‘Don’t Eat Me’ by Colin Cotterill

Published by Soho Crime,
14 August 2018.
ISBN: 978-1-6169-5941-8 (HB)

  

Dr. Siri Paiboun, the retired national Lao coroner, together with his wife and friends, manage to get themselves into all kinds of amusing situations while solving mysteries in this long-running series.  The author, who lives in Thailand, takes advantage of the setting to spoof the Lao Communist government and bureaucracy.

When the skeleton of a young woman is found in a prominent location, the group finds itself mixed up with a corrupt judge, uncovering a horrible black-market operation, and a murder mystery to solve.  Meanwhile, Dr. Siri and his close friend, Civilai, have come into possession of a movie camera and tripod (which they don’t know how to operate, much less turn on) and set out to film a Lao adaptation of War and Peace by writing a script.  This puts them in conflict with the Ministry of Culture, which writes its own script.

This is the 13^th novel in the series and is as amusing as its predecessors.  However, this book introduces a serious subject:  the mistreatment and trafficking of wild animals, the exposure of which leads to dire consequences for the newly appointed Chief Inspector of Police Phosy and Dr, Siri and his friends.   Written at times with tongue-in-cheek, but always with sureness, the novel is recommended.

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Reviewer: Theodore Feit

  

Colin Cotterill is the author of the Dr. Siri series of novels. Born in London, he has taught in Australia, the USA and Japan and lived for many years in Laos where he worked for non-governmental social service organizations. He now writes full-time and lives in Chiang Mai, Thailand.

 Ted and Gloria Feit live in Long Beach, NY, a few miles outside New York City.  For 26 years, Gloria was the manager of a medium-sized litigation firm in lower Manhattan. Her husband, Ted, is an attorney and former stock analyst, publicist and writer/editor for, over the years, several daily, weekly and monthly publications.  Having always been avid mystery readers, and since they're now retired, they're able to indulge that passion.  Their reviews appear online as well as in three print publications in the UK and US.