Grandad, There's a Head on the Beach

April 23, 2012
Cotterill effortlessly merges murder and mirth in his second light mystery featuring crime reporter Jimm Juree (after 2011’s Killed at the Whim of a Hat). Juree, who has reluctantly joined her eccentric family in rural Thailand, channels Bertie Wooster on making a grim find: “It’s always a bother to decide who to tell when you find a head on the beach.” Soon after her discovery, she runs afoul of two thugs from the Southern Rescue Mission Foundation, a questionable charitable organization “whose duty it was to facilitate the journey of the soul to a better place.” The SRMers remind Juree that she didn’t see anything, a threat that only emboldens her to dig deeper. Impressively, the author manages to insert a serious human rights problem amid the larking around without hitting a false note, and is on track to duplicate the acclaim and commercial success of his Dr. Siri series (Slash and Burn, etc.).

June 15, 2012
Exploding grenades, Burmese slaves and, yes, a head on the beach. How much excitement can one tiny Thai town take? Highly engaging narrator Jimm Juree still stings from the abrupt relocation of her family to a run-down town on the Gulf of Siam after she's worked many years as a crime reporter in the bustling university city of Chiang Mai. It was eccentric Mair, Jimm's mother, who decided to trade in the family's raggedy urban convenience store for an inflated seaside dream of a resort. Restless for adventure, Jimm is mostly stuck keeping her loony Granddad Jah out of trouble and her depressive musclehead brother, Arny, out of the dumps. And she can only fantasize about Hollywood screenwriting success with her transsexual writing partner, Sissi. So when a head washes up on the beach, Jimm, beside herself with excitement, plunges in to probe its origin. In short order, two ratlike bureaucrats show up and attempt to keep Jimm away from their investigation, sound advice that she naturally ignores. Ironically, Jimm's plans to ferret out the head's identity keep encountering detours courtesy of the incognito pair of women who check skittishly in to the resort, and the mystery figure in mother Mair's bed. Thai/Burmese relations and explosions on the beach figure in the loopy solution. The second installment of prolific Cotterill's new series (Killed at the Whim of a Hat, 2011, etc.) definitely puts the fun in family dysfunction. Jimm, an Asian Stephanie Plum, rattles steadily to a solution, with many hilarious episodes along the way.

COPYRIGHT(2012) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

June 1, 2012

When 34-year-old journalist Jimm Juree stumbles upon a human head on the beach behind her family's dilapidated resort, she tells her grandfather, a retired cop. Within hours of reporting the finding to the local headman, shady, knife-wielding characters terrorize Jimm's family. Not one to back down, Jimm learns that the victim was probably Burmese and that the Burmese are performing something akin to slave labor in Thailand. Jimm formulates a plan to bring justice to the Burmese, but she needs help. Her transgendered sibling, Sissi (a renowned computer hacker), and assorted boat captains ensure a redemptive conclusion. VERDICT While readers new to this series will laugh and enjoy Cotterill's madcap and zany mystery, I recommend first reading the initial title (Killed at the Whim of a Hat) to appreciate fully Jimm's family and community. The author's natural gift for irony, well demonstrated in his earlier Dr. Siri series (Slash and Burn; The Merry Misogynist), is to be relished.

Copyright 2012 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from May 1, 2012
The second Jimm Juree mystery opens as Jimm discovers a severed head washed up on the beach of the ramshackle resort she and her family operate in southern Thailand. Still hoping to reestablish herself as a crime reporter, Jimm enlists the help of her grandfather, formerly Thailand's most dedicated traffic cop, and his elderly but well-connected pals. Matters are complicated when Jimm learns that the head belonged to a Burmese refugee. There is also the question of the two, seemingly well-to-do, but highly mysterious ladies who are staying at the resort. Why are they there? The fast-paced plot finishes with a particularly tense climax (broadcast live online!), as Cotterill masterfully blends real-world issues (the terrrible condition endured by Burmese refugees in Thailand) with appealing cozy elements and his trademark humor. Series readers will be thrilled with this installment and anxious for the next one. Must reading.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)