Killed at the Whim of a Hat

Very enjoyable.

I definitely enjoyed Colin Cotterill's first series, the Dr. Siri Paiboun mysteries, so I was prepared to be as delighted by this new protagonist Jimm Juree, a crime reporter wannabe, whose mother relocates the family from a big city to the boondocks. My hopes may have been set too high.Cotterill gives us a quirky cast of characters: Grandpa, a retired traffic cop; Siss, the transgendered beauty queen who used to be her brother, and who now runs a dubious online company; a rather addled mother who tries to relocate the entire family from a bustling city to a rural nowhere because there's a nice place to live; and a body-building baby brother who tries in vain to keep Jimm on the moral high road. I'm going to have to reserve judgement on them ...they just didn't do enough for me (except for Grandpa) to make me jump for joy and say "WOW- he's done it again!" There is certainly plenty of room to develop this new group of loonies. The setting, modern day Thailand, also needs much more filling out.Cotterill delights us with quotes from George W. Bush as openers for each chapter, beginning with Families is where our nation finds hope. Where wings take dream. George W Bush LaCrosse Wisc 10/18/2000 And ending with Rarely is the question asked: "Is our children learning?" George W Bush Florence SC 2/1/2000 At first we scratch our head, trying to figure out what they have to do with anything. Later we are given the explanation of why "W" is featured, but I won't spoil it for you. It isn't until the beginning of Chapter 8 that we get some inkling about the title of the book: "Free societies are hopeful societies. And free societies will be allies against these hateful few who have no conscience, who kill at the whim of a hat."George W. Bush Washington DC, 17 September 2004 There are three crimes Jimm is trying to report on (solve?)--two skeletons found buried in a VW van, a dead dog (poisoned? by whom?) and a brutally murdered monk. These three stories were quite disjointed, and I kept wondering if they were related, if they were crimes at all, and what they had to do with the story at any given time. At least there is a really fun "fairy" police officer who helps Jimm sort things out. I just received the second in this series as an audio to review from the publisher. Based on Cotterill's reputation, and my previous enjoyment of his stories, I'm willing to give this series room to grow, but I'm not going to go much past #2 unless I can get a better feel for this cast of characters, more Thai culture and history, and a less disjointed plot. I'm crossing my fingers and hoping for the best, so that maybe, as GWB says at the beginning of Chapter 13 They misunderestimated me. George W Bush Bentonville AK 11/6/2000

I wasn't sure if I would like this book, but it was such a delightful surprise! This novel is the first in a new mystery series set in Southern Thailand. Even though it takes place in modern day, you won't find a lot of graphic violence or sex, which I always appreciate. Jimm Juree is a female crime reporter whose blossoming career is put on hold when her mother sells their place and buys a run down hotel in the south of Thailand - far away from civilization. But when buried skeletons are found nearby and a monk is brutally murdered, Jimm has a purpose again. She attempts to track down the murderer(s) with the help of her lovably crazy family and one eccentric policeman. The title of the book, and a quote at the beginning of each chapter, are taken from the words of George W. Bush. The reader doesn't understand why at first, but everything is this book is revealed in layers until all is clear. Some GWB supporters were offended by this, but I thought it was handled in a fair way.Many have compared this to the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency books. I haven't read those books, so I can't give my opinion on that. I think if you took Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum series, mixed it with Louise Penny's Three Pines series, and put everyone down in southern Thailand, you might end up with something like this. There is a lot of humor here - lots of dry sarcastic wit from Jimm as the narrator. Too much snark would have turned me off, but I soon realized she has a big heart and isn't as tough as she seems. The characters here are very unique and memorable - but they also come across as real, not just caricatures. The plot has depth and the mystery is complex. Clues are revealed gradually to hold interest until the end.I will definitely be reading the next book in this series. I want to 'see' these people again. Highly recommended.(I received this book from Amazon's Vine Program.)

I received this book on GoodReads.

I enjoyed this new series by Colin Cotterill. It took me quite awhile to get interested in the story, but once it caught my interest I finished it very quickly. The humor is subtle and the characters very quirky. Sometimes I felt like the mystery (s), that were the base of the plot, were really secondary to the author's attempt to flesh out these new characters. That was alright with me because it makes me want to read the next book in the series to see what this group is up to next!

I enjoyed and laughed out loud at the George W. Bush quotes at the head of every chapter. And the clever way the author used one of his quotes to name this novel.

I give this 3.5 stars!!

I was recommended this book by GoodReads, and I thought that it would be funny with a tricky little mystery. The setting is southern Thailand and the main character is an investigative journalist named Jimm Jurree. There are lots of eccentric and enjoyable characters in the book. Jimm's mother and grandfather, her transgender older sister, her younger body building brother and best of all a gay policeman named Chompu who becomes a friend and aly of Jimm's. Unfortunately, I liked all of these secondary characters much more than Jimm herself. Her sarcasm and distrust of most people is a bit hard to take after awhile. The mystery was ok, but I found that we were skipping all over the place whilst following Jimm and Lieutenant Chompu try to solve two unrelated murders - one may or not have been a murder, but it was from decades earlier and the other a recent murder of an abbot at a monastery close to Jimm's home. I have given the book three stars because of the secondary characters. They are very well done indeed.

Great start to a new series. Quirky characters that come alive on the pages.

Disappointing book, by an author I had found quite entertaining in his earlier book. The best part of this book were the chapter introductions used - some of the non-sequiturs coming from George Bush. Mystery is why two people were buried in a car in Thialand. Couldn't really follow the reporters explanations of how or why she ended up where she was.

There is much talk these days of non-euro writers writing about other cultures (Bill Cheng's Southern Cross the Dog, and Aslan's history of early Christians, Zealot ).

Cotterill, on the other hand, is your typical euro, an Anglo-Austrialian who writes about another culture, one that he fills with English prototypes dressed as Asians: ambitious girl reporter, post-fling mother, virgin body-builder brother, gender-changing sister, etc.

Cotterill plays with Thai culture, teasing, poking fun, and smart-assesing himself through a pair of crimes. Think Carl Hiaasen in southeast asia.

The book is "fun," not much violence: only people already dead for years and a mangy dog are the victims. It sounds like it might accurately skewer modern Thailand, with the country sounding more westernized than Kansas but portrayed having a government out of Gilbert and Sullivan.

I give it two stars because it is not my kind of book, less a mystery than sardonic spoof, less a view of another culture than a satire. But if that is your coup of tea (Cotterill started out English-bred, you know), then you will love it.

PS I am sensitive to this issue (it has been pointed out to me several times) because I have done the same thing. I wrote Santo Gordo: A Killing in Oaxaca about southern Mexico, but I keep my main character an ex-pat, one who wonders at the country and people. I could not fit myself (or my characters) into the skin of a Oaxacan. I get the feeling Cotterill gets the Thai people to fit his ideas, not the other way around.

What a great title for this,the first in a new series of crime novels featuring Jimm Juree. Set in Thailand,it tells of one of the oddest murderers I've ever come across. We also meet Jimm's strange and appealing family and her equally strange police contacts. Like many other Cotterill readers I was dismayed that this latest book was not one in the Dr Siri series but not to worry,this is every bit as good.

I have read most of the Dr. Siri series by Colin Cotterill and really enjoyed them. Cotterill has a sly sense of humour and a grasp of the ridiculous that really appeals to me. The Laotian setting of that series was an added bonus. So when I saw that he had a new series starring a female journalist in Thailand I snapped it up. I’m not at all disappointed in this new setting.Jimm Jurree is thirty-something and working as a crime reporter in Chiang Mai when her world falls apart. Her mother, Mair, who may be on the verge of senility, has sold the small shop where the family lives and bought a beach resort in Maprao province in the southern part of Thailand. Jimm, her brother Arny and their grandfather, Grandad Jah, accompany Mair to the resort because they can’t imagine letting Mair go alone. Only the oldest child, Sissi, who used to be a male but changed her gender, stayed in Chiang Mai to run her computer business. Jimm spends her days cooking for the family and any guests who managed to find the small resort. She is convinced her life and career are over. Then comes the news that a VW bus has been found buried deep under a local farmer’s field complete with the skeletons of two people. As the only reporter within miles Jimm has a scoop and she makes the most of it. At police headquarters she meets Lieutenant Chompu, an intelligent officer who has been relegated to this remote region because he is gay. Jimm and Chompu team up to investigate the VW van case. Then an abbot is murdered in a nearby Buddhist temple and Jimm is in crime journalist heaven. Grandad Jah also proves useful in these investigations. He was a traffic cop for 40 years but only because he refused to take bribes; he actually has a sharp mind for investigations.The cast of minor characters is chock full of interesting people. Arny is a body builder with a heart of marshmallow. Mair may be going senile but she still has enough wits to frighten the local villain into going straight. The Buddhist nun who lives at the temple used to be a renowned singer before she gave up that life to follow her one great love into religious life. The title comes from a speech that George W. Bush made in 2004: “Free societies are hopeful societies. And free societies will be allies against these hateful few who have no conscience, who kill at the whim of a hat.” Each chapter in this book is headed up by a Bush quote and each is as profound as that one. They also have some connection to what happens in the ensuing chapter and it is really fun to figure out Cotterill’s meaning. Jimm took a course on public speaking and had to do a final paper on Bush’s style so she is an expert on his speeches. Personally I think Cotterill heard or read that speech and decided to build a book around it. Who could resist?

This book, by the author of the Dr. Siri mysteries, took me by surprise at first. It takes place in present-day Thailand, with a young female protagonist, Jimm Juree. At first I was a bit thrown off by Jimm’s character, written with more gushing female teenager angst than I would expect from someone who is supposed to be older. But once I accepted the style of the writing, I was hooked on the nutty plot and knew I was immersed in a Cotterill novel. As always, the ancillary characters—family members, police officers, monks, dogs—are given full steam and allowed to develop at their own paces. And Cotterill includes some hilariously witty political quotations (like the book title itself), all of which are apropos to the story. Well done. I eagerly look forward to reading the next Jimm Juree mystery.

While I am a fan of Colin Cotterill's Dr. Siri series, I couldn't get into this book. The characters, while quirky didn't ring true to me and the plot dragged. I did not get a good sense of the place or the people of the area.

I would say closer to 3.75 stars.

I really really wanted to like this. And by the end I did, but the beginning was so...slow. It must be hard to start a new series with new characters. Hard to step into their minds and see what they see, after yrs of doing Dr. Siri mysteries. And I feel like by the end Cotterill did get inside his new characters. So I will read the next one. But this one wasn't the best he has ever written.

It is really hard for me to give a rating to KATWOAH; it has a lot of strong pluses, and if my opinion some significant minuses. I liked the rural Thai setting, and especially the characters, many of whom were totally charming. There are many people you want to hear from again and see what unfolds next in their lives, their relationships. I liked the humor, many clever and funny comebacks. The description of the finances of a Thai cyber cafe really resonated with me because I have asked myself the same questions after paying the equivalent of about 20 cents American for an hour online in India. There were three crimes being investigated concurrently involving two skeletons, a Buddhist Abbot, and a poisoned dog. The why and who were pretty much identified for two of them by book's end, but one was left to the speculation of our 32 year old female protagonist reporter, Juree Jimm (or was it Jimm Juree?) This is my first Cotterill, and I'll probably read the next JJ book, but I'm not sure. Each chapter was prefaced with a flub by President George W. Bush, and if there were ties with the contents of the chapter, they eluded me. The first two or three were amusing, but then they became grating. I have never been a GWB fan but I don't like seeing a former President picked on and ridiculed to that extent. And frankly some of his quotes were very apropos for the audience being addressed. CC had a few of his own incomprehensible lines (at least they were to me), e.g., "The last of our food order arrived passing our hopes on the way which were heading at speed out of the window." There were at least half a dozen Bushisms which seemed to make more sense than that.

This book had one of the funniest crime scene discoveries I've read in a long time. The book in infused with subtle humor throughput, it is more a character based mystery but it got kind of confusing with all the characters and places with unfamiliar names.

Author of the wonderfully eccentric Dr. Siri Paiboun of 1970s Laos, Cotterill has staked out new territory in the time and country in which he lives--contemporary Thailand. The protagonist is Jimm Juree, a 34 year old female crime reporter who has been uprooted from her home in northern Thailand by her crazy mother Mair who has bought a run-down wreck of a resort in the south. Trailing along are her brother Arny and her Graddad Ja; refusing to leave their original home is Sissi, Jimm’s transgendered sister, a recluse who is a computer whiz and who makes a living more or less illegally via the Internet.With a family like that, how can you go right? Sleepy though the south may be to Jimm’s great distress, suddenly one day her life brightens with the discovery of a buried 40 year old VW camper ban with two skeletons inside, driver and passenger. Thrilled to have a chance to report death and destruction again, Jimm throws herself wholeheartedly into discovering the identities of the corpses. But she is confronted with a plethora of corpses when two more show up.It’s a typical Cotterill plot and the cast of characters does its best to outdo Laos in the 70s. Gays and lesbians are rather prominently featured; Jimm befriends the gay Lieutenant Chompu and lesbians show up in various ways. Jimm herself is an edgy sort, and has the kind of dialogue one would expect of a direct lineal descendent of Dr. Siri (which she is only in the literary sense).This is a fun book, and does for modern Thailand what the Dr. Siri series does for the Laos of the 70s--give a nice look into everyday Thai life. The plot is good if nothing outstanding. There are some really predictable turns in the story, and the love interest is kind of bleh.But the great redeeming feature of the book, alone almost worth the price of purchase are the epigrams at the beginning of every chapter. They are taken from the literary and philosophical works of the 43rd President of the United States and are awe-inspiring to those of us who can read and write (and beware--we are everywhere, showing up even in the best of families). How can one not be moved by such profound philosophical insight such as:“If you don’t stand for anything, you don’t stand for anything! If you don’t stand for something, you don’t stand for anything!”or the grand historical grasp displayed in:“For a century and a half now, American and Japan have formed one of the great and enduring alliances of modern times”, delivered on February 18, 2002 in Tokyo, underscoring to the world the depth of the then-President of the United States.Most likely the first in a series. Recommended.

After her mother sells the family home and purchases a run-down resort in Southern Thailand, Jimm Juree gives up her adrenaline-filled career to move with her family to the small coastal village of Maprao. Jimm’s job changes from urban crime reporting to cooking and cleaning for her eccentric family and nearly, nonexistent resort guests. When Jimm hears that a local farmer has discovered a VW bus with two skeletons buried in his field, she is overjoyed with the possibility of a story to sell the press. A Buddhist monk is also found murdered at the local monastery, giving Jimm a second opportunity. With help from a local police officer and her unexpectedly resourceful family, Jimm sets to work uncovering the facts behind the crimes. Killed at the Whim of a Hat is the humorous first book in a new series by Colin Cotterill. The quirky characters, clever plotting and exotic setting will appeal to mystery readers looking for something a little different. Cotterill is also the author of the Dr. Siri Paiboun series set in 1970s Laos.

Old Mel has hired a young man to dig a hole for a new well. All of a sudden, the boy disappears as the ground gives out from under him. He finds himself standing on a VW bus from the 1970′s. Inside the bus, are two skeletons, one with hands placed appropriately on the steering wheel.Jimm Juree, news reporter par excellence, reveals to the reader that her name is synonymous with accurate crime reporting all over Thailand. It is only a matter of time before her boss retires and she moves into his chair as senior crime reporter. She loves her job and the world is her oyster, that is, until her mother announces that she has sold their home and business to a group wanting to build a condominium. In turn, Mair has purchased a “lovely” sea side resort in the south of Thailand. The family is moving.Jimm is an optimist; she’ll find stories big city newspapers will be eager to buy. Her brother, Arny, is a competitive body builder. He is close to despair at being forced to leave the well-equipped gyms in the city but he can improvise. Granddad Jah is a man of few words who spends his days keeping track of passing cars. He will continue to track cars in a different place. “At one end of the table sat my sister, Sissi, who at one time had been my older brother, Somkiet.” Sissi has a good internet business so she is staying in place; the new location doesn’t have the modern facilities necessary to access the world wide web. But Sissi will only be a phone call away and Jimm figures that her sister’s internet skills will be invaluable as she pursues breaking news or hard hitting investigative reports. The family is still the family.For ten months, Jimm has been the cook at the resort while her mother worked in the resort shop that is stocked with items from the time the resort first opened. Arny manages the hotel and Granddad watches cars drive by. When she first arrived, Jimm had made everyone aware of her career in the newspaper business. No one sent any st