Synopses & Reviews
“[Cotterill’s] stories may glide by on their humor and wonderful characters, but the reason his books come alive, the reason his series continues to be worth reading, is the author's deep understanding of these people and their beautiful, troubled land. This depth enables him to bring us there for a brief vacation, make us feel, and still keep us laughing. Like Dr. Siri, Colin Cotterill has a touch of magic about him.”—
The Boston Globe “Cotterill’s approach in Curse of the Pogo Stick—so measured and offhand—actually achieves a remarkable feat: It cuts through all the never-again media saturation genocidal regimes often generate, and it makes us take notice once more. We wind up caring about Cotterill’s characters, because they’re mostly either decent or at least understandably flawed and therefore human. By avoiding the nastiness and nihilism of noir, they reach a sympathetic, soulful reality writers rarely pull off.”—Paste Magazine
“Cotterill’s ironic pen [is] as sharp as ever.”—Kirkus Reviews
Auntie Bpoo, the transvestite fortune-teller of Vientiane, Laos, has foretold that the seventy-three-year-old newlywed Dr. Siri and his equally mature bride will have children by the end of the year. When Siri helps Hmong villagers in peril, the prediction comes true.
Colin Cotterill, author of five previous books in the Dr. Siri Paiboun series, lives in Chiang Mai, Thailand, with his wife. His books have been Book Sense picks, and he won the Dilys Award for Thirty-Three Teeth.
Synopsis
The fifth Dr. Siri Paiboun mystery
Seven female Hmong villagers kidnap Dr. Siri on orders from the village elder who hopes that Yeh Ming, the thousand-year-old shaman who shares the doctor s body, will consent to exorcise the headman s daughter. He fears that her soul has been possessed by a demon due to the curse of a mysterious Western artifact. Siri agrees to help and, in so doing, brings to pass a prediction of Auntie Bpoo, a transvestite fortune-teller."
Synopsis
A pogo stick brings a curse down upon a Hmong village.
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.
From the Hardcover edition.