The Merry Misogynist by Colin Cotterill is the sixth book in his Dr. Siri Paiboun series. Set in Laos in 1978, Dr. Siri is the national coroner, although at 73, he would rather be retired. In this outing, Dr. Siri and his group of friends solve a serial killer mystery and as an added bonus, track down a missing, slightly “crazy” local and save his life as well.

The serial killer travels around the country to various small villages. He selects the prettiest virgin from the village, courts and marries her, only to murder her within hours of the wedding. Dr. Siri becomes concerned about this case when one of the victims is brought to his morgue.

As always, I enjoyed my time spent with Dr. Siri and his friends. This story had more to do with straight forward detection rather and relying on the spiritual world, although, Dr. Siri did have a number of premonitions that helped to move things along. I look forward to my next encounter with this lovable reluctant coroner. ( )

Dr Siri gets a body in his morgue; a beautiful young woman with white, white skin. They do an autopsy on her: she has been strangled, and she has been sexually assaulted with a black iron pestle. Now Dr Siri puts his detective skills to work, as he is determined to find the depraved human being who put this young woman there.

2009 Hardback Soho Press
P.12-13:
"... Through the reeds he could make out a dozen or so shirts of various degrees of whiteness. the children disappeared into the long shadow of the mountain then re-emerged, laughing and frolicking into the last of the sunlight. And with them was the perfect woman. she held books: probably a young teacher returning from school with her flock. she was slim but had full breasts. Her buttocks were shapely enough to cause her phasin skirt to bunch a little below the belt. There was nothing worse than a woman with no arse. But her face, oh, her face was perfection, no sun damage or moles or acne scars or hairy sideburns. She would do very nicely. So soon after his last honeymoon but still he had no intention of letting up. he was insatiable."

Phosy is a captain in the police department in Vientiane. he and Siri's nurse are married and expecting a baby. Phosy helps Siri on this case.
P.31:
"Siri was delighted. He'd worked with Phosy on a number of cases; he thought they made a Splendid team Siri had been ramroded into the coroner's job, but it did give him the opportunity to vent his detective proclivities. as a penniless young medical-school student in Paris he had been deprived of the type of raunchy environment other men his age sought. Instead, he'd found solace in the two old-franc cinema Halls and in libraries where Maurice leblanc, gaStone leroux, and stanislas-andré Steeman took him on Noir journeys through the nettle-strewn undergrowth of the criminal world. His hero, inspector maigret, had convinced him that there could be no better career than that of solving crimes and putting blackguards behind bars."

Siri is being harassed by the Housing Authority. He was relegated a house, but he's giving shelter to needy friends of his. once he and his wife got married he's been staying in the upstairs of her noodle house, with her. housing authority has nothing better to do than to spy on him and try to get his housing taken away.. Siri's wife urges him to go to judge haeng for help. But haeng does not want to help Siri.
P.81-2:
Judge Haeng:
" '...if you have technical or medical information for me I am happy to listen. Otherwise, please don't disturb me. And now I have a meeting.'
Siri was fuming inside, which caused the smile on his face to pucker his cheeks.
'Oh, I completely forgot,' he said calmly. 'I do have some medical and scientific information to pass on to you.'
'well, let's have it. I'm in a hurry.'
Siri coughed and recited, 'a fart is 59% nitrogen, 21% hydrogen..'
haeng pushed back his chair, grabbed his papers, and strode to the door.
'... And 19% carbon.. '
the door slammed.
'... Dioxide.'
Siri Pursed his lips and stared at the brown marks on the backs of his hands. He fancied he saw familiar country outlines from the atlas there.
'What's the other one percent?' asked Phat.
'depends what you had for dinner,' Siri told him."

Siri needs help finding out from villagers, if any suave young stranger has passed through, wooing their daughters. he turns to an old friend's friend of his. I love this character, because she and I have something in common:
P.148-9:
Dr Pornsawan, Lao Patriotic Women's Association:
"Despite the danger of being seen to be a chauvinist he relieved the doctor of most of her papers and left her with the projector he walked at her side. She was a tidy, compact woman with no bodily excesses no unnecessary height, and no eyebrows. Quotes still no facial hair, I see. Laughed. " it seems so silly to draw them on, don't you think? Once the Damned things refuse to grow back after the nunnery I decided to let them have it their way. Men find it attractive, I'm told.' "

Siri asks his wife to think about what kind of agency in Laos would have workers who would travel to different villages, and return two weeks later. This is the modus operandi of the killer that siri is stalking.
Madame Daeng:
P.202:
" 'not really. It's an ongoing subject. It's what you asked me on wednesday, about a department that's high profile, has a reasonable budget, whose employees might go back to the same location twice. It just came to me.'
Siri sat up in his seat and glared at his wife.
'To distribute and collect questionnaires,' sri said.
'Right.'
'You're brilliant.'
'I know. Don't tell Phosy yet.'
'why not?'
'because he's a policeman. He's not very subtle. He'd go strutting into their office with his police bell ringing and alert everyone that he's on to them and, if he's there, your Maniac would go to ground.'
'what then?'
'just wander in there. Have a look around. Just some old fellow interested in the census. No danger. You get your information and if you see anything fishy you tell Phosy. That way you can nail the bastard.'
'and you came up with this plan while you were staring at the moon, billing and cooing with me?'
'The women's brain has two hemispheres,' she slurred. 'One for loving, one for hating. It can operate quite competently at the same time.' "

Phosy has sent memos to different police departments in little villages all over laos. A sergeant Oudi contacts him, saying that he had found a set of Bones. So, what happened to the pestleaa?
P.216-7:
while sergeant Oudi and his colleague dug up the bones he'd so lovingly buried 6 months earlier, Phosy and Tham rummaged around the tree.
'You're sure this is the right place?' Phosy called to the local policeman.
Oudi held his hand against the amulet at his neck for the tenth time. Spirits didn't take too kindly to having their bones dug up.
'Yes, comrade,' he said. 'All around there, they were.'
'and apart from the hair and the ribbon, you didn't find anything else out of the ordinary?'
Phosy had withheld the most awful component of the murders from his memo. he believed it would be beneficial to have that one vital piece of evidence held in reserve in case they had a suspect.
'I mean anything at all,' Phosy pushed. 'No matter how irrelevant you think it might be.'
'yes, comrade. Oh, wait. There was something.'
'yes?'
'a pestle.' Phosy's heart clenched.
'I found this pestle while I was gathering up the bones.'
'and what did you do with it?'
'it was a good one, comrade. I took it home for my wife.' "

We do get an idea why the killer assaulted his victims with the black iron pestles. It's because he didn't have the equipment to do it himself. His mother had tried to sway his gender into firming up towards the feminine side in his youth, and it totally messed with his head. Now he's going to take it out on his victims.
So good. I can't wait to start the next book in the series about Dr Siri Paiboun. ( )

This is No. 6 in the Dr. Siri Paiboun series, and I think I enjoyed it the most of any so far. Lovely young country girls are being wooed and wed by a government employee passing through their villages on a work assignment...and then ending up dead and tied to a tree. Because of the remote nature of the villages, the lack of co-ordination or even communication between various police departments, and the wiliness of the killer, some of the families are not even aware that their daughter has gone missing, and it takes Dr. Siri and his "crew" to realize that there is a serial killer on the prowl. Interest is heightened by sections written from the disturbed killer's point of view. The interaction among the recurring characters is at its peak in this story, and there is so much humor in it that it was a delightful read, despite the tragic story line.
August 2019 ( )

Carry on, Colin. Characters and dialogue are sparkly good. I hope the fortune teller is back in the next book.
Spoiler (although this is revealed by the midpoint of the book) objection: I can't get behind an intersex villain. And really the whole serial killer with elaborate rituals in the bush seems pretty far fetched. ( )

Read this straight after the Pogo book and liked it a lot. Enjoyed the messing around in noodle shops and temples despite the misogynist..... Relaxing but engaging. ( )