Colin Cotterill Disco for the Departed

Disco for the Departed

Colin Cotterill

Soho, Aug 2006, $23.00

ISBN 1569474281

In 1977 in the People's Democratic Republic of Laos, seventy-three years old National Coroner Dr. Siri Paiboun accompanied by Nurse Dtui leave Vientiane on an educational trek in the isolated mountainous region. However, upon arrival at Vieng Xai, Siri and Dtui are escorted to a cave where the current Communist President of the country resided before a coup brought him into power. Inside is an arm sticking out of a cement block.

At Kilometer 8 Hospital, a Castro loaner Cuban Dr. Santiago meets Siri and Dtui; in between explaining what he knows about the victim, the Cuban and the nurse with the Coroner as the depressed referee battle in a contest of wits and words for whom is the Communist champion killjoy. As the trio uncovers clues, the case takes strange spins with sacrificial rituals covered by official red tape making it difficult to follow leads that Siri obtains with his eerie talent of discussing the investigation with the dead to the backdrop of even weirder western disco music.

The third Paiboun coroner's investigation is a superb look at late 1970s Laos where ancient Buddhist rituals and bureaucratic Communist rituals sit side by side. The story line is action-packed, but the cast make the historical whodunit a treat. Besides the terrific lead trio, the support characters add depth to the feel that the audience is in deed in a remote part of Laos just after the Viet Nam War ended. Fans who appreciate something different in their police procedurals will want to read the intelligent DISCO FOR THE DEPARTED and its two previous tales (see THE CORONER'S LUNCH and THIRTY-THREE TEETH).

Harriet Klausner