Curse of the Pogo Stick

By Colin Cotterill
(Soho Crime, Hardcover, 9781569474853, 256pp.)

Publication Date: August 1, 2008

Other Editions of This Title: Audio Cassette, Compact Disc, Compact Disc, MP3 CD, Paperback

Categories: Mystery & Detective - General

Selected by Indie Booksellers for the August 2008 Indie Notables

“Dr. Siri Paiboun, the reluctant national coroner in post-revolution Laos, must deal with a curse (yes, a pogo stick curse) in this gem of a story from Cotterill, who brings Dr. Siri to life on the page so completely that we feel as if we would know him on the street, a man who is both a calm place in any storm and a trouble magnet.”

-- Eric Robbins, Apple Valley Books, Winthrop, ME

Description

In Vientiane, a booby-trapped corpse, intended for Dr. Siri, the national coroner of Laos, has been delivered to the morgue. In his absence, only Nurse Dtui’s intervention saves the lives of the morgue attendants, visiting doctors, and Madame Daeng, Dr. Siri’s fiancée.

On his way back from a communist party meeting in the north, Dr. Siri is kidnapped by seven female Hmong villagers under the direction of the village elder so that he will—in the guise of Yeh Ming, the thousand-year-old shaman with whom he shares his body—exorcise the headman’s daughter whose soul is possessed by a demon, and lift the curse of the pogo stick.

About the Author

Colin Cotterill was born in London in 1952. He trained as a teacher and worked in Israel, Australia, the US, and Japan before training teachers in Thailand and on the Burmese border. He wrote and produced a language teaching series for Thai national television and spent several years in Laos. Colin is involved in a number of social projects, many to benefit children. With his wife he set up a book and scholarship program in Laos and runs a small school for the children of Burmese migrants near his home.

All the while Colin continues with his two other passions: cartooning and writing. Since 2000 he has written over fifteen books, including the Dr. Siri crime series set in Laos. Colin lives in Chumphon in the south of Thailand with his wife where he rides his bicycle along the coast, decapitates coconuts, eats a lot of squid, plays with his dogs, and occasionally sits down to write.

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