Colin Cotterill

The Dr Siri series has probably got to the stage where new readers will have that odd feeling - you know the one - when you walk into a theme party with no idea what the theme is. Or who most of the people at the bar are....

For fans of the series, there's absolutely nothing unexpected about SLASH AND BURN. It's perfectly understandable that Dr Siri, along with his wife, his nurse and his morgue attendant would all end up somewhere up country looking for a MIA American helicopter pilot. It's no surprise whatsoever that the Laotian team with them includes some of his oldest friends as well as a translating, transvestite fortune teller who, amongst other things, is firmly predicting Dr Siri's death. It goes without saying that the team includes a number of rather colourful American's including a dodgy senator and a military expert with a murky past. It's expected that somebody will end up dead and Dr Siri and his nearest and dearest will have to pull out the stops to solve the crime and survive themselves.

One of the great treats of this series is the wonderful celebratory sense of place and eccentricity of most of the characters, even Dr Siri, who is wise, and quietly all-seeing but definitely an individual. Everyone around Dr Siri is affected by the same glorious unpredictability, and everyone plays their part in solving the mystery of not just the more recent murder, but the crash and disappearance of one particular helicopter pilot.

Built into the madness there are often more serious aspects being explored, and SLASH AND BURN is no different. In this case there are a number of issues being touched on including the dreadful carpet bombing of Laos in the Vietnam war era, the discovery of gold around the same time, and the legacy that left behind. Most interesting, are some rather pointed observations about the American political system, and obviously the legacy that the war has left on the landscape, and in the villages of Laos as well as the minds of the citizens. As always whenever there are more pointed observations being made, Cotterill balances that out with some funny, poignant and beautiful moments.

SLASH AND BURN is the 8th in the Dr Siri series, and it seems the last. It's unbelievably sad to think we've finally come to the end of this journey, as it's been an absolute joy. I think this will be a series I'll re-read for many years to come.

Dr Siri Paiboun has got to be one of the all time great fictional characters.  Irascible, kind, determined, a bit of a push-over, loving, stern, gentle, pushy, pig-headed, he's just so magnificently real.  I know I say this a lot, but if you've never read any of Colin Cotterill's fantastic series based in Laos, built around the elderly and reluctant, one and only coroner in Laos, then get thee to a bookshop / library with all haste.

In the 7th book - LOVE SONGS FROM A SHALLOW GRAVE - Dr Siri and his ever-present companions of Nurse Dtui, Mr Geung and his new wife Madame Daeng are investigating the very baffling case of three dead young women - all skewered through the heart with a sword.  Not the most usual of weapons but then nothing is ever "usual" in Siri's Laos.  Investigating with Dr Siri is often a problem for Dtui and Geung as he's frequently not around - normally right when his presence would be most appreciated in his morgue, in Vientiane, anywhere in the general vicinity of what's been happening.  Unfortunately in LOVE SONGS he's even further away, and more distracted than usual.  As his birthday dawns, he's incarcerated, in danger of starvation and torture, unlikely to survive.  He needs to reconsider his long-term, as well as his immediate future.

Dr Siri has always been a thinker and an observer - in 1970's Laos scientific support is very thin on the ground.  But it's in his nature to consider, see, analyse, talk to his colleagues, his spirit guides, draw his own conclusions.  He does this within a society and a culture which is very different from our Western way of seeing and thinking, and he fits perfectly into that world. 

As with any good series, it is possible to dive in at any point, but in this case I'd urge a little caution in picking up LOVE SONGS FROM A SHALLOW GRAVE as your first experience.  Whilst it would still be possible to follow the action, it would be best if you knew a little about what has happened to Dr Siri, how he came to become the one and only coroner and who his supporters are.  That will give the happenings in this book a background that I, personally, think enhances it.

Whilst the methods of murder in the books is sometimes a little gruesome, these books are still on the gentler side of crime fiction - which, I know, sounds rather odd.  Dr Siri brings a sensitivity to the investigation that honours the dead, finds the guilty and tries to restore balance to the world.  After LONG SONGS FROM A SHALLOW GRAVE, he's got some balance to restore to his own life, and given the awful trauma that he endures in this book, let's hope he finds that balance, and stays investigating.