The Coroner's Lunch

When an old friend learned that I was returning next month to Laos, for another visit with family members in Luang Prabang, he was, of course, concerned that I might lack knowledgeable background in Lao life and politics.  Therefore, he wisely suggested that I prepare myself by perusal of one or more of the Dr. Siri Paiboun mystery novels, written by British author Colin Cotterill.

This was the same friend who had earlier tempted me into reading a Charlie Chan novel, set in Honolulu, and Dashiell Hammitt's The Maltese Falcon, set in San Francisco.  His reading proclivities, his studies of local cultures, had by now become reasonably apparent, but -- as evidenced by earlier essays appearing in this blog -- I had found his earlier suggestions both entertaining and conducive to written contemplation.

And so it came to pass that I've just finished reading the first of the "Dr. Siri series," The Coroner's Lunch.

I have visited Laos twice, if we don't count a third time when we sneaked ashore from a boat on the Mekong, not turning back until we drew within sight of an immigration check point.  Based on this vast experience, I would judge the Lao people to be friendly, humorous, and notably laid back, and their Communist government to be seemingly benign.  Also, the Lao appear amazingly forgiving of American visitors, considering that our military dropped over two million tons of ordnance on Laos during the Vietnam war, and that an estimated 20,000 Lao have been killed by contact with unexploded ordnance since the hostilities ceased.  Vast reaches of the country are still dangerously mined, once one's away from cleared roads and paths.

All of my visits have been since 2003.  The Coroner's Lunch, written in 2004, describes Laos as it may (or may not) have existed in 1976, one year after the Communists had deposed the monarchy and had formed the present Lao People's Democratic Republic.  It was a time when relations with the Vietnamese government, which regarded the Lao with some condescension as their little Communist brothers, were somewhat strained.  And at a time when the Communist Lao government was embroiled in a continuing struggle with Hmong insurgents -- insurgents only recently abandoned to their own devices by their American patrons.

Most of the competent and educated Lao had fled across the Mekong into Thailand as the Communists were taking over.  Dr. Siri was one of the few medical doctors to remain.  Despite his being 72 years old, and having no qualifications or experience as a pathologist, the government appointed him as the nation's only "coroner." 

But wily Dr. Siri was a fast learner, and the government got more than it bargained for -- a wily detective, as well as a pathologist.

The plot is entertaining and interesting, involving relations between the new Lao Communist regime, their allies in Vietnam, and their Hmong domestic enemies, and the story is infused with the paranoia that results from living in a totalitarian state -- even an incompetent totalitarian state.  The plot is equally entangled with all the personal desires and ambitions and betrayals that the human heart -- capitalist or communist -- is heir to. 

It also seems that Dr. Siri is -- to his own surprise -- something of an animist shaman.  Which explains all those strange and scary dreams he's been having and his ability to understand languages he's never studied, not to mention the dog next door that barks ...

But I've given away too much, already.

The book also taught me more about the nuts and bolts -- the sights and smells -- of forensic pathology than I probably learned as a personal injury attorney.  Perhaps more than I wanted to know.

Dr. Siri is a good man, a clever man, an unassuming man, and a humorous man.  And yes, humor still exists, in and among odd places and people, even under Communism -- and even among Communists themselves.  At least, under Lao Communism and its party members.  Dr. Siri loves the Lao people, whatever their politics, and they love him.  But he is a man who has seen a lot in his life, and he is neither naïve nor overly concerned about legal niceties when it's time for the bad guys to get their come uppance.

So now, having a clearer idea of the Lao character, my visit to Laos should be all the more worthwhile.  Even if it took a Brit expatriate to explain it to me. 

I should add that Colin Cotterill has spent much of his life in Thailand and Laos -- not only as a writer, but as a teacher and as a volunteer performing humanitarian work -- especially combatting child abuse and child prostitution -- for various NGOs.  He is also a cartoonist.