Disco for the departed - Colin Cotterill

Dr. Siri Paiboun, 73 but still as sturdy as a jungle boar, is summoned to the mountains of Huaphan Province, where for years the leaders of the new communist government hid in caves, waiting to assume power. On the eve of a major celebration of their glorious new regime, 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 - the victim was interred alive - but it is his gifts as a shaman that put the septuagenarian doctor on the trail of the killer. As Siri and his team close in, they must tackle a marriage proposal, a ghostly discotheque, kilometers of red tape and come face-to-face with a horrific sacrificial ritual.