Reading the detectives 3: The Dr Siri series, by Colin Cotterill

You stumble across good books in all sorts of ways, don’t you? Often, people whose judgement you trust recommend them to you. Sometimes you read about them in reviews, or on blogs like this one. Sometimes a cover catches your eye in a bookshop.

I’m actually mystified as to how I came to have a copy of one of Colin Cotterill’s series about the reluctant chief coroner of Laos, Dr Siri Paiboun. I found it in a pile of books in my son’s old room. I thought perhaps he’d left it behind after a visit home, but he denies all knowledge of it. It was published in 2007 – perhaps I bought it in a 3 for 2 promotion, and then decided I didn’t like the look of it after all.

I don’t know. Anyway – reader, I read it. And loved it. And then I read the one that preceded it – for some reason I had bought the second in the series – and most of the ones that followed it. (I’m trying to keep one or two in reserve, in case a time comes when no other book will do.)

The books are set in the late 1970s, when a communist government has just taken power in Laos. Dr Siri has been a freedom fighter and doctor in the jungle, and his close friend Civilai is one of the men in power. Siri is in his late 70s and looking forward to retirement – but: ‘There was nothing frail about Dr Siri… His short, solid body still scurried hither and thither like a curious river rat. Younger men were hard pressed to keep his pace… His mind, resplendent with his newly honed skills, had become even keener of late… For reasons he was still trying to fathom, he’d been delegated Laos’s honorary consul to the spirit world.’ (Oh yes - his body is host to a long-dead shaman called Yeh Ming, which doesn’t sit easily with Siri, as he’s by nature a cynic and a realist.)

So he’s an unusual character - as are the other regulars in the series. Take his nurse, Dtui, who assists him at the morgue. She longs to be a doctor herself. She’s plump, clever, and funny. Then there’s Mr Geung, the other member of the morgue team. He has Downs syndrome, but he has been trained by Siri’s predecessor, knows the procedures better than either Siri or Dtui, and is an essential member of the team. Civilai shares Siri’s wit and cynicism. This core group is joined later by a policeman called Phosy and by another ex-revolutionary, who becomes Siri’s second wife.

This bunch of wise-cracking misfits prove to be incredibly good at deciphering mysteries and righting wrongs, and they are the central, dazzling attraction of the series. The dialogue crackles, and the books are very, very funny. On the cover of the first one I read, they are compared to Alexander McCall Smith’s Ma Ramotswe books, but they’re much edgier and, particularly as the series progresses, also much deeper. As with many series, the context is at first quite shadowy, but it becomes more sharply focused as the series goes on; in one book, for instance, Siri finds himself a prisoner in Cambodia under the Pol Pot regime – and there’s nothing funny or whimsical about the way that experience is described. Gradually, we find out more about the recent history of Laos – Siri meets the deposed king in a surreal encounter in an orchard; although they have been on opposing sides in the struggle for the country’s future, they spend a happy night getting drunk together. Later, Siri finds himself involved in the plight of the Hmongs, a tribal people who have few rights and whose ancient way of life is being trampled in the name of progress.

These books are absolutely delightful. They have so many of the prerequisites of a good book – they transport you to another place that you knew little about; they’re funny; they have moments of high drama; the dialogue is sharp and witty; the characters earn your affection, and the narrative is cleverly handled. If you haven’t come across them yet, you’re in for a treat.

Cover Your Eyes, by Adele Geras

I had scheduled this to come out on Tuesday, my regular day - but the book came out yesterday, and it's all very exciting, so I thought, why wait? And so here it is.

Cover Your Eyes, published by Quercus, is a welcome return to writing for adults from Adele Geras, who is also a much-loved writer of books for children and young adults (notably Troy and the Egerton Hall trilogy). It tells the story of two women, the charming and rather mysterious eighty-year-old Eva Conway, once a famous fashion designer, and Megan Pritchard, a young journalist who is sent to interview her.

Megan has been having an affair with her married boss, Simon. At the beginning of the book, her hopes that he will leave his wife for her are dashed when he tells her that the affair must end because his wife is pregnant. Shattered and deeply wounded, she leaves her job. Her father is in New Zealand and her mother is dead; the only person she can confide in is her best friend Jay - and Jay is in America. The only positive thing in her world at the moment is an article she has written about Eva Conway. When it comes out, however, she finds it has been edited – badly, she thinks – by Simon. She becomes fixated on the idea that she must take a copy of the magazine to Eva and explain why the text is not the same as the one she had sent Eva for approval.

And so the action moves to Salix House, where Eva’s daughter, Rowena, has told her that her beloved house (in trust for Rowena to avoid death duties) must be sold, because they can’t afford to keep it up. It makes far more sense, she says, for them all to move to London, where Rowena works. Eva is distraught. Salix House means everything to her: it ‘had been at the same time a source of happiness and a repository of memories, many of which made her shiver even now.’ The difficult memories, we find, concern her marriage, but they go back even further, to when Eva first arrived in England from Germany many years ago.

Despite her own troubles, Eva is concerned by Megan's unhappiness. Although on the surface they would seem to have little in common, they are in tune in a way in which Eva and her daughter clearly are not. Rowena is urgently looking for a temporary nanny for her two daughters, and it quickly dawns on everyone that if Megan were to take on the job, it would solve a number of problems all at the same time.

The book’s prologue has already suggested that there is something mysterious and disturbing at Salix House. ‘She’s there. I’ve covered up her reflection in the mirror but I know she’s there. I’m under the blankets. I can’t breathe...’ There are things far back in Eva’s past which she has never been able to face, and, perhaps because of her own unhappiness, Megan too begins to see fleeting images in mirrors and to sense a restless presence. So both their stories unfold: we gradually find out about Eva’s past, whilst at the same time Megan’s present and future unfold.

Eva is a fascinating character – strong but also vulnerable, loving but apparently unable to love her own daughter, capable but oddly passive. I felt like cheering when she finally faced up to the past and took charge of her future, and I'd actually quite like a whole book just about her. (The descriptions of her dress designs, for instance, are delicious and intriguing.) With Megan, on the other hand, I felt quite cross, but that’s probably because I’m a fair bit closer to Eva’s age than I am to Megan’s, so that when Megan is agonising over Simon, I feel a little impatient with her – can’t she see how awful he is? When the truth, of course is, that she can’t, because she’s never been in love before.

This is the perfect book to curl up with on a dreary winter’s evening. You will not want to put it down till you have unravelled the mystery of Salix House, and – unless you are very cynical indeed! – you will be delighted at the way that everything is resolved. Adele Geras is expert at handling the intertwining narratives, at drip-feeding clues about Eva’s past, and at ratchetting up the tension. A haunting tale, in more ways than one!