Book Beginning: I Shot the Buddha by Colin Cotterill

My lucky library find:

I Shot the Buddha by Colin Cotterill, published August 16, 2016, is the 11th in the Dr. Siri Paiboun mystery series, featuring retired coroner Siri Paiboun and his wife, Madame Daeng, in Laos. 

The couple share their small Vientiane house with an assortment of homeless people, mendicants, and oddballs. One of these is Noo, a Buddhist monk, who rides out on his bicycle one day and never comes back, leaving only a cryptic note in the refrigerator: a plea to help a fellow monk escape across the Mekhong River to Thailand. (publisher)

Book beginning:
It was midnight to the second with a full moon overhead when three women were being killed in three separate locations. Had this been the script of a film, such a twist of fate would have been the type of cinematic plot device that annoyed Comrades Siri and Civilai immensely. In their book coincidences came in a close third behind convenient amnesia and the sudden appearance of an identical twin. But this was real life, so there was no argument to be had. 

Page 56:
"I can't start a mission by losing face," he said.
"You're not. Nobody knows you're here. They haven't even seen your face. We can return tomorrow, refreshed, and they'll all be embarrassed about today and your face will be intact."  

What are you reading this Friday?
Memes: The Friday 56. Grab a book, turn to page 56 or 56% of your eReader. Find any sentence that grabs you. Post it, and add your URL post in Linky at Freda's Voice. Also visit Book Beginning at Rose City Reader.

Book Review: The Woman Who Wouldn't Die by Colin Cotterill

Welcome to the Sunday Salon!

"What do we do if she comes back again?" Civilai asked.
"Who?" said Siri.
"Madame Peung." (ch. 13)

Madame Peung is the woman who wouldn't die.

Even though the villagers saw her after she was shot and watched her body cremated on a pyre, there she was again, walking around as if nothing had happened. Never mind that she now has a slight Vietnamese accent that she hadn't before. The village was convinced she was a witch returned from the dead.

Dr. Siri Paiboun, the Lao national coroner who lives in the small village, believes in the spirit world and convinces the newly risen Madame Peung to teach him to talk with spirits from the other world. Siri's wife, Daeng, is more skeptical. She has more to worry about with the return of a crazed Frenchman from her past intent on killing Daeng.  Siri is hard pressed to protect his wife with the help of the local police.

Siri and Daeng were upriver when the Frenchman first showed up to terrorize their village. Siri had been sent to oversee the Lao navy trying to recover the body of a general sunk on a boat at the bottom of the Mekong River. This recovery plan was put together by the general's brother, who enlists the help of the spirit medium Madame Peung. But there is something more sinister behind this excavation than what it seems. Siri has both this and the problem of the Frenchman to take care of.

My thoughts: A book with unusual but striking characters in an unusual series, featuring the Lao coroner Siri Paiboun, who is both a medical man and a sleuth. The combination of Lao beliefs and culture, and the history of the resistance against the French and Russian presence in the country are blended into the novel. This is the ninth in the series featuring the charismatic Siri and his wife Daeng. I've read two of the other novels but am eager to read all the rest!

Title: The Woman Who Wouldn't Die: A Dr. Siri Mystery Set in Laos
Author: Colin Cotterill
Published February 19, 2013; Soho Crime
Source: review book from publisher
Objective rating: 5/5

Submitted to Cym Lowell's Book Review Link-up