Murder at the House of Rooster Happiness

Murder at the House of Rooster Happiness

David Casarett

Orbit (2016)

Rating: ★★★★★

Tags: Fiction, Mystery & Detective, Amateur Sleuth, International Mystery & Crime, Women Sleuths, Police Procedural, Traditional, Urban, Cozy, Mystery, Contemporary, Adult, cozy mystery, Thailand

Fictionttt Mystery & Detectivettt Amateur Sleuthttt International Mystery & Crimettt Women Sleuthsttt Police Proceduralttt Traditionalttt Urbanttt Cozyttt Mysteryttt Contemporaryttt Adultttt cozy mysteryttt Thailandttt

Meet Ladarat Patalung - the first and only nurse detective in Thailand.

Two nights ago, a young woman brought her husband into the emergency room of the Sriphat Hospital in Thailand, where he passed away. A guard thinks she remembers her coming in before, but with a different husband - one who also died.

Ladarat Patalung, for one, would have been happier without a serial murderer-if there is one -- loose in her hospital. Then again, she never expected to be a detective in the first place.

And now, Ladarat has no choice but to investigate...

The first novel in a captivating new series by David Casarett, M.D.

**

Review

"A charming mystery...a delight."―
Vaseem Khan, author of the Baby Ganesh Detective Agency series

"A wonderful debut novel full of the sights, sounds and senses of Thailand mixed in with one hell of a great plot and a heroine -- Ladarat Patalung -- who stays with you long after the book is closed. Bring on the second in the series."―
Ian Hamilton, author of the Ava Lee novels

"I love this book. It's not only a killer mystery, but it also introduces a uniquely appealing central character and gives us a warm and accurate look into the Thai heart."―
Timothy Hallinan, author of the Junior Bender mysteries and the Poke Rafferty Bangkok thrillers

"Appealing."―
*Kirkus
*

About the Author

David Casarett, M.D., is a physician, researcher, and tenured associate professor at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine. He is the author of three acclaimed works of non-fiction. His studies have resulted in more than one hundred articles and book chapters, published in leading medical journals such as
JAMA
and
The New England Journal of Medicine
. His many awards include the prestigious U.S. Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers. He lives in Philadelphia. 

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Ladarat Patalung is a product of my imagination. But I’m fortunate to be able to work at the University of Pennsylvania with a wonderful team of palliative care clinicians who are very real. They make the world a better place every day, and they’re just as thoughtful, kind, and compassionate as Ladarat is. This book is dedicated to them.

Wan jan

MONDAY

IT IS KNOWN THAT POISON IS OFTEN A WOMAN’S METHOD

I
have come to see you, Khun Ladarat, about a matter of the utmost urgency.”

The comfortably built man sitting on the other side of the desk paused, and shifted his bulk in a way that prompted the little wooden chair underneath him to register a subdued groan of protest.

“A matter of the utmost urgency,” he repeated, “and more than a little delicacy.”

Ladarat Patalung began to suspect that this Monday morning was going to be more interesting than most. Her conclusion was based in part, of course, on the formal designation of the matter at hand as one of the “utmost urgency.” In her experience, that didn’t happen often on a Monday morning. Despite the fact that she was the official nurse ethicist for Sriphat Hospital, the largest—and best—hospital in northern Thailand, it was unusual to be confronted by a matter that could be reasonably described in this way.

But Ladarat’s conclusion was also based on her observation that her visitor was nervous. Very nervous. And nervousness was no doubt an unusual sensation for this broad-faced and broad-shouldered visitor. Solid and comforting, with close-cropped graying hair, a slow smile, and gentle manners that would not have been out of place in a Buddhist monk, Detective Wiriya Mookjai had been an almost silent presence in her life for the past three years. Ever since her cousin Siriwan Pookusuwan had introduced them.

Ladarat herself didn’t have much cause to meet members of the Chiang Mai Royal Police Force. But Siriwan most certainly did. She ran a girlie bar—a brothel, of sorts—in the old city. So she had more contact of that nature, perhaps, than she would like. Not all of it good.

Khun Wiriya was that rarest of beings—an honest policeman. They did exist in Thailand, all reports to the contrary. But they were rare enough to be worth celebrating when one was discovered. In fact, Wiriya was something of a hero. He never talked about it, but Ladarat had heard that he’d been injured in a shoot-out several years ago. In fact, he was a hero to many younger officers who aspired to be injured in a similar way, though of course without unnecessary pain and with no residual disability.

She’d met him before at the tea shop her cousin also owned, although he’d never before come to see her at work. Yet now he had. And now he was sitting across from her in her little basement office in Sriphat Hospital, with just her little desk between them. And he seemed to be nervous.

How did she know that the detective was nervous? The most significant clue was his tie. Khun Wiriya was wearing a green tie. He was wearing a green tie, that is, on a particular Monday, the day of the king’s birth. Today almost everyone in Thailand of a mature age—a category that included both the detective and herself—would honor the occasion by wearing something yellow. For men, it would be a tie.

Ladarat herself was honoring the day with a yellow silk blouse, along with a blue skirt that was her constant uniform. They were not particularly flattering to her thin figure, she knew. Her late husband, Somboon, had often joked—gently—that sometimes it was difficult to tell whether a suit of clothes concealed his wife, or whether perhaps they hid a coat hangar. It was true she lacked obvious feminine… landmarks. That, plus oversize glasses and hair pinned tightly in a bun, admittedly did not contribute to a figure of surpassing beauty.

But Ladarat Patalung was not the sort of person to dwell on herself. Either her strong points or any points at all. Those people existed, she knew. Particularly in Sriphat Hospital. They were very much aware of their finer points, in particular, and eagerly sought out confirmation of those points. These were people who waited hungrily for compliments, much as a hunting crocodile lurks in the reeds by the edge of a lake.

If she were that sort of person—the sort of person who dwells on her talents and wants to add yet another to her list—it might have occurred to her to think that her deduction regarding Khun Wiriya’s nervousness revealed the hidden talents of a detective. She might have reached this conclusion because she noticed things like the doctor’s behavior. And not everyone did.

But she was most emphatically not the sort of person to dwell on her talents. Besides, her perceptiveness wasn’t even a talent, really. Not any more than being a nurse ethicist was a talent. Anyone could do it, given the right training. Ladarat herself was certainly nothing special.

Being an ethicist was all about observing. And that was more of a… habit. Anyone could do it. You just had to be quiet, and listen, and watch. That’s all.

It was a habit that was a little like finding forest elephants in her home village near Mae Jo, in the far northwestern corner of Thailand. Anybody could see an elephant in front of her nose, of course. But to sense where they
might
be, back in the undergrowth, you had to be very still. And watchful.

In that moment, as the detective fidgeted and his eyes skittered across her bookshelves, Ladarat resolved that she would be very quiet. She would be watchful. She would be patient as her father taught her to be when they went looking for elephants thirty years ago. She was only a little girl then, but he taught her to pay attention to the world around her. That was what this moment called for.

She settled back to wait, sure that the reason for Khun Wiriya’s nervousness would emerge just as the shape of an elephant would materialize from the overgrowth, if you were patient enough. After all, Khun Wiriya was an important detective. His was a very prestigious position, held by a very important man. This was a man who had no time for social visits, and therefore a man who could be counted on to get to the point quickly. So Ladarat looked expectantly across her desk at the detective, her pencil poised above a clean yellow notepad that she had labeled with today’s date.