Customer Reviews

Curse of the Pogo Stick (Dr. Siri Paiboun)

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

In the late 1970s the Laotian National Coroner seventy-three years old Dr. Siri Paiboun is attending some governmental Communist Party function (waste of time if you ask him) in the north. Meanwhile back in the capital Vientiane a corpse of a soldier booby trapped with grenades is anonymously dropped off at the morgue. Only the fast and capable work of Paibourn's assistant Nurse Dtui avoids a tragedy from happening.

Meanwhile Paibourn looks forward to getting home to spend time with his fiancée Madame Daeng and even time in the morgue, which is better than attending these inane officious official officialdoms. Instead the female members of the Hmong tribe abduct Dr. Siri as they need his help; or at least of the millennium old shaman Yeh Ming is to perform an exorcism on the tribal chief's daughter demonically possessed due to an evil pogo stick placed on an alter.

CURSE OF THE POGO STICK is a solid historical mystery that contains two subplots, in which both contain humor inside serious situations that brings to life 1977-78 Laos. The Vientiane investigation is superbly written as Nurse Dtui cleverly leads the inquiry into who would use a dead soldier to kills others. However, Colin Cotterill's insight into the suppressed Hmong people, caught between the violent Communist regime and Nixon's just completed a few years ago secret war, is what makes this a great entry as neither side cares what happened to these expendable mountain pawns. The insight into the Hmong culture and their "collateral damage" plight supersede the whodunit.

Harriet Klausner

Another much awaited instalment of the series centred around Dr Siri the National Coroner of Laos under the Pathet Lao regime. Unfortunately this would qualify as the weakest of the series so far. This episode mostly concerns itself with mysterious happenings in a Hmong village. While Siri's intrepid assistant nurse Dtui goes off to investigate another crime. A central focus of this book is the price paid by the Hmong during the conflicts in Indochina. Sadly, though the book's set in the late '70's, the Hmong are still being persecuted by the Lao and Vietnamese governments to this day.
If this is your fist encounter with Dr. Siri, then please start with "The Coroner's Lunch", the first instalment of the series.

First an admission, I love the Dr Siri Paiboun books. And despite what others have written, I do not think this one is the weakest although it is a little different. The book is far more descriptive of the lives and foibles of the people of Laos and in particular explore the wretched lives and wonderful nature of the Hmong. It's different in this respect. I'm not sure Cotterill can afford to use this difference often but it has added a more human dimension to the series.

However it is also, like the others, very funny. Well written, well edited and very polished. A great read.

Cheers to the talented Colin Cotterill who, like his wily septuagenarian protagonist Dr. Siri Paiboun, gets deeper and savvier with each new installment of this refreshingly unique crime mystery series. In this outing, Cotterill splits his plot, leaving sidekick nurse Dtui and her new policeman husband, Phosy, with Mr. Gueng tagging along, to crack the case of a booby-trapped corpse, while a Hmong tribe in northern Laos waylays Laotian national coroner Siri and his insufferable boss.

Consistent with its predecessors, Cotterill's characters are thoughtfully rendered - this is a guy who has great love and respect for the people he captures so well on paper. His prose is light and easy to read - we're not talking heavy atmospherics or deep psychological drama here - and despite the macabre and gruesome nature of a day in the morgue, the author does not rely on excess violence or gore to substitute for story or setting. With a keen dry wit reflected through Siri, Cotterill's skewering of communism and its incompetent practitioners becomes rapier-sharp, yet plot is never overshadowed by the politics. The mysterious Hmongs, who've dropped in and out of the fringes of previous books in the series, play a pivotal role here (including the background of the bizarre title), lending additional cultural depth and poignancy while opening old Viet Nam-era war wounds. The parallel stories come together with an unusual a very Cotterill-like humorous twist, laying the groundwork for the next entry.

While Colin Cotterill is not the in-your-face, hip, brash and brutal contemporary crime lyricists in the vein of Charlie Huston, Duane Swierczynski, or Ken Bruen, he is nonetheless a maverick in his own right - a sensitive and creative writer who values intelligent plotting and carefully drawn casts, choosing a unique time and unusual setting to practice his magic. Here is an author that deserves much more exposure - do yourself a favor and get acquainted.

If you like exotic locales, sympathetic characters and ingenious mysteries, you must meet Dr. Siri Paiboun. I would suggest going back to the first book (I think this is #4 or #5.) I have greatly enjoyed them all. This one is not the best, the ending is too neatly and mechanically tied up, there is a little "series fatigue" in the plotting. The chapters that dealt with the Khmer people were I thought greatly engaging. This is one of the few books or series in a non-fantasy genre that can mix in a little of the supernatural without distorting the story line. Above all, there is humor and a matter-of-factness about life and death that leaves you, as most mystery fiction does not, feeling good about the world.

I can't praise this series too highly; it's hard to break new ground in the mystery genre (that's why it's now a genre!), but Colin Cotterill has done so -- triumphantly. His descriptions make me feel that I'm back on the dusty streets of Vientiane, where an aid worker's SUV can pull up at a traffic light alongside a bullock cart and a lot of bicycles. And his characters feel like far more than just a Westerner's intepretation of what a Lao in the 70s must have been like.

Initially, I was wary of the shamanistic elements entering the narrative. With such a rich historical context to work in, I wondered how this could avoid puzzling and distracting the reader. (Also, I can live without New Age/fantasy interrupting my reading.) But they fit admirably, even in this book, which is less of a conventional mystery than the previous novels in the series, with Dr. Siri caught up in Hmong rituals after being kidnapped by a small group of these tribal members. It was somewhat jarring to have Dr. Siri operating independently from his faithful sidekicks in Vientiane, esp. Nurse Dtui, which is the only reason I have left off a fifth star. I also wouldn't recommend starting the series with this book -- too much previous knowledge of the characters is required.

Like some other reviewers, I hope Cotterill steers back toward a less esoteric topic and one that brings the principal characters together for his next work -- but I'll still be buying it on the first day I can because I don't want to have to wait longer than I must for the next installment in this series. With each of them, I have had the feeling I get only from the books I enjoy most: I wish I hadn't read them so that I could have the pleasure of reading them for the first time all over again.

First Line: As there were no longer any records, the Hmong could not even tell when they actually misplaced their history.

Dr. Siri and his boss have traveled to the north in Laos to attend a Communist Party meeting. Dr. Siri would rather undergo a series of root canals without anesthesia.

Back in Vientiane, a booby-trapped corpse intended for the 73-year-old coroner has been delivered to the morgue. Only Nurse Dtui's quick thinking saves everyone in the morgue from being blown to bits.

On their way back from the meeting, Dr. Siri is kidnapped by seven female Hmong villagers so that he can exorcise a demon from the headman's daughter. While Judge Haeng gives jungle survival a try, Dr. Siri has to arrive at the solution to the curse of the pogo stick.

I think this may be the first Dr. Siri mystery that I haven't rated an A-- and I'm feeling extremely disloyal. The wit and the humor are still here in abundance, but having Dr. Siri separated from his friends and co-workers for almost the entire book just doesn't work. Especially when a dinner has to be held at the end for readers to discover what was going on with the booby-trapped corpse and other incidents that occurred in Vientiane. One of the greatest strengths of this series is the interplay between all the characters. Without that the book feels out of kilter.

All series have a book that's not quite as strong as the rest, and in all honesty, if this had been the first Dr. Siri mystery I'd read, I would've loved it and rated it higher. It is still a wonderful read (I learned quite a bit about the Hmong culture), and I urge everyone to give this series a try. Cotterill has written a marvelous series that's one of my all-time favorites.

The latest book with Dr. Siri continues to maintain what makes the series so wonderful - good mystery, witty characters, interesting historical background - to name a few of the key ingredients. For "Curse of the Pogo Stick", the author touches upon the plight of the Hmong in Laos. All in all, a really good book that is a great read without ever becoming too cute or too gory. Highly recommended, and look forward to more in the future from Mr. Cottreill.

The Curse of the Pogo Stick is the fourth entry in this idiosyncratic detective series that features the septuagenarian Dr. Siri Paiboun as the crime-solving national coroner of Laos. Oh yes, and he's sort of possessed by the spirit of an ancient shaman, Yeh Ming. Standard fare.

The series is set in the 1970's after the Pathet Lao came to power in the wake of the Indochinese wars that devastated the region. Siri himself was for many years an active member of the Communist resistance. He was even briefly a fighter until it was determined he was useless with a weapon and more useful treating the sick and wounded. Siri's enthusiasm for the Pathet Lao has waned due mostly to the fear and paranoia the regime creates as it looks for enemies of the people it thinks lurk everywhere.

I read this book out of sequence and enjoyed it enough to seek out the first book in the series (The Coroner's Lunch). I enjoyed this book more than the first simply because the stage setting has been done and we can get on with the stories. As odd as it may sound, Cotterill has created an English cozy kind of atmosphere. This reader found himself rooting for Siri and his rather motley assistants not so much to solve the crimes, but to find happiness in life and victory over the young largely clueless bureaucrats ruling the roost.

Cotterill recreates the extreme privation of post-war Laos and some sense of what life would be like in the country aside from the war's impacts. The mysteries (there are at least a couple that need solving) are good, if not great. Some will be put off by the mystical element that Yeh Ming introduces. The thousand year-old spirit more resides in Siri's mind next to his own mind rather than actually possessing him. I strongly favor realism over romanticism and I certainly am not a big fan of mysticism, but somehow Cotterill makes the Yeh Ming element work. Highly recommended.

I enjoyed this novel. This is the fifth Dr Siri novel, and I suggest that intending readers read them in order as the last two (in particular) rely on character development realised in the earlier stories.

This book is different from the earlier ones. Yes, we have the same collection of colourful characters (where would Dr Siri be without Nurse Dtui, Mr Geung, Auntie Bpoo and Madame Daeng?) Dr Siri is still sharing a body with Yeh Ming, and the government is still as tragically farcical as ever. There are a number of separate but interrelated tales in this novel. Dr Siri himself is kidnapped by a group of Hmong who are seeking access to Yeh Ming. The mixture of the supernatural with the application of logic works well for Dr Siri in this circumstance because it builds on foundations laid in the earlier novels.

Meanwhile, while Dr Siri is conducting an exorcism and exploring the history of the Hmong, there is plenty happening in Vientiane. A booby trapped corpse (who, how and why?) engage Nurse Dtui and the rest of the team.
The separate stories are drawn together at the end of the novel in a way which may not satisfy all. For myself though, I was so caught up in the details of Dr Siri's wedding that such relatively small details did not matter. Yes, the five Dr Siri novels are mystery novels but not in any conventional sense. To read this series is to be caught up in Laotian history and culture, and to enjoy Mr Cotterill's wit.

I'm feeling a little sorry for Dr Siri: he cannot remain 73 for ever and at some stage he may well wish to retire. After all, he now has a family to enjoy.

`Fortune-telling had become a science. Soon there'd be nothing but politics left to dismiss as bunkum.'

Jennifer Cameron-Smith