Curse of the Pogo Stick. [ON ORDER] In Vientiane, a booby-trapped corpse, intended for Dr. Siri, the national coroner of Laos, has been delivered to the morgue. In his absence, only Nurse Dtui’s intervention saves the lives of the morgue attendants, visiting doctors, and Madame Daeng, Dr. Siri’s fiancée. On his way back from a communist party meeting in the north, Dr. Siri is kidnapped by seven female Hmong villagers under the direction of the village elder so that he will—in the guise of Yeh Ming, the thousand-year-old shaman with whom he shares his body—exorcise the headman’s daughter whose soul is possessed by a demon, and lift the curse of the pogo stick.

Anarchy and Old Dogs. Two years after the Pathet Lao takeover, there is already a plot afoot to overthrow the Communist government of Laos. Or at least that's what the death of a blind dentist suggests to national coroner Siri Paiboun. With a fellow old revolutionary in tow, Dr. Siri follows his secret investigation to Pakse, where the coup might be percolating.

Disco for the Departed. Dr. Siri Paiboun is summoned to the mountains of Huaphan Province, where for years the leaders of the current communist government hid in caves, waiting to assume power. Now a major celebration of the new regime is scheduled to take place, but an arm is found protruding from the concrete walk laid from the president's former cave hideout to his new house beneath the cliffs. Siri must supervise the disinterment of the body attached to the arm, identify it, and determine the cause of death. The autopsy provides some surprises, but it is his gifts as a shaman that enable the seventy-three-year-old doctor to discover why the victim was buried alive and identify the killer.

Thirty-Three Teeth. The impish Dr. Siri faces three mysteries. First, the government asks him to identify a pair of badly burned corpses. Soon, a fearsome creature begins slaughtering the citizens of Vientiane. And then people start inexplicably hurtling to their deaths from a ministry building. In one of many farcical twists, the nation's police officers carry empty guns. So Siri; his friend, Inspector Phosy; able nurse Dtui; and an old comrade with a high party post must use their considerable wits--and an occasional supernatural assist--to crack the cases.

The Coroner's Lunch. With the country in the midst of relearning the tenets of Communism, the French educated physician, Dr. Siri Paiboun had been annointed chief coroner of the country. The cynical and acerbic septagenarium Dr. Siri, who holds no great regards for political red tape, conducts his business in the morgue located in Vientiane. Assisted by nurse Dtui and mildly retarded morgue assistant Geung, their lack of activitity is suddenly modified when the haughty wife of a high ranking politician is brought in for an autopsy. Questions begin to arise when poisoning is suspected.

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