Disco For the Departed

Book excerpt: In Vientiane's Mahosot Hospital morgue, 73-year-old Dr Siri Paiboun, national coroner of Laos, handles the fatalities at the state hospitals—and the odd murder. His assistants—the gorgeous, clever, fat Nurse Dtui and the slow but irreplaceable Geung—have helped Dr Siri out of scrapes before in The Coroner's Lunch and Thirty-Three Teeth. Leaving Geung guarding the morgue, Siri and Dtui land in a remote mountain village where a mummified arm is protruding from recently buckled concrete paving. Just how is this arm connected to the President of the People's Democratic Republic of Laos? What will the autopsy reveal? Can Siri decipher the messages of the departed souls that fill his dreams? And will they lead him to discover the identity of the arm's owner and find the answer to the puzzle of his death? With a great sense of fun and a lively, loveable cast of characters, Disco for the Departed will delight fans of The Coroner's Lunch and Thirty-Three Teeth and win Cotterill a whole new bunch of readers.