The Inspector Maigret of Laos

Dr Siri Paiboun, the National Coroner of Laos, is the hero of Colin Cotterill's series of mystery novels set in the early days after the 1975 communist takeover of Vientiane. Educated in Paris, a great fan of Georges Simenon's Inspector Maigret, Dr Siri has spent thirty years in the jungle and now finds himself delving into all sorts of fascinating murders throughout the new socialist republic.

"Anarchy and Old Dogs" is the fourth, and best, in the series. If there was a weakness in the third, "Disco for the Departed", it was the absence of Siri's oldest and best friend Civilai, a senior member of the Laos politburo. The two share a history of youthful idealism curdled by cynicism over the new stodgy bone-headed bureaucracy that now misrules the country. Every day at noon, the two 73-year-old revolutionaries sit on a log overlooking the Mekong and share a baguette lunch. The dialogue between them is akin to a vaudeville comedy routine.

Siri is talking about his late wife Boua, a nurse and fervent communist. Civilai replies:

"'Your wife was always proud of you, little brother.'

'You think so?'

'I know she was. Of course she always preferred me to you. But she was quite fond of you.'

Siri laughed and shook his head.

'Being perfect must have made your life miserable at times,' Siri said.

'The Lord Buddha says all existence involves suffering.'

'Is that right? Didn't he have a thousand concubines before he saw the light?'

'Exactly. So he knew what suffering was all about. I have just the one and I suffer interminably.'

'Next time I meet Nong for one of our secret afternoon trysts I'm going to tell her you called her a concubine.'"

 The main topic of their conversation this day is an impending coup against the government. Siri uncovered the plot after a runaway truck ran over a blind ex-dentist who had just picked up a letter at his post-office box. The letter was blank, but using one of Inspector Maigret's tricks, Siri has uncovered an invisible ink message written in code that lists the names and locations of the military plotters. The message came from the southern city of Pakse, to where Siri and Civilai fly in search of clues.

Soon Siri's intrepid nurse Dtui and policeman Phosy cross the Mekong and pass themselves off as a refugee couple to enter the camp in Thailand that is the nexus of the plot. They are in search of the Devil's Vagina, the cryptic key of the message.

     Meanwhile Siri and Civilai find two more murder mysteries in Pakse: the electrocution of a deputy governor in his bath and the strangely mutilated corpse of a nine-year-old boy.

      Towards the end of the novel, the characters are all reunited to celebrate the seeming success of their mission. Amid much hugging and backslapping, they toast events with a bottle of real Johnnie Walker, "not the Vietnamese rebottled variety". This passage shows the type of whimsical humour that permeates the novel:

       "With Lao rice whiskey there were clear signals that it was time to stop: stomachs evacuating, eyes blurring, bottoms flatulating. But those heathen Scottish tribes had created a brew that seduced a man and forced him to consume beyond the point of logic. He would find himself floating above the clouds on the back of a giant eagle, euphorically stupid. He would be so assured of himself that even when the eagle vanished - poof! - and he was tumbling down the bleak rugged mountains of the highlands, he would still swear he was in control. He might even attempt a somersault or two as the dropped, and then splat."         

  If this is the funniest novel of the series, it is also the saddest because it culminates in a shocking betrayal.

  "Anarchy and Old Dogs" is also a nostalgic heartbreaker as the disillusioned Siri meets Daeng, a former student comrade from his youth, an old lady now tending a noodle stall in Pakse. She shows him an album of photos from a forest youth camp in 1940 where Seri and his young beautiful wife Boua had been instructors.  

"She flipped open to the first set of pictures and Siri's mind turned eleven spinning somersaults into the page. He was back in 1940. There he was standing with his class, B5, all eighteen-year-olds in their group photo, everyone taller that Dr Siri, everyone as happy as lizards in an ant storm...

"Siri went through the photographs one by one, naming the youths, remembering exactly what activities they'd done on that particular day. But while he was studying them, he noticed something as clearly as if it had been written in headlines above each picture: enthusiasm. The kids looked at their teachers as if they could see halos. They were eating up everything. And these weren't the posed photos the PL set up for propaganda. These boys and girls were pumped up with national pride."

The ultimate heartbreak comes from the contrast between such lofty beginnings and the bloated cant, leaden inefficiency and stifling mind control of guerrillas turned apparatchiks.