In 1978 in poverty-stricken Laos, a man from the city with a truck was somebody—a catch for even the prettiest village virgin. The corpse of one of these bucolic beauties turns up in Dr. Siri’s morgue, and his curiosity is piqued. The victim was tied to a tree and strangled, but she had not, as the doctor had expected, been raped. And though the victim had smooth, pale skin over most of her body, her hands and feet were gnarled, callused, and blistered.
On a trip to the hinterlands, Siri discovers that many women have been killed in this way. He sets out to investigate this unprecedented phenomenon—a serial killer in peaceful Buddhist Laos—only to discover, when he has identified the murderer, that not only pretty maidens are at risk: seventy-three-year-old coroners can be victims too.
Colin Cotterill has won the Dilys Award and a Crime Writers of America Dagger and has been a finalist for several other awards. Born in London, he has worked as teacher in Israel, Australia, the United States, and Japan before he started training teachers in Thailand. He lives with his wife in a small fishing village on the Gulf of Siam in Southern Thailand.
Clive Chafer is a professional actor, director, producer, and theater instructor. Originally from England and educated at Leeds and Exeter universities, he has performed and directed at many theaters in the San Francisco area, where he makes his home, and elsewhere in the US. In 1993 he founded TheatreFIRST, Oakland’s professional theater company, where he served as artistic director until 2008.