Books 2012: if you wanna love forever number one

[hawkwing_lb]

Books 2012: 197-199

197-199. Colin Cotterill, Thirty-Three Teeth, Disco for the Departed, and Anarchy and Old Dogs. Quercus, 2005-2008.

The second, third and fourth volumes of the magical-realist Dr Siri mysteries. Delightful - although if Cotterill's knowledge of Laos is as accurate as his throwaway line about an Irish missionary (protip: Coleraine is not a county, and I have yet to meet any Irish Catholic priest ever called Fred...) then I suspect it takes place in an alternate dimension.

But they're still delightful wee stories.

---

I climbed today, very badly, with a pleasant young man from Spain. As a consequence, my back hurts. Now I hang around college and hope I survive long enough to go to the interestingly-titled evening lecture. I am beginning to think I might not.

Comments

[alecaustin.livejournal.com]

From all the evidence I've seen, Cotterill has more first-hand knowledge of Laos than of Ireland.

That doesn't mean I trust him to get everything right, but he seems to depict that portion of the world more reliably than, say, John Le Carre in The Honourable Schoolboy.

[hawkwing-lb.livejournal.com]

That, and the utterly delightful playful sense of humour, is why I'm giving him doubt-benefit. (But still, that got past the copy-editor? That's like saying Sean the Anglican priest from... Portsmouthshire.)

But I am in love with the magical realism and the sense of humour.