Detective stories

It turns out Audible.com has quite a few free books on offer.  At first I stuck to classics, some Jane Austen and so forth, because I'm suspicious of modern fiction recommended by sites like Audible or Kindle.  In desperation during a long painting job, though, I took a chance on an author named Colin Cotteril, who turns out to be terrific.  Imagine John Le Carre on antidepressants and channeling Roger Zelazny.

So far I've listened to the first two in a series about a Laotian coroner, The Coroner's Lunch and Thirty-Three Teeth.  Unlike many coroner-based procedurals, this one doesn't try to gross the reader out.  The protagonist, a disillusioned 72-year-old doctor who finds himself the reluctant national coroner without training or facilities in post-revolution socialist Laos in 1978, is cynical but not in the least hard-hearted, more of a Jane Marple than a Sam Spade.  Actually a bit of Obi-Wan Kenobe.  The Audible version is especially enjoyable for the accents, which are all Brit.