Comment

May 28, 2017miaone rated this title 5 out of 5 stars
Maybe the best aspect of this series is that the three main characters are three dimensional. They learn and grow, and we readers learn more and more about them. One could rightly wonder what could be so intriguing about a story that concerns people living in Laos in 1977. It seems long ago and far away. The main character, an elderly doctor, is a communist, though not an enthusiastic one. The 2nd main character is a young nurse living in deep poverty but who is studying English and Russian on her own. The 3rd main character is a lovely, charming young man who happens to have Downs Syndrome, but who has much more going on in his head than he is usually given credit for. Unlikely as it may seem, I'd love to be friends with all three of these characters. I hope they remain so engaging through the rest of this mystery series, which I plan to read slowly, savoring every word. I have recently read two reviews of this book by readers who claim to love this book even more than the first in the series, The Coroner's Lunch, but who complain that this one has too many references to supernatural beings, and too much activity of same. I would gently point out that the supernatural beings appear in technicolor and stereo in The Coroner's Lunch, and it would be hard to figure out how Siri keeps eluding the evil people who wish him dead without the help of said beings. For the record, I don't really believe in such active spirits, either, but when reading a book that includes them in the plot, I just accept it as written and do not worry about it. Notice that Siri doesn't like them, either, in this book and for some time to come. He just deals with them and gets on with what he has to do.