I Shot the Buddha

By: Colin Cotterill

Narrated by: Clive Chafers

Length: 9 hrs and 56 mins

Publisher's summary

A fiendishly clever mystery in which Dr. Siri and his friends investigate three interlocking murders -and the ungodly motives behind them.

Laos, 1979: Retired coroner Siri Paiboun and his wife, Madame Daeng, have never been able to turn away a misfit. As a result they share their small Vientiane house with an assortment of homeless people, mendicants, and oddballs. One of these oddballs is Noo, a Buddhist monk who rides out on his bicycle one day and never comes back, leaving only a cryptic note in the refrigerator: a plea to help a fellow monk escape across the Mekong River to Thailand. Naturally, Siri can't turn down the adventure, and soon he and his friends find themselves running afoul of Lao secret service officers and famous spiritualists. Buddhism is a powerful influence on both morals and politics in Southeast Asia. In order to exonerate an innocent man, they will have to figure out who is cloaking terrible misdeeds in religiosity.

©2016 Colin Cotterill (P)2016 Recorded Books

Not as good as earlier works

This book seemed a little overly complicated and not quite as well done as his other earlier works in this series.

Good fun.

Dr Siri and friends continue to delightwith new murders and plot twists. As I am the same age as Dr. Siri, I remember vaguely some of the historical references scattered throughout his stories about that period of time when we were naive about the ways of the world. It adds to the background and gives a richness to the people and stories. Looking forward to my next book.

Love the reader.

Although this humorous series can sometimes be a little slow I love the way the narrator reads it. The character’s voices and the delivery are perfect. Also as someone not typically a fan of history I find the author’s take on Laos very interesting.
I recommend this series all the time.

Light and Fanciful Story

Any additional comments?

Initially, I found it hard to follow the story -- I think I listened to the first three chapters at least twice. But once I realized that it was all pretty far out on the fanciful side of life, I settled in and enjoyed listening to it.

Good but...

I wasn't sure to start with, then the intriguing story within the story caught me. I liked that the characters were fallable.
The narrator did a great job portraying the variety of characters.
Worthy of a relisten in the future.

The next Dr Siri book

What can I say - they just keep getting better.

We finally get to go to Thailand. Dr Siri has religion-based adventures.

Performance Comments

The performance was engaging but sometimes it was hard to follow the rapid scene changes. Perhaps the narrator could have done something to signal the shifts from place to place and sets of characters.

Even more fun!

supernatural, superstitions, support-system, suspense, Laos, Thailand, verbal-humor, mystery, myths-legends, series

While the sociopolitical history is present, the mystery and suspense are woven throughout, and the sly humor abounds, this one is filled with the supernatural. There are dark things, but they seem more balanced, or maybe that's an illusion caused by Mme Daeng's new tail! All I know is that I thoroughly enjoyed it!
Clive Chafer continues to be excellent as narrator.

great series

l have learned a lot about Loas and enjoyed a good story. I would recommend it highly.

The supernatural element is too prominent.

The supernatural element dominates this book instead of forming a context within which the story plays out. I respect Mr. Cotterill’s familiarity with Lao traditions and am willing to accept this depiction, but as a story this book is less enjoyable than previous books in the series.