The Coroner's Lunch

I recently finished this novel, about which I had posted earlier here and here. The book, first in Colin Cotterill's series about Dr. Siri Paiboun, sole coroner in Laos, was a little cozier than I'd have liked. This was a surprise in a story that involves international politics and deaths possibly caused by torture. And supernatural elements are involved, though Cotterill manages to make them interesting.

Such elements play a greater role in the novel than do the politics. This is surprising, too, since the plot involves killings that could escalate into an international incident between Laos and Vietnam. I don't know; I just don't associate spirits and dreams with high-level diplomacy. Still, I'll likely read other novels in the series because Siri is such an appealing protagonist. He's smart, he improvises under circumstances of deprivation, he has compassion for his colleagues, and he's impatient with impediments to his work.

© Peter Rozovsky 2007

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Colin Cotterill
Asia crime fiction
Laos

And one more thing ...

When I posted about tributes from one crime-fiction author to another, I forgot this example, from Colin Cotterill's The Coroner's Lunch, which I was reading at the time:

"During his stay in Paris decades before, he'd taken his delight in the weekly serializations of one Monsieur Sim in the l'Oeuvre newspaper ... Siri had been able to solve most of the mysteries long before the inspector had a handle on them."

And, recalls Cotterill's protagonist, the proud Siri Paiboun, he solved the crimes without the benefit of the inspector's pipe. Back in Laos, Siri is delighted to find that Monsieur Sim now writes under his full name of Georges Simenon and that his books have filtered from Vietnam into Laos.

Cotterill thus offers a more elaborate tribute than most, spinning it out into an anecdote and giving his readers not just the information that Siri (and, presumably, Cotterill, too) reads Simenon's Maigret stories, but the historical nugget that Simenon once wrote under the name of Sim, and a plausible example of his phenomenal worldwide popularity.

All this gives me the opportunity to ask you another question, dear readers. How do you feel about such references and tributes? Do they add to the story's interest? One the one hand, if you and I read detective stories, there is no reason why a fictional detective should not do the same thing. On the other, this can serve as a mischievous (or intrusive) reminder that when you read a story, you are not entering a real world, you are just reading a story.

OK, I'm done being ponderous. Now it's your turn. Do your favorite fictional detectives read detective stories? How do you feel about this?

© Peter Rozovsky 2007

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Colin Cotterill
Asia crime fiction
Laos

Revelations about revolutions (Taibo, Marcos, Colin Cotterill)

I've found a few surprises in the opening pages of The Uncomfortable Dead and The Coroner's Lunch. The former is a product of an unusual collaboration, between Paco Ignacio Taibo II, author of the Héctor Belascoarán Shayne crime novels, and Subcomandante Marcos, spokesman for the Zapatista Army of National Liberation in Mexico. The latter is the first in Collin Cotterill's series about Dr. Siri Paiboun, an accidental hero who solves crimes as the only coroner in Laos after the Communist takeover.

First, the Taibo/Marcos: The two authors purportedly wrote alternate chapters, Marcos the odd-numbered ones, Taibo the even. That would give Marcos the opening chapter, and the revolutionary spokesman/leader pulls it off with a flash of humor here and there – a pleasant surprise to this thorough-going son of the bourgeoisie. He also invokes Manuel Vázquez Montalbán and his protagonist Pepe Carvalho. That's another pleasant surprise and an argument for Vázquez Montalbán as a late entrant in the Most influential crime writer sweepstakes. In addition to the Marcos/Taibo tribute, after all, Andrea Camilleri named his protagonist, Salvo Montalbano, in Vázquez Montalbán's honor.

Colin Cotterill has spent much of his life traveling and teaching, for several years in Laos, scene of the Siri Paiboun series. That gives his books a kind of knowledgeable outsider's perspective, something like Michael Dibdin's in the Aurelio Zen novels. (Dibdin was also a teacher.) In one small example, Siri

"passed government women at the end of their day jobs. They wore khaki blouses and traditional black phasin that hung stiffly to their ankles. Each managed to make her uniform unique in some way: a brooch, a different collar, a fold in the skirt that was their own."

On the one hand, that's not an observation a Laotian would likely make, which raises the vexed question of what happens when an author sets a novel in a country other than his or her own. On the other hand, an attentive visitor would likely make such an observation, which establishes a bond between reader and author and – who knows? – may stir readers' interest in visiting Laos.

More (and this time I mean it) on Siri Paiboun later.

NB: The Uncomfortable Dead has been nominated for a 2007 Shamus Award in the Best Paperback Original category. (Hat tip to the Mystery File blog.)

© Peter Rozovsky 2007

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Paco Ignacio Taibo
Subcomandante Marcos
Mexico crime fiction
Colin Cotterill
Asia crime fiction
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Manuel Vázquez Montalbán