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    The Delightful Life of a Suicide Pilot
    The Delightful Life of a Suicide Pilot
    The Delightful Life of a Suicide Pilot
    Audiobook7 hours

    The Delightful Life of a Suicide Pilot

    Written by Colin Cotterill

    Narrated by Clive Chafer

    4/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    Laos, 1981: When an unofficial mailman drops off a strange bilingual diary, Dr. Siri is intrigued. Half is in Lao,
    but the other half is in Japanese, which no one Siri knows can read; it appears to have been written during the Second
    World War. Most mysterious of all, it comes with a note stapled to it: Dr. Siri, we need your help most urgently. But who
    is “we,” and why have they left no return address?

    To the chagrin of his wife and friends, who have to hear him read the diary out loud, Siri embarks on an investigation
    by examining the text. Though the journal was apparently written by a kamikaze pilot, it is surprisingly dull. Twenty
    pages in, no one has died, and the pilot never mentions any combat at all. Despite these shortcomings, Siri begins to
    obsess over the diary’s abrupt ending … and the riddle of why it found its way into his hands. Did the kamikaze pilot
    ever manage to get off the ground? To find out, he and Madame Daeng will have to hitch a ride south and uncover
    some of the darkest secrets of the Second World War.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRecorded Books, Inc.
    Release dateJun 2, 2020
    ISBN9781980098508
    The Delightful Life of a Suicide Pilot
    Author

    Colin Cotterill

    Colin Cotterill (born 2 October 1952) is a London-born teacher, crime writer and cartoonist. Cotterill has dual English and Australian citizenship; however, he currently lives in Southeast Asia, where he writes the award-winning Dr. Siri mystery series set in the People's Democratic Republic of Laos.

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    Reviews for The Delightful Life of a Suicide Pilot

    4/5

    39 ratings5 reviews

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    • 5/5
      A series that is still getting better, this is my favorite so far.
    • 3/5
      Read this for book club - I now understand that this is the last book in the series but it is the first one that I have read. It is possible I would have rated in higher if I had more background on the characters. I did enjoy the characters and liked the writing, I just found parts of the plot confusing and convoluted. I realize that the book is exploring a confusing story, it just made me lose interest at times rather than intriguing me.
    • 5/5
      historical-fiction, historical-research, historical-setting, historical-places-events, Southeast-Asia, spirits, devils, Japanese-lore, satire, senior-citizens, situational-humor, sly-humor, spiritism, supernatural, superstitions, suspense*****Once again there are several mysteries to be solved in 1981. Chief Inspector Phosy is tasked with finding out just how a prominent man came to fall off a cliff and gets held hostage for two days along with two of his best men. Dr. Siri and Mme Daeng are off up country to follow a convoluted trail left in a personal journal written half in Japanese and half in Lao. Along the way they come to find out that it is about a Japanese Army pilot during and after WW2 and that it is actually allegorical in nature and reveals the world of Japanese malevolent spirits and devils. This has been a great series and I am sorry to see it end.I bought the audio and Clive Chafer has been the very adaptable narrator throughout.
    • 5/5
      I was dismayed when I learned that The Delightful Life of a Suicide Pilot is the last Dr. Siri Paiboun mystery. I love these books, not just for their mysteries, but for the characters, the knowledge I've gained, and their irreverent sense of humor. I do have to be realistic, however. Dr. Siri is in his eighties-- how much longer could we expect him to investigate mysteries?In this last installment, Inspector Phosy has his own mystery to solve, while their daughter Malee seems to have tied down his wife, Dtui. Another favorite, Mr. Geung, makes an appearance that spotlights one of my favorite things about this series: its respect for all human beings. Geung: "I have ... Down syndrome." Siri: "So? That doesn't make you an idiot." And as all fans of this series know, Geung is not an idiot. Madame Daeng also has time to solve a mystery while Siri works with that diary.As I followed along with Siri and Daeng, trying my best to figure out what was going on before they did, I enjoyed so many things. The way these two, who have no money, can still afford to travel. The way Cotterill brings 1981 Laos to life for me. (11,000 out of 14,000 motor vehicles in the country had no access to gasoline for instance.) And last but not least, Cotterill's fantastic sense of humor, which can be seen in phrases and sentences like "I hear she has the temper of a rabid Chihuahua" or "...the food was spicy enough to strip the paint off a tank" or even Siri refusing to cooperate with the bad guys by telling them he's suffering from "terminal horripilation".The Delightful Life of a Suicide Pilot is a fitting end to this series, but oh, am I going to miss these characters! However, as long as Cotterill keeps on writing, all is not lost.
    • 4/5
      Thanks to NetGalley for my ARC.I came to this wonderful read by way of general browsing and it was the quirky title that struck me first. I mean how can you not be intrigued by a title like The Delightful Life of A Suicide Pilot? Then I was surprised that there are fourteen other installments in this series and all with pretty much the same wonderful inventive titles. Also that cover art! Goodness it's just beautiful and enticing. All of this said I was generously granted access to this ARC by NetGally & the publisher Soho Press just a couple of days ahead of publication so I put the other reads I have going aside to try and read through this one. I was worried that I would have to really slog through it but I dug into this on a Thursday and couldn't put it down till I finished it on Saturday afternoon. It was just a full two days nose in the book reading. Colin Cotterill after fourteen other books in this series, fourteen books that I will have to pick up on, knows how to tell a gripping page turner. For an outsider to the world of Cotterill mysteries, as myself, I found The Delightful Life of a Suicide Pilot to be totally engrossing and it did not seem like I was missing out on anything. That is to say if you have not read the other fourteen books do not let that deter you from picking up this book! You can always pick up the others just like I plan to do. So what is this book? We find yourself in 1980's Laos in the installment of Dr. Siri Paiborn mysteries. Dr. Siri is immensely entertaining and quirky. So what happens is, fittingly, there is a dead body and in the process of tracking down what happened and why a mailman that is not a mailman drops off a diary that is written by a WW2 kamakazi pilot that is penned in Japanese in a handful of entries and then changes to Lao and only Dr. Siri can read it. The diary is written by a kamikaze pilot whose life is surprisingly or unsurprisingly devoid of action. The intrigue however is that there is a note with the diary asking for urgent help from a mysterious 'we'. This mystery must be solved through the text of the diary and its sudden ending. Why did the diary end up in their hands and what happened to its writer? To discover the answers Dr. Siri and Madame Daeng go on in an adventure to discover what the answers to the questions found within the diary. The characters are wildly entertaining and engaging and you will root for them and really fall for all the funny and strange backstories that they have and share. There are surprises too! Dr. Siri is not all that he seems to be. There are dark secrets there are funny moments and sad ones and the diary entries are a great touch to the overall feel and pacing of the book.I do not know how these mysteries have not yet been optioned for TV. This is a series I would totally watch. Meantime I have fourteen other Dr. Siri mysteries to catch up on and be delighted by.This Dr. Siri mystery is the light-hearted crime-mystery puzzle you need to read right now. It is full of humor and intrigue and is un-putdownable!