Get crime out of the Drawing Room and into the Jungles of Asia!
Published: September 21, 2021
A reader of detective fiction trolling the digital and actual bookshelves finds oneself confronted with a tidal wave of re-released old clunkers — “classic” gumshoe novels; a swamping of gruesome American and Scandinavian frighteners; and a gushing flood, a veritable tsunami of newly-created jolly old English murder mysteries set anytime in the last century, many with tea and crumpets and intrepid female sleuths, amateur or otherwise. There is the occasional semi-precious gem in these outpourings but most of it is more of the same. Well, to me, anyway.
I have recently gone “off-piste” and been handsomely rewarded with quirky but absolutely engrossing murder/crime mysteries set in unexpected locations, with unconventional ‘detectives’ — in the absence of a word that succinctly describes these amateur sleuths that get to the root of the confronting evils.
One of my new favourite female detectives/ busybodies was created by Colin Cotterill in the Jimm Juree series set in present day rural Thailand.
The self-proclaimed ‘unglamourous’ protagonist in these yarns, Jimm Juree, was a crime reporter for the Chiang Mai Daily Mail with a somewhat eccentric family — a mother who might be drifting mentally; a grandfather — a retired cop who rarely talks — a younger brother obsessed with body-building, and a transgendered, former beauty pageant queen, former older brother. When a collapse of the family fortunes obliges Jimm to follow her clan to a rural village on the coast of Southern Thailand, she’s convinced her career — maybe her life — is over. Not so! Wherever Jimm Juree goes mysteries pop up like pimples on a teenagers dial — and they need to be squeezed!
Starting with Killed at the Whim of a Hat, the stories include a set of full-length Jimm Juree novels and a chubby, let’s say healthily stout, omnibus of short stories all of which are sharp, witty, engaging and charming. Yes…! Jimm Juree is a charming character. Well, to me, anyway!
Look for: Colin Cotterill; the Jimm Juree series
Hello “Siri”
Colin Cotterill’s first ‘famous’ creation, however, was Dr. Siri Paiboun, a 72-year old French-trained physician, who has been has been unwillingly appointed the national coroner by the ‘management’ of newly-socialist Laos in the mid to late 1970s.
A communist for convenience and a wry old reprobate by nature, Siri got the coroner’s job because he’s the only doctor left in Laos after the political flip which ousted French colonial rule and ushered in some government chaos.
Though his lab is underfunded, his boss incompetent, and his support staff quirky to say the least, Siri’s sense of humour combined with the enlistment of old friends, tribal shamans, forensic deduction and good old-fashioned sleuthing, sees him get to the bottom of most problems confronting him or his people in the series — in this world or others that may overlap!
If you are willing to cross the line from conventional to the unusual, Dr Siri Paiboun may be the cure for the English Drawing Room Blues.
Look for: Colin Cotterill; the Dr. Siri Paiboun series; start with ‘The Coroner’s Lunch’.