Anarchy and Old Dogs

by Colin Cotterill

Quercus, HK$195

It seems to be just another day of fun-packed forensics when Laos' national coroner Dr Siri Paiboon is called in to conduct a post-mortem examination of the body of a dentist flattened by a runaway truck on the capital Vientiane's dusty streets.

But what appears to be an innocent game of postal chess found in the squashed dentist's pocket turns out to be a secret communique written in invisible ink that exposes a royalist plot to oust the country's fledgling socialist state.

The conspiracy outlines a putsch and introduces the mysterious 'Devil's Vagina', the intrigue of which proves too much for the 73-year-old doctor to resist, especially when an old lady thought to be the dentist's minder goes missing amid signs of violent struggle and pools of blood.

But socialist bureaucracy and paranoia are never far away from spoiling the few glimpses of excitement in 1977 post-revolutionary Laos, and orders come through for Dr Siri to head south to Pakse to look into the suspicious death of a Vietnamese commissioner. He was electrocuted by a Russian water heater and the local governor tells Dr Siri that he fears a Soviet plot.

Meanwhile, the bemused protagonist is drawn into another investigation, this time of a more paranormal nature. The drowning of a local boy is brought into question when puzzling marks are found on his body. As Dr Siri investigates, the lines of the royalist plot and the boy's death are drawn ever closer together.The plot comes to a head with a healthy mixture of kidnapping, espionage and betrayal, interspersed with an unexpected double-dose of romance.

With Anarchy and the other four titles in the award-winning Dr Siri series, Cotterill offers readers wonderful snapshots of life in 1970s Laos and the republic's rivalries with Thailand. There are plenty of laugh-out-loud moments derived from the intense pleasure the good doctor derives from baiting the bureaucrats who dashed his dreams of a post-revolutionary life of doing little more than eating, sleeping and sipping whisky sodas. The incidental moments of sardonic wit and cynicism and the interplay between characters also make the book compelling.

Cotterill does not dodge more serious matters either, often subtly exploring issues of environment, poverty and politics without ever raising the spectre of preachiness.

While there is a clear formula at work in Anarchy and the rest of the series, the author does a good enough job of inventing quality storylines to captivate readers; so far the differences between the books far outweigh the similarities.

It is the fine wrapping of Cotterill's humour that binds the book together. His ability to keep eager readers turning the page and howling with laughter at the same time earns him a position as one of Southeast Asia's most engaging authors.