All this takes place against a background of Laotian and Hmong villages, peopled by gentle souls still living as their ancestors did, people who never sought to fight anyone but were overrun by the forces of twentieth century history and left to cope as best they could.
The atmosphere of Vientiane and other venues in Laos is so skillfully depicted that you get a real feel for the place - primitive, exotic, yet suffering the discomforts and constraints characteristic of the twentieth century. Cotterill obviously has great respect and affection for the various ethnic groups who find themselves lumped together as a nation because it was convenient for the French — their former colonizers — to draw the map that way.
To complicate matters further, Siri, a man of science and a skeptic in matters spiritual, is the reluctant host for the spirit of a thousand-year-old shaman, who occasionally has prophetic dreams and gets him into all kinds of trouble. He also is pursued by a demon, a phibob, who is bent on destroying him. With the help of his occult powers, Siri is able to get to the bottom of all kinds of mysterious events which drive the plots of these five books.
The best way to appreciate these novels is to read them straight through chronologically from beginning to end. The main characters — sketchily described in the first novel — develop foibles and strengths as they cope with the difficulties which confront them. Their individual histories are revealed more fully, and they become more rounded and believable.
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