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Dr Siri Paiboun, reluctant national coroner
of the People’s Democratic Republic of Laos, is summoned to
a remote location in the mountains of Huaphan Province, where
for years the leaders of the current government had hidden
out in caves, waiting to assume power. Now, as a major celebration
of the new regime is scheduled to take place, an arm is found
protruding from the concrete walk that had been laid from
the President’s former cave hideout to his new house beneath
the cliffs. Dr Siri is ordered to supervise the disinterment
of the body attached to the arm, identify the corpse, and
discover how he died.
The autopsy provides some surprises but
it is his gifts as a shaman that enable the seventy-two-year
old doctor to discover why the victim was buried alive and
the identity of his killer.
COLIN COTTERILL was born in London
in 1952. He has taught in Australia, the U.S., and Japan,
and has lived in Thailand, on the Burmese border, and in Laos.
He lives in Chiang Mai, in northern Thailand.
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