The Coroner's Lunch by Colin Cotterill: A review

Laos 1975. The long Pathet Lao Revolution has succeeded. The monarchy has abdicated and the new communist regime is in the process of being formed.

Dr. Siri Paiboun had been a part of the long revolution. He has been a communist for 47 years, but he didn't really become one because of ideology. He became one out of love for a woman he met while studying in Paris. She was a committed communist and so, to please her, he joined the Party. The two were married and ultimately returned to Laos to join the struggle.

Now that struggle has succeeded and Dr. Siri is 72 and looking forward to retirement and a reprieve from the long privation of life in the jungle. His beloved wife is long dead, killed in an explosion. She had been so devoted to the revolution that she had refused to have children and so Siri has no children or grandchildren. He is alone, but looking forward to a life of solitude. It is not to be.

Siri is informed by a Party official that he has been designated to be the country's coroner. He is appalled. He has no experience as a pathologist and complains that he is too old. But in the Party, it seems, one is never too old to serve.

And so, Siri takes over the post of coroner, inheriting a staff of two, a laborer, Mr. Geung, who has mild Down Syndrome but a memory that never forgets anything and a nurse, Dtui, who loves comic books and has a gift for sarcasm and also a brilliant gift for innovation that keeps the ill-equipped morgue functioning under conditions of extreme privation.

Things bump along easily for a while and then the morgue receives the body of the wife of a major official and the staff must determine why she suddenly dropped dead at a luncheon. The husband wants them to believe that she died of parasites because of her practice of eating raw pork. Siri finds no evidence of parasitism and looks further. Then strange things begin to happen. Siri receives a visit form the dead wife in his dreams and sees that she blames the husband for her death.

Before he can complete his investigation, Siri suddenly has his hands full of dead bodies. Two Vietnamese bodies have surfaced from a lake. One is recognized as Vietnamese and goes to the Vietnamese embassy where their coroner takes charge. The other is not initially identified as Vietnamese and is given to Siri. Both Siri and the Vietnamese coroner, who becomes his friend and ally, recognize the signs of torture on the bodies. Then, a search of the lake turns up another body, weighted down with Chinese shell casings, and this body, too, appears to have been tortured. The coroners suspect a set-up. Someone is trying to create an incident to foment a war between Vietnam and Laos. Is this the work of the American CIA?

Suddenly, Siri is called away to the province where he was born to investigate the suspicious deaths of two soldiers. The army suspects the Hmong people of poisoning or witchcraft. The army takes Siri to a local Hmong village to investigate. The Hmong respond to Siri immediately, recognizing him, by his unusual green eyes, as the embodiment of their thousand-year-old shaman Yeh Ming. Surprisingly, Siri finds that he understands their language. He knows nothing about his family background. Could he be Hmong? He certainly feels at home among them.

Ultimately, Siri is able to bring some closure to the situation between the soldiers and the Hmong and returns to Vientiane, where someone is determined to stop his investigations. Permanently. Someone is trying to kill him! Will he survive long enough to find the solutions to his mysteries and can he bring justice for the dead who visit him in his dreams?

This book was great fun to read. The story is character-driven rather than description-driven. The focus is always on the character of Dr. Siri and his relationships with his staff, his neighbors, those whom he meets in the course of his investigations (both the ones who help and the ones who hinder), and the higher-up Party and government officials. And Siri is a wonderful character, full of humor and love of life, but at an age where death no longer holds fear for him.

Colin Cotterill has created a winner with this character and I look forward to reading more in the series.

Poetry Sunday: Don't Hesitate by Mary Oliver

How about we share another Mary Oliver poem? After all, you can never have too many of those. In this one, the poet seems to acknowledge that it is often hard to simply live in and enjoy the moment, perhaps because we are afraid it can't last. She urges us to give in to that moment and fully experience the joy. Although "much can never be redeemed, still, life has some possibility left." Don't Hesitate by Mary Oliver If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy, don’t hesitate. Give in to it. There are plenty of lives and whole towns destroyed or about to be. We are not wise, and not very often kind. And much can never be redeemed. Still, life has some possibility left. Perhaps this is its way of fighting back, that sometimes something happens better than all the riches or power in the world. It could be anything, but very likely you notice it in the instant when love begins. Anyway, that’s often the case. Anyway, whatever it is, don’t be afraid of its plenty. Joy is no...

Poetry Sunday: Blackberry-Picking by Seamus Heaney

My mother was a farm wife and a prodigious canner. She canned fruit and vegetables from the garden, even occasionally meat. But the best thing that she canned, in my opinion, was blackberry jam. Even as I type those words my mouth waters! Of course, before she could make that jam, somebody had to pick the blackberries. And that somebody was quite often named Dorothy. I think Seamus Heaney might have spent some time among the briars plucking those delicious black fruits as well, so he would have known that "Once off the bush the fruit fermented, the sweet flesh would turn sour." They don't keep; you have to get that jam made in a hurry! Blackberry-Picking by Seamus Heaney Late August, given heavy rain and sun For a full week, the blackberries would ripen. At first, just one, a glossy purple clot Among others, red, green, hard as a knot. You ate that first one and its flesh was sweet Like thickened wine: summer's blood was in it Leaving stains upon the tongue and lust ...

Poetry Sunday: Hymn for the Hurting by Amanda Gorman

You probably remember poet Amanda Gorman from her appearance at the inauguration of President Biden. She read her poem "The Hill We Climb" on that occasion. After the senseless slaughter in Uvalde this week, she was inspired to write another poem which was published in The New York Times. It seemed perfect for the occasion and so I stole it in order to feature it here, just in case you didn't get a chance to read it in the Times . Hymn for the Hurting by Amanda Gorman Everything hurts, Our hearts shadowed and strange, Minds made muddied and mute. We carry tragedy, terrifying and true. And yet none of it is new; We knew it as home, As horror, As heritage. Even our children Cannot be children, Cannot be. Everything hurts. It’s a hard time to be alive, And even harder to stay that way. We’re burdened to live out these days, While at the same time, blessed to outlive them. This alarm is how we know We must be altered — That we must differ or die, That we must triumph or try. ...

The Nature of Things

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