cambodia

When I saw the book cover of The Rent Collector, with a photo of tin and cardboard shanties built on a HUGE mound of garbage, I was curious and intrigued. The book cover was well worn, as it seemed to be a book that had been checked out and read by many. After reading The Rent Collector, it is now one of my favorite reads of the year.

The Rent Collector, by Camron Steve Wright, is a fictionalized account of a real family who live on the Stung Meanchey, the largest municipal waste dump in Cambodia. Sang Ly and her husband Ki Lin are pickers at the dump, scavenging recyclables to sell to earn a

And yet another undiscovered author!!  Who would have thought that a Laotian coroner trying to unravel mysteries set in Laos in the 1970s would be at all gripping or absorbing? Colin Cotterill recreates  the environment and atmosphere of the struggling People’s Democratic Republic of Laos, and adds unseasonable rains as well.  Dr. Siri as the lone coroner in the country receives all the unexplained deaths, and one newly arrived case is obviously murder—a young woman, impaled by fencing equipment, and carved with a Z, is quickly followed by two more unfortunate victims.  This glimpse into a