The Merry Misogynist by Colin Cotterill

Funny, entertaining and mischievous. Colin Cotterill has created a wonderful old character called Dr. Siri Paiboun an old doctor who was called out of retirement to become ( the only)coroner of the newly established(and very inefficient)Peoples Democratic Republic of Laos. Dr. Siri and his morgue associates make great fun of the bureaucrats and the corruption while adapting to the new regime. He is always in trouble with the public housing authority because he takes odd people in the live at his home.

He fancies himself somewhat of a detective; when the authorities find the body of a young girl tied to a tree and very much mutilated, Dr Siri decides to find the culprit. An thus begins a fascinating mystery and search for a killer. The story follows the killer as he plans and executes his mutilation of the girls as well as Dr, Siris actions.

Mr Cotterill lives in the Gulf of Thailand; he has many books to his credit; I have read “The Coroner’s Lunch” and “Ageing Disgracefully” which is a collection of very humorous short stories. There are others that I will get on my Kindle. Read him when you find him.

Finding Nouf By Zoe Ferraris

This is a fascinating first novel by an American woman who lived with her Saudi-Palestinian Bedouin husband and family. Saudi Arabia has, probably, the most rigid attitude towards women in society among the Middle East cultures. The “system” is supposed to “protect” women but it seems to totally restrict their freedom and it is hard for me to determine just what they are being protected against. The laws are strict; women, if allowed to go out must have an escort and must wear their figure concealing robes, and the burqa and even gloves. There are religious police who accost couples to show proof of their marriage and there are “vigilantes”, zealous individuals who will accost people in the street if they feel that the woman is not modest and some will report things they may see to the police. Households have their own rules of segregation.

Nouf is a sixteen year old girl, one of several daughters and sons in a large, very wealthy, Saudi family. Nauf is engaged to be married and is allowed to go out but never without the “protection” of a family member or her escort, a trusted young man she has known for years.

Nouf is missing; the family suspects kidnapping but when no ransom note appears, the family calls in Nayir ash-Sharqui a desert guide and friend of the family to lead a search. Nayir is a dedicated Muslim; he prays five times a day and adheres to the social system to the point of fanaticism. He is offended if a women shows the least bit of immodesty; he is not quite a “vigilante” but close to being one. He is very uncomfortable being with women and he is very troubled if his thoughts stray as men’s sometimes do.

The body of Nouf is discovered in the desert; the coroner determined that she did not die of dehydration but rather, of drowning. The circumstances seem mysterious but the family seems ready to accept “accidental death”. Nayir was present at the coroner’s office when the body was being examined; he met Katya Hijazi a Saudi woman technician working at the morgue who immediately offended and startled him because she did not wear her burqa and further because not only was she working, she was very outspoken and competent .She made her own examination.

After the funeral, Nayir meets with one of the brothers, Othman, who encourages him to investigate further. Nayir goes back to where the body was found where he finds some things and goes back to the morgue where he learns that Katya is the fiancé of Othman. Othman has asked Katya to look into the matter, also.

And so begins an unlikely partnership between this outspoken and “modern” woman and this very “trustworthy” religious man. The evolvement of the mystery is excellent and the rapport between the couple and the difficulty that Nayir has as they travel around together investigating is humorous although sometimes you want to give Nayir a swift kick.
Good story!!

Drood By Dan Simmons

In 1865, Charles Dickens was on a train going to London; the train was involved in a tragic wreck known as “the Stapleton Railroad Disaster”.
Dickens escaped injury and helped in the rescue of other passengers. He was aided by another; a huge, strange looking man with missing fingers, no eyelids and talked with a hissing lisp. He wore rather formal clothes and a top hat. After things settled down, the man, Edwin Drood disappeared but for some reason, Dickens was never the same after meeting him. His last novel, never completed was titled “The Mystery of Edwin Drood”.
Dan Simmons has used the idea of Drood to create a dark mystery novel narrated by Wilkie Collins a lesser author and friend of Dickens. Collins was an opium addict, a man who was jealous of and extremely critical of Dickens and who speaks very disparaging of him but still, he followed Dickens as he searches for Drood. As he narrates the search he takes the reader through the underbelly of Whitehall, Shadwell and Wapping; the docks, the rats, river stench the awful places where they search for Drood. They went through cemeteries and down through catacombs and a labyrinth of filth and sewage to a strange dock where Dickens went alone with two weird boatmen who took him to an underground city where he met with Drood who is a kind of lord of this, Egyptian like, undertown of thieves, murders, drug addicts and miscreants.
The story is, certainly entertaining and it gives vivid descriptions of how miserable some parts of London were and it is a reminder of Britain’s heinous role in the International Opium Trade but except for references to opium addiction, cemeteries, a couple of names from Dicken”s unfinished novel and that Edwin Drood once lived in Egypt the story portrays Drood as very bad person; a monster,whereas in Dicken’s book he seemed to me a rather mild fellow who had an unhappy romantic encounter and went missing and the “Mystery” is what happened to Edwin; was he killed by his stepfather? Dan Simmon’s novel was much more interesting.

There is a lot of interest in this unfinished novel of Dickens; there have been radio dramas, plays, several movies and a musical.

Right after I read the Simmons book, I found and read “The Last Dickens” by Matthew Pearl which tells a well researched but fictionalized story in considerable detail of Charles Dicken’s last trip to America, his reading tours, his entourage, how the tours were arranged and how the United States publishers vied to get hold of his works and how one publisher, in particular, searched Boston, New York and London for the “lost” final chapters while dangerous evil men and competitors stalked him and tried to kill him. This was a real thriller; I liked it better than “Drood”.

Scarpetta By Patrica Cornwell

This is the sixteenth novel in the “Kay Scarpetta” series. Ms Cornwell started the series some 20 years ago and her characters and her plots have not aged very well. They are still around; Lucy has her own business and is making a fortune, Benton still does profiling for the FBI and is married to Kay and Marino is still a cop but the original magic does not come through. Kay is out of her element when she is asked to talk to a a suspected murder who is mentally disturbed and locked up in a psychiatric hospital and she gets pretty well involved with the patient who claims he did not do the deed. The scandal press is raking up the thing that happened between Scarpetta and Marino when he went kind of crazy and attacked her so that has to be resolved again but the old linear mystery and the great forensic work that went on in the earlier novels is not there. She disappointed me again.