Improbable as it may sound in the midst of death, disappointment, old age and the "16 shades of brown dust" that can be found all over the countryside, Anarchy and Old Dogs has moments of mordant hilarity. For instance Cotterill concocts a wonderful scene in which Dr. Siri and Civilai, who learned to love the cinema in Paris and will still sit through anything shown on a movie screen (even titles like The Benefits of Oiling Your Weapon), attend the politically expedient version of a Bruce Lee film.
At the front of the theater sit three people with scripts. They speak all the dialogue, even in moments when Lee is not moving his lips. Only in this part of the world does Lee taunt a rival this way: "So, it's just you and me. Me, the representative of the honest people of the land. You, a capitalist who would gladly sell the soil beneath our feet to the foreign devils."
The plot of Anarchy and Old Dogs rambles breezily among settings like this theater, the wedding-cake castle of a vanished prince, rural parts of the country where a coroner is paid in fish, and a refugee camp across the Mekhong River in Thailand. It is to this last place that two of Dr. Siri's sidekicks venture to learn more about the counterrevolutionary scheming.
But everywhere Cotterill's characters go, they maintain a wry, seasoned, offhand style that has been the secret weapon of this unexpectedly blithe and charming series. The earlier books, which contribute greatly to the full enjoyment of this one, are The Coroner's Lunch, Thirty-Three Teeth and Disco for the Departed. The irreverence of those titles nicely reflects the books' spirit.
"Look at you," says Siri's plump young nurse, Dtui. "Older than Angkor Wat, up all night boozing, and you still look as frisky as a prawn on a hot plate. What's your secret?" Whatever it is, it gets him through Anarchy and Old Dogs in style. And it leaves him poised for a whole new kind of old dog's adventure.
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