Customer Reviews

Thirty-Three Teeth

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

"Thirty-Three Teeth" continues the saga of Dr. Siri Paiboun who, well into his seventies, is more or less drafted to serve as the coroner of Laos. The first in the series, "The Coroner's Lunch," was, for me, the nicest surprise I had all last year (from a book, that is), and the new one is, if anything, even better.

What makes these books so wonderful? Well, practically everything. The characters are fresh, the writing is sharp and, in this age of bloat, kept refreshingly short. The setting is completely unexplored up until now, and in Cotterill's vision it's a comic-opera banana dictatorship run by incompetents whose only real motivation is to dig a protective moat around their own rear ends, a place where truth comes in a distant second to doctrine and expedience.

But what I like best is the way Cotterill interweaves into his mysteries the internal world of the Laotians, rich in both spirit and spirits. Dr. Siri -- not entirely to his pleasure -- has gained entry into the world of the dead, and his dreams are full of the people whose deaths he somewhat reluctantly investigates. This additional layer is never intrusive and never overdone. It gives us insight into a worldview that is very different that that of the West, one that is in some ways richer and more beautiful.

It wouldn't be fair to write even a few paragraphs about this book without saying that Cotterill is also very funny. From my perspective, this is the most delightful new series in several years. I ordered the new one, "Disco for the Departed," months before it came out, and it's currently sitting on my To Be Read shelf -- I keep putting it off because once I start it I'll read it in one sitting, and then it'll be over.

Give Colin Cotterill a try. I've bought several copies of the first two books to give away, but since I probably don't know you, you'll have to pay for your own.

Dr Siri will live on in my mind as a great gumshoe (or sandal) detective and also as being quite representative of the wonderful humor and intellect of the Lao people. My Lao wife (only 6 months in the US from Vientiane) also read the book, laughed throughout and confirmed the geography and characters. Even if you have little interest in the country or people, this is a great detective novel. If you are interested in Lao, you will find a wealth of rich detail. Colin...write some more!

This second book in the Dr. Siri series continues the adventures of 72-year-old state coroner of the newly liberated People's Democratic Republic of Laos, circa 1976. Readers who haven't read the first book ("The Coroner's Lunch") should definitely stop and go back, as it provides a great deal of background and depth for the characters, including explaining just how Dr. Siri has become the carrier of the spirit of a millennia-old Hmong shaman. The setting finds the Pathet Lao government shakily trying to consolidate its power by banning longtime cultural holidays such as Songkran (New Year) and the Rocket Festival, inviting in plenty of Soviet and other Communist advisors (there's a kind of silly cameo by Kim Jong Il), and arranging for the exile of the deposed royal family.

Against this backdrop, three major plotlines emerge. First, someone or something caused a government worker to toss himself off the seventh story of a building. Second, an unknown creature or person is killing women in Vientiane, leaving behind ravaged corpses that look like the victims of grizzly bear attacks. Finally, a pair of charred corpses await Dr. Siri's inspection in the former royal city of Luang Prabang. The first book in the series subverted genre convention by weaving in the supernatural. In it, the spirit world was shown to be a healthy and thriving force with direct influence in the physical realm. Here, that aspect takes over the plotlines to a much greater degree. Both the mystery of the suicide and the mystery of the mauled corpses are directly linked to the spirit world, and Dr. Siri's trip to Luang Prabang is also heavily tinged with supernatural elements. Readers who like their crime books realistic will find this one much too far-fetched to enjoy, as Siri spends more time collecting clues from enigmatic spirits than anything else.

Besides the overemphasis on the supernatural, the book just doesn't measure up to the first in a number of other ways. The local color is almost completely lacking, and the dialogue and interactions between characters are far less engaging. In fact, without the background on them from the previous book, they would be far too sparsely drawn. The sole exception to this is Nurse Dtui, who is given a substantial role to play, and has hidden depths revealed. Owing to events of the first book, Dr. Siri himself is somewhat different as well, a little more happy-go-lucky and unburdened, much more of an impish figure. This is all well and good, but it robs him of some of the weight that made him so compelling a figure the first time around. This was a letdown after the series' strong start, hopefully the next book will ease off on the supernatural aspect and give Dr. Siri some a really juicy plot to explore.

Dr.Siri is beginning to enjoy the job as national chief coroner of Laos and protests a little less about his desire to retire.

He is a man with a backbone: Siri fights for his able assistant with the Down Syndrome, like Gil Grissom also might want to in Las Vegas, but he wouldn't stand a chance there, American lawyers would shred the evidence obtained by a 'handicapped' lab assistant. Just to show that progress is not always or entirely a good thing.

We learn a little more about Siri's biography, how he moved from poverty (orphaned, raised by an aunt) to religion (aunt passed him on to a monastery where he learned) to education (French charity gets him a proper medical training in France)to lust (meets this nurse and follows her) to communism (they join Ho Chi Minh's movement) to poverty (life in the jungles, then in the Socialist Republic of Laos, after an unexpected victory). The circle of life, at least this one's.

Siri's three cases this time: crashed helicopter pilots who had tried to rescue the deposed king's family; clearing a bear and accusing a tiger of serial murders; pacifying rebellious royal puppets with the help of Inthanet, a puppeteer.

Always in and out of the supranatural, frankly a bit too much for my taste. Another near-destroyer of stars: for me as a practicing amateur of Orwellogy, Cotterill's anachronism with Animal Farm is hard to forgive. Siri reads Animal Farm in a French translation while in the monastery school (i.e. around 1920), later learns in France that the book is anti-communist. Come on, Mr.Cotterill. By the time Animal Farm could have been read by Siri, he was already fighting with the Vietminh.

But then, the book is so likeable, I decide to forgive.

Just have a look at the chapter where the party chief of Luang Prabang tries to set an ultimatum to the local spirits, using the local shamans as mediators and translators: move away, or play for us, or we will have you exiled! Great satire in a nice little witches' ball.

Or the trial against Siri for treason, after he chops down the pole with the loudspeaker for government announcements. That makes up for an overdose of ghosts.

As Dr.Siri writes in his resume to his boss, the judge: he often weeps at the great honor bestowed upon him.

This is the second novel of the series featuring Dr Siri Paiboun, the septuagenarian national coroner of Laos. In this engaging mystery, Dr Siri has a number of puzzles to solve with the assistance of his unlikely team of colleagues and friends. Oh, and some help from the spirit world as well.

The communist regime of Laos brings its own flavour to proceedings. From the ingenuity of making casts of teeth marks when plaster is not available and the identification of government workers through the existence of `triplicate syndrome', this story engages and amuses.

Dr Siri is called upon to travel to Luang Prabang on a national security matter so top secret that the Judge who has despatched him is unable to tell him anything about it. His motivations for accepting the task are not quite consistent with the Judge's renowned maxim:

`That's the spirit, Siri. It's moments like these that make the socialist system so great. When the call to arms comes the committed cadre even on his honeymoon would gladly climb off his young wife at the crucial moment sooner than let down the party.'

`If that were so, Siri thought to himself, it might explain the frustrated look he'd often seen on the faces of so many Party members.'

Nevertheless, Siri travels to Luang Prabang , solves one mystery and uncovers others. He also dines with the deposed king and attends a shamans' conference.

In the meantime, savaged corpses are still piling up in Vientiane. Could this be the action of a missing bear, or perhaps, a weretiger? Nurse Dtui undertakes some independent research of her own, after all:

`Where do you think the country would be if everyone conducted his or her daily business without the correct forms?' Where indeed!

If you are new to this series, I'd strongly recommend reading `The Coroner's Lunch' first.

Jennifer Cameron-Smith

i'm not normally one to write reviews for books, but having read thirty three teeth i looked at the amazon site and was astounded to find that the first two reviews were so negative. i feel a great injustice has been done. this book is a magical piece that deserves nothing but the highest praise and i would be distressed if people were dissuaded from reading it after looking at the comments of one or two peculiar reviewers. dr. siri and his band of wonderful characters take us on a journey through a land few of us will have a chance to visit and enthralls us with mystical and political tales told by a deft storyteller. my friends and i will be camped out in front of the bookshop in time for the release of any future dr. siri books from this very gifted author.

Dr. Siri Paiboun, the septuagenarian medical examiner for newly communist 1977 Laos, makes up for a lack of equipment, supplies, money and government support, with a surfeit of wily ingenuity, unflappable humor, strength of will and spiritual insight - literally.

The year before (in "The Coroner's Lunch," Cotterill's debut) Siri had learned he was the incarnation of the spirit of a powerful 1,000-year-old Hmong shaman. If this sounds like more than you want to swallow with your murder and mayhem, wait. In Cotterill's deft hands, Siri's spirituality is a natural outgrowth of his dogged toughness and hard-earned wisdom. His heightened perceptions and cryptic ghostly visitors become fine tools in deft hands. And the ubiquitous spirits add an exotic dimension to the steamy, colorful Laotian atmosphere.

Siri's second outing begins with two dead men who have nothing in common except that their bodies were found tangled together on a bicycle. One is a threadbare old man, the other a well-dressed functionary. With Holmesian deduction Siri quickly determines the manner and means of death, although discovering motive and murderer will involve a side trip to the capital city, Luang Prabang, where two charred bodies, a life-threatening spiritual crisis and a poignant journey into his own past and the remnants of the royal family await.

Meanwhile, back at home in Vientiane, his loyal, quietly ambitious nurse, Dtui, is left to stop a series of grisly murders of women by what appears to be a wild beast. The only such beast known to be at large is an old, long-abused bear, recently escaped from its cage, but Dtui doubts the worn-out animal could be capable of such savagery.

Her investigation takes her from the Russian compound, where circus acts practice alongside "top-secret" weapons work, to an island prison and a search for a "weretiger," which she has some trouble believing exists.

Before it's all over the government will issue an ultimatum to the spirits of Laos to hilarious effect - "If the spirits wish to be part of the new democratic republican network, they have to toe the line. This is a State directive." Siri will find himself dead and then arrested, Dtui will find herself in mortal peril, and the spirits will assist when it suits them.

Well-written, energetic and carefully, if whimsically plotted, Cotterill's unusual, intricate, series should appeal to all who like their mysteries literate, witty and exotic.

- Portsmouth Herald

Dr. Siri Paiboun is a 72 year-old Laotian Communist; the national coroner. He is also the human vessel for the spirit of a mythical millennium-old shaman. His woefully under funded and under-equipped morgue is staffed with only nurse "Dtui" (literally "Fatty" in Laotian) and a mentally retarded man. In short, "Thirty-Three Teeth" is not by any measurement a run-of-the-mill mystery.

But it is surprisingly entertaining, a mostly undiscovered little jewel of a novel that is well worth your time. Like Cotterill's equally engaging debut, "The Coroner's Lunch", "Teeth" is set in Laos within the first months following the country's 1976 Communist Revolution. As in its predecessor, the wry and spry Siri is trying to get to the bottom of a series of mysterious deaths while coping with the incorrigible Communist bureaucracy and zero budget. His ability to "channel" with the recently departed is a talent he neither understands nor wants, but one he's increasingly comfortable with. Give author Cotterill due credit for taking such a bizarre mix of characters and setting and making it work. He does so on the strength of an easy, light-hearted pace and a dry, cynical wit. The mixture of Southeast Asian mysticism and Communism make for strange bedfellows - imagine lunch with Lenin and the Dali Lama - but Cotterill pulls it off by never taking himself nor his characters too seriously. He gently skewers both with tongue-firmly-planned-in-cheek while skipping through the pages with a plot that never overpowers the highly amusing relationships between the characters - corporal and spiritual.

One word of caution: I suspect this will read better having first read "The Coroner's Lunch", which gradually introduces Paiboun's special supernatural talents. While not a sequel per se, the more prominent role of the spirit world in this installment may literally "spook" the uninitiated reader. But for the unusual mystery cleverly rendered, Colin Cotterill would be a great choice for the reader on your gift list.

This is the second book featuring Dr. Siri, and unlike many 2nd books in a series, this one lives up to the first one. (Though you don't have to have read the first one, it helps to get more out of this one, plus, why miss such a good reading experience?) The setting is not well-known (Laos in the 70's) but the author makes it come alive for the reader, and it's a very interesting place. The characters are all complex, unusual people with a lot of empathy and insight, and they manage to approach life with verve and humor in difficult circumstances. I also really like the mix of the physical and spirit world in Dr. Siri - both worlds have to interact for him to solve the questions that come before him. The crimes that are solved are also not the run of the mill whodunit murder with a blunt weapon type of thing - they reveal a lot of layers of information about the society and the people involved. The characters have to approach things from more than one viewpoint to get to the answers. I really enjoyed this book and felt I'd met some people I would really like to know.

Dr.Siri Paiboun, chief medical examiner of Laos, returns as the main character in Colin Cotterill's latest book, THIRTY-THREE TEETH. The year is 1977, and Laos continues under the rule of the Communist Pathet Lao.

Many of the other characters from THE CORONER'S LUNCH also return in this second book: Civilai, a government official and Siri's old friend; Dtui, a nurse who works with Siri in the lab and dreams of attending school to become a coroner; Geung, an easy-going, able-bodied man who helps in the lab; and Phosy, an inspector in the local police department. Saloop, a scruffy street dog who saved Siri's life in THE CORONER'S LUNCH, has taken up residence with Siri, now living in a small, concrete mausoleum with a jungle-like back yard.

Three different cases run parallel in THIRTY-THREE TEETH. Innocent citizens of Vientiane are being mauled and murdered by an unknown entity--could it be the old, mistreated mountain bear, escaped from its small, concrete enclosure behind a restaurant? Dtui is left to investigate the deaths as Siri is called to the capital city to autopsy two corpses found burned to a crisp and with several bullets in each body. Government officials are reticent to provide details of the deaths. In the third case, citizens are hurtling themselves from a high ministry window. In the room is a small, ornate box with the crest of the Royal Family. There is no visible means of opening the box.

Descriptions of time, place and culture are vivid and memorable in THIRTY-THREE TEETH, and Mr. Cotterill writes of Laos during the 1970's with knowledge, insight and a wry sense of humor. His characters are richly drawn and complex in nature. My only regret is that I read much faster than Mr. Cotterill writes, and I look forward to his next book.