A trip to the far East - Murder at the House of Rooster Happiness

Gardening Happiness - art journal page
acrylic and magazine scraps 

Once again, a shout out to my public library for the many wonderful services they provide. This time it's the downloadable audiobooks, which I can access through the Overdrive App. Looking through the new additions list, filtered for mysteries, I discovered David Casarett's Murder at the House of Rooster Happiness set in Thailand. At the center of this story is Ladarat Patalang, a nurse who has traveled to the US to study at the University of Chicago in order to serve back in her native country as a nurse ethicist for the Sriphat Hospital. It is because of her training that a police detective comes to her with an issue regarding a man who had been brought to the hospital's ER by his wife - the man was dead, but an observant police officer on duty at the hospital recognized the wife except he recalled seeing her in another hospital with a dead husband in tow. Ladarat will be torn between her new found interest in being a detective on the trail of this woman, and her duties to the hospital which includes dealing with the family of an injured American man.

Casarett has peppered the book with loads of Thai language (little did I know how many different smiles we humans have), delicious sounding foods, description of the countryside, Eastern philosophy, and view points on ethics. As I listened I was reminded of another female character who became a detective - Precious Ramotswe of Alexander McCall Smith's No. 1 Ladies Detective series, set in the African nation of Botswana. Like Precious who refers to her detective's bible, The Principles of Private Detection by Clovis Andersen, Ladarat has her textbook by Professor Dalrymple, of Yale University who has written The Fundamentals of Ethics. Ladarat often refers to the wise words of Professor Dalrymple as she makes her way through the quagmire of actions, emotions and beliefs held by people in order to make ethical decisions to solve the problems set before her.

The story does present us with a medical ethical question regarding a gravely injured man who appears to be brain dead. What should the family and medical staff do to care for this man? The issue is exacerbated by the fact that this man is American and the Thais are well aware of how the family may perceive the medical care that can be received in a country not as developed as the US. As the reader, it was refreshing to see that issue handled and how another culture perceives us Americans. Once again we are reminded that we don't all see the world through the same lens.

The other major issue centers around prostitution. The sex trade is big business in Thailand as it is here in the U.S. Casarett presents two very different brothel owners and how they handle their business and treat their employees. We are challenged to see that in a culture different than ours that sending a daughter to work in the sex trade can be a way to support a family living in poverty. Does it make it right? As with many ethical questions there may be no right answer, but we must struggle to find the best answer for ourselves in a given situation.