paranoia."
This is what they call socialism, but true socialism has never been given a chance. The same as communism.
It was delightful reading the 7th book of the series, and I can't wait to start number 8. show less
Love Songs from a Shallow Grave by Colin Cotterill is the 7th entry in the Dr. Siri Paiboun series. Dr. Siri is the 74 year old National Coroner of Laos and even though he fought for the Communist Government he has many issues about how his country is being run.
In this entry Dr. Siri is on the trail of a serial killer. Three women have been murdered and it appears that the murderer knows fencing. The doctor works together with his team-mates, friends and his wife in following the leads in this complicated case. Before finishing his investigation, Dr. Siri is sent to Cambodia and lands in a Pol Pot prison where he is beaten and threatened with death.
Love Songs From a Shallow Grave is a wonderful mix of an exotic setting and a challenging show more puzzle delivered alongside the authors political and cultural comments that expose the poverty, corruption and governmental tunnel-vision of Communist Laos. I enjoy reading about this colorful character and am looking forward to more about him. show less
In this entry Dr. Siri is on the trail of a serial killer. Three women have been murdered and it appears that the murderer knows fencing. The doctor works together with his team-mates, friends and his wife in following the leads in this complicated case. Before finishing his investigation, Dr. Siri is sent to Cambodia and lands in a Pol Pot prison where he is beaten and threatened with death.
Love Songs From a Shallow Grave is a wonderful mix of an exotic setting and a challenging show more puzzle delivered alongside the authors political and cultural comments that expose the poverty, corruption and governmental tunnel-vision of Communist Laos. I enjoy reading about this colorful character and am looking forward to more about him. show less
In this mystery series set in the 1970’s Dr Siri Paiboun is the sole coroner for the nation of Laos. He’s seen it all and is often a thorn in the side of the authorities for his cynical, wisecracking ways. If he wasn’t so efficient at what he does, and also a founding fighter in the Laotian Communist movement, he’d probably have been shipped off for reeducation long ago.
This 7th volume of the series opens with Dr Siri being brutally tortured in a Khmer Rouge prison in Cambodia. The novel alternates between chapters of torture and his probable death with Dr. Siri’s day to day life in Laos as he works through a puzzling trio of murders done with fencing epees and a trademark “Z” carved into the victims’ thighs.
I thoroughly show more disliked the scenes of torture and death within the Khmer Rouge prison, although they made the Khmer Rouge regime and killing fields real in a way that I won’t forget. They were also quite effective in making the reader question Dr Siri’s ultimate fate. I put this book aside several times and then decided to just skip through the alternating torture chapters.
I love Dr. Siri. I enjoyed the complicated murder plot and Dr. Siri’s unraveling of the mystery. I enjoy the word play and humor in this series and the unique and well-realized recurring secondary characters. But I enjoy mysteries in between reading heavier stuff and the torture in this particular novel took it out of the light, enjoyable realm.
I will definitely continue the series, but this is one I won’t reread. show less
This 7th volume of the series opens with Dr Siri being brutally tortured in a Khmer Rouge prison in Cambodia. The novel alternates between chapters of torture and his probable death with Dr. Siri’s day to day life in Laos as he works through a puzzling trio of murders done with fencing epees and a trademark “Z” carved into the victims’ thighs.
I thoroughly show more disliked the scenes of torture and death within the Khmer Rouge prison, although they made the Khmer Rouge regime and killing fields real in a way that I won’t forget. They were also quite effective in making the reader question Dr Siri’s ultimate fate. I put this book aside several times and then decided to just skip through the alternating torture chapters.
I love Dr. Siri. I enjoyed the complicated murder plot and Dr. Siri’s unraveling of the mystery. I enjoy the word play and humor in this series and the unique and well-realized recurring secondary characters. But I enjoy mysteries in between reading heavier stuff and the torture in this particular novel took it out of the light, enjoyable realm.
I will definitely continue the series, but this is one I won’t reread. show less
I always enjoy Dr. Siri and look forward to every new book that comes out in this series, but this book was really an exceptional read. The humour juxtaposed with the horrors and inhumanity that Siri experienced in captivity really made this story powerful and more emotional than some of the others before it. The characters are so real and the descriptions so rich that reading these books always makes me wish I could actually go there and meet them all in real life! The series is a wonderful glimpse into a very different culture and way of life that despite the hardships and horrors the characters face daily, is always filled with their optimism in spite of it and their affection and appreciation for the small pleasures in their lives.
Dr. Siri Paiboun is investigating a serial killer whose murders of three women have been committed with very sharp fencing swords. Who, what, and why? In the midst of his investigation he is invited to attend a conference in Cambodia. What could possibly go wrong with an all expenses paid trip? It seems like one never knows, as he winds up in trouble with the authorities in Cambodia who are trying to hide the atrocities that are being committed.
As I was driving while listening to this one, I was wishing I was reading the print version so that I could look up the history of "the killing fields" in Cambodia in the late 1970's. I did look it up afterwards, and was horrified by the events that had taken place. I feel that I should have show more known more about this time in history.
The book, 7th in the series, did have much of the humor of the earlier books in the series, and the usual characters make their appearances. But this one and the one before it (The Merry Misogynist) were much darker than the previous books. show less
As I was driving while listening to this one, I was wishing I was reading the print version so that I could look up the history of "the killing fields" in Cambodia in the late 1970's. I did look it up afterwards, and was horrified by the events that had taken place. I feel that I should have show more known more about this time in history.
The book, 7th in the series, did have much of the humor of the earlier books in the series, and the usual characters make their appearances. But this one and the one before it (The Merry Misogynist) were much darker than the previous books. show less
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Colin Cotterill is an author and cartoonist. He was born in London in 1952, and trained as a Physical Education teacher, before setting off on a world tour that hasn't ended yet. Along the way, he has held various teaching positions in Israel, Australia, the U. S., Japan, and Southeast Asia. He would eventually become involved in child protection, show more and it was his work with trafficked children that motivated him to write his first novel, The Night Bastard. The reaction was so positive that he decided to take time off and write full-time. Two of his subsequent novels are child-protection based: Evil in the Land Without, and Pool and its role in Asian Communism. Cotterill may be best known as the author of the Dr. Siri Paiboun series, set in the People's Democratic Republic of Laos. Titles in the series include: Six and a Half Deadly Sins, the Woman Who Wouldn't Die, Love Songs from a Shallow Grave, The Merry Misogynist, Thirty-Three Teeth and The Coroner's Lunch. He also pens the Jim Jurree series, set in southern Thailand. Titles in this series include: The Axe Factor, Grandad, There's a Head on the Beach and Killed at the Whim of a Hat. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
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Common Knowledge
- Canonical title
- Love Songs From a Shallow Grave
- Original publication date
- 2010
- People/Characters
- Dr Siri Paiboun; Khmer Rouge
- Important places
- Vientiane, Laos; Cambodia
- Dedication
- I would like to thank all of you who have taken the trouble to write to express your affection for Dr. Siri, and all of our fans who journeyed with us through 1970s Laos.
For making this installment particularly specia... (show all)l, I would like to thank Bert, Bounlanh, Judy, Art, Mac, Leila, Lizzie, Laurie, my lovely Jess, Bob, Bambina, Dad, Tony, Kay, Martina, Charlotte, Jack, Jim, Martin, Valérie, and the entire Williams family, especially Heather.
But this volume is dedicated to the spirits of the Khmer who perished under Pol Pot and the resourceful souls who survived. "There's always someone worse off than you, unless you're Cambodian." (Dr. Siri Paiboun, 1978). - First words
- I celebrate the dawn of my seventy-fourth birthday hand-cuffed to a lead pipe.
- Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)With respect, Minister of Information.
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- ISBNs
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- ASINs
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