Fun New Mystery Series Set In Thailand

[Xanthe]

It's called "Killed at the Whim of a Hat" by Colin Cotterill. I got an ARC to review, and I really, really enjoyed it. It was one of those books that I didn't want to put down once I started. I'll definitely be getting the next one in the series and I'm going to check out the author's other books.

The blurb:

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 Jimm is forced to follow her family to a rural village on the coast of Southern Thailand, she's convinced her career--maybe her life--is over. So when a van containing the skeletal remains of two hippies, one of them wearing a hat, is inexplicably unearthed in a local farmer's field, Jimm is thrilled. Shortly thereafter an abbot at a local Buddhist temple is viciously murdered, with the temple's monk and nun the only suspects.

Suddenly Jimm's new life becomes somewhat more promising--and a lot more deadly. And if Jimm is to make the most of this opportunity, and unravel the mysteries that underlie these inexplicable events, it will take luck, perseverance, and the help of her entire family.

It's not a cozy and there's no romance in this particular book, but the main character has a very wry sense of humor that had me laughing many times throughout the book. The mystery is well-developed, there are a lot of secondary characters who are interesting in their own right, and the author (who lives in Thailand) really conveys a sense of the place (and really shows to what degree western culture has become universal culture).

Out of family loyalty, Jimm moves to southern rural Thailand to accompany her mother who may or may not be losing her mind. She's a city girl, who gave up a promising career as a crime reporter to help her mother try to make a go of a beach resort she unexpectedly bought. This isn't one of those stories with a hotel filled with quirky guests; they rarely have a guest. She describes where they now live:

"We moved to a village surrounded by coconut groves called Marprao. That means "coconut". We're in the middle of a bay called "Glang Ow", which means "middle of the bay", and our nearest small town is at the mouth of a river. It's called Pak Nam. I probably don't need to translate that one for you."

......

"The most wonderful, if sometimes the most creepiest of my mother's [Mair's] traits was that she never seemed to be fazed by anything. She would greet even the most horrific moments, tragedies and accidents alike, with the same sliver-lipped smile. Her pretty eyes would sparkle and there'd be a barely perceptible shake of her head. I'd often imagined her going down on the Titanic, Leo DiCaprio splashing and sputtering beside her, and Mair's enigmatic smile sliding slowly beneath the surface of the icy water. She was wearing her Titanic smile there at our kitchen table and I knew it masked something terrible."

......

"I needed that moment. I'd seen it often in the cinema. The weathered old cop, mired in a case of unspeakable horror, drops everything and takes his rifle and his case files off to a cabin deep in the woods where nature has lain unchanged for thousands of years. And after emerging from a week-long affair with a case of rye, the answer comes to him. "It was the twin brother suffering from amnesia that done it." That was the moment of clarity I craved. I called to the trees, to the ferns, to the god of polystyrene for an answer. The cell phone in my back pocket rang. I was impressed. Mother nature had gone high tech."

[SeaBookGuy]

Sounds really interesting -- I'll be on the lookout for it -- thanks!

[amward]

He also writes the great Dr Siri series set in Laos. Dr Siri is an elderly doctor who is called on to be the government pathologist and gets involved in solving murders.