Needs a trigger warning - cruelty to animals

I love the Dr Siri series. It’s been a while since i have read one, and thought it would be a good listen. It does take a while to adjust to the characters having British accents- country people have Scottish or Liverpool dialects! But seeing I don’t know how a Lao accent would sound it’s a little quirk of the narrator. But the worst aspect of the book is the subject matter. The blurb talks of a black market trade, but doesn’t go into detail. I wasn’t expecting the trade to be animals. I had to stop listening half way through because I couldn’t stomach the cruelty.

Colin cotterill doesn’t shy away from writing about the human rights abuses that existed in Laos at the time, and how communism did not lead the Laos economy out of poverty. People have the morals they can afford, and trading exotic animals is a way to feed a family at this time. But I couldn’t listen to the descriptions of the conditions and the cruelty. I get one audible credit a month, and I would have chosen another Dr Siri novel had I known what this one was about.

Maybe it’s good to show this awful trade existed and reinforce the idea that taking people out of poverty benefits us all - and the animal kingdom, but I wish the blurb had been specific about what the black market was in.

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