1980: Die Demokratische Volksrepublik Laos ist stolz darauf, an ihren ersten Olympischen Spielen teilzunehmen - ein Event, das sich der Pathologe Dr. Siri Paiboun natürlich nicht entgehen lassen kann. Mithilfe eines kleinen Tricks schafft er es, als medizinischer Berater für die Athleten nach Moskau reisen zu dürfen, dem Austragungsort der diesjährigen Spiele. Doch dort angekommen beschleicht ihn schnell der Verdacht, dass einer der Olympiateilnehmer nicht der ist, der er zu sein vorgibt. Und als dann auch noch ein laotischer Athlet des Mordes beschuldigt wird, muss Siri alles daran setzen, dass am Ende die Gerechtigkeit siegt.

The 1980 Olympic Games in Moscow is already rife with controversy, but when a Lao athlete is accused of murder, it escalates into a full blown international incident. In the twelfth entry to the series, Dr. Siri Paiboun and his quirky team of misfits are on the case in a city and country foreign to them, yet familiar in its corruption of justice. 1980: The People’s Democratic Republic of Laos is proud to be competing in its first-ever Olympics. Of course, half the world is boycotting the Moscow Summer Olympic Games to protest the Soviet Union’s recent invasion of Afghanistan, but that has made room for athletes from countries that are usually too small or underfunded to be competitive--like Laos. Ex-national coroner of Laos Dr. Siri Paiboun may be retired, but he and his wife, Madame Daeng, would do just about anything to have a chance to visit Moscow, so Siri finagles them a trip by getting them hired as medical advisers to the Olympians. Most of the athletes are young and innocent village people who have never worn running shoes, much less imagined anything as marvelous as the Moscow Olympic Village. As the competition heats up, however, Siri begins to suspect that one of the athletes is not who he says he is. Fearing a conspiracy, Siri and his friends investigate, liaising in secret with Inspector Phosy back home in Laos to see if the man might be an assassin. Siri’s progress is derailed when a Lao Olympian is accused of murder. Now in the midst of a murky international incident, Dr. Siri must navigate not one but two paranoid government machines to make sure justice is done.

Praise for The Rat-Catchers' Olympics

"Hilarious."
**—*The New York Times Book Review

"Cotterill has a gift for tempering bad stuff—specifically, the baffling and chaotic political climate of communism circa 1980—with gently ironic humor and frequent doses of slightly kooky occultism. His books are thus a welcome balm for our own current baffling and chaotic political climate."
—The Seattle Times

"Very entertaining."
—WYSO, Ohio Public Radio

"The book ends with a rat-catching competition that is as bizarre as Dr. Siri’s wacky sense of humor. This is a unique series."
—Dayton Daily News

"The Dr. Siri books are by turns laugh-out-loud funny, sobering, convoluted, historical and endlessly entertaining . . . This series will have you reading (and laughing) well after most people in your household are sound asleep."
—BookPage, Top Pick  
**
Praise for the Dr. Siri Paiboun Mysteries**

"Dazzling."
—The New York Times Book Review

“Terrifically entertaining.”
—The Seattle Times

"Unpredictable . . . Tragically funny and magically sublime."
─Entertainment Weekly
 
"You get a real feeling for what Laos was like in the '70s. The humor is wonderful, too."
─New York Post
 
"The Dr. Siri books are by turns laugh-out-loud funny, sobering, convoluted, historical and endlessly entertaining . . . This series will have you reading (and laughing) well after most people in your household are sound asleep."
—BookPage, Top Pick

"Along with a mystery that boils over into an international incident, Cotterill gives readers a wonderful re-creation of the 1980 Moscow Olympic Village and the preparations for the Games themselves."
—Booklist, Starred Review

"Cotterill's twisty mystery plot will entertain readers while his cast of eccentric characters charms."
—Shelf-Awareness

“Cotterill excels in the portrayal of potentially serious and momentous topics with lighthearted humor, imbuing his characters with grace and empathy.”
—BookPage, Top Pick in Mystery

“Stunning . . . This series offers unfailingly satisfying reading . . . bursting with caustic wit and adventurous spirit.”
—Booklist, Starred Review

"Crackles with humor and overflows with eccentric characters. Droll chapter titles add an extra soupcon of mirth."
—Kirkus Reviews

Autorentext

Colin Cotterill is the author of eleven other books in the Dr. Siri Paiboun series: The Coroner’s Lunch, Thirty-Three Teeth, Disco for the Departed, Anarchy and Old Dogs, Curse of the Pogo Stick, The Merry Misogynist, Love Songs from a Shallow Grave, Slash and Burn, The Woman Who Wouldn’t Die, Six and a Half Deadly Sins and I Shot the Buddha. His fiction has won a Dilys Award and a CWA Dagger in the Library. He lives in Chumphon, Thailand, with his wife and five deranged dogs.

Leseprobe
Comrade Noo looked awful but Siri’s prognosis was positive.
     “Everything seems to be in working order,” he said. “I couldn’t have done anything Dtui didn’t.”
     The household clapped.
      “So why doesn’t he wake up?” asked young Mee.
     The girl lived there with her mother and younger brother and several other squatters. It was hard to keep count. Siri and Daeng had turned their government allotted residence into something of a hostel for the homeless and helpless. It was a functioning commune embedded deep in a non-functioning communist state. Siri and Daeng themselves lived above their noodle shop.
      “It’s called a trauma,” said Siri. “Sometimes, something so horrible happens that your mind can’t take it anymore. It shuts up shop and puts a ‘closed’ sign in the window. Comrade Noo is in there and his parts are recovering very slowly but his mind isn’t ready to come out. I can’t imagine what they did to him but he needs time every bit as much as he needs medicine.”
     Over some eleven bottles of Lao rice whisky and endless plates of pork lahp and spicy salad, the residents listened to Siri and Daeng’s amazing adventures in Thailand. All the couple left out were tales of possession and séances and running battles with malevolent spirits, even though they were true. Just as there were bureaucratic layers of impossibility, so there were supernatural dimensions that rational educated people in the West would never believe to exist.
     The average Lao, brought up in a small community, had no doubts that there were spirits. They sought advice from them. They asked for forgiveness. Even the business people in the capital erected spirit houses to placate the ghosts. Many claimed to have seen the phantoms but few would have had the type of relationship Dr. Siri had developed. Despite his scientific training, Siri had been forced to concede that there were spirits. He would have preferred it to be otherwise but he was undeniably possessed by a thousand-year-old shaman by the name of Yeh Ming. The old Hmong had never made direct contact with Siri but had been a magnet for a menagerie of ghosts that had passed in and out of the doctor’s life. This science-versus-supernatural dichotomy …