Get our Best Book Club Books of 2025 eBook!

BookBrowse Reviews Killed at the Whim of a Hat by Colin Cotterill

Summary |  Excerpt |  Reviews |  Beyond the book |  Read-Alikes |  Genres & Themes |  Author Bio

Killed at the Whim of a Hat by Colin Cotterill

Killed at the Whim of a Hat

A Jimm Juree Mystery, #1

by Colin Cotterill
  • BookBrowse Review:
  • Critics' Consensus (4):
  • Readers' Rating (1):
  • First Published:
  • Jul 19, 2011, 320 pages
  • Paperback:
  • May 2012, 384 pages
  • Rate this book

About This Book

Reviews

BookBrowse:


The first novel in a humorous crime series set in Thailand
This review is available to non-members for a limited time. For access to our digital magazine, free books,and other benefits, become a member today.

Cotterill's wry, irreverent sense of humor is a drone missile that quietly cruises from page to page, taking no prisoners. In varying degrees, everybody and everything is fair game. In short, this is my kind of book. So much so that while reading it I stopped several times to recite passages aloud to my husband.

To begin at the top, the book's title is from a speech given by George W. Bush in 2004 in which he said, "...free societies will be allies against these hateful few who have no conscience, who kill at the whim of a hat." Clearly Cotterill is a fan of the volume of malapropisms that has come to be known as "George Bushisms." This particular gem, as explained by protagonist Jimmy Juree, is where Bush had "fallen off the edge of the teleprompter again and he was caught somewhere between 'on a whim' and 'at the drop of a hat' and ended up with terrorists killing one another."

I couldn't have said it better if I tried, but that's the point; thirty-four year-old, currently unemployed Thai journalist Jimm Juree says everything better than I could - even on my best days - and notably better than many of her fictional counterparts in the humorous novel arena. Her first person narrative is sharp and savvy and altogether winning. Because, when it comes to sardonic humor, few can hold a cynical candle to a seasoned crime beat journalist. Especially one who was a mere heart attack away from "the senior crime reporter's leather chair," until she was unceremoniously removed from the running. Thus Jimm feels stunted, altogether stymied by her mother's decision to uproot the family, taking them from the joyously crime-riddled city of Chiang Mai to a nowheresville resort village along the southern coast of Thailand. With the exception of Jimm's older, transgender, ex-beauty queen sister, Sissi, the whole family is going. Mair (mother); younger brother, Arny; Granddad Jah; and Jimm set up shop at the Gulf Bay Lovely Resort and Restaurant, which is "a dump" in Jimm's words.

Bitterness over the forced move colors Jimm's feelings about her new home, referring to the South's inhabitants as unimaginative and the locale as mosquito-infested and boggy. Here the scribe-turned-kitchen-help does not suffer her new position gracefully. Until. Until the day that Old Mel discovers a buried VW van - complete with the skeletal remains of two corpses - on his farm. Jimm's life brightens. Then a few days later a monk is found murdered, donning a malapropos orange hat. Well. Life couldn't be better. Because, thank god, local police are as inept as those in Chiang Mai, and Jimm springs at the chance to unleash her prodigious crime solving skills, waking them from their nine month-long stasis.

Back at the newspaper her boss had once wanted to move her from covering crime to politics. She declined, reasoning that, "in Thailand, murder and theft and violence were tangible. Politics was all smoke and mirrors and, basically, silly." No silliness here. Not when there are business moguls (synonymous with "crime bosses" in Jimm's view) to take down and truth to be exposed in the most deliciously insolent manner possible.

In the grand cosmic scheme of humorous fiction this book rates a respectable 4 stars out of 5, but in my personal collection, it rates a 5.

Reviewed by Donna Chavez

This review was originally published in The BookBrowse Review in September 2011, and has been updated for the May 2012 edition. Click here to go to this issue.

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $60 for 12 months or $20 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Beyond the Book:
  Thailand's Political Turmoil

Read-Alikes

Read-Alikes Full readalike results are for members only

If you liked Killed at the Whim of a Hat, try these:

  • Three Things About Elsie jacket

    Three Things About Elsie

    by Joanna Cannon

    Published 2019

    About This book

    More by this author

    The bestselling author of the The Trouble with Goats and Sheep delivers a suspenseful and emotionally satisfying novel about a lifelong friendship, a devastating secret, and the small acts of kindness that bring people together.

  • Recipes for Love and Murder jacket

    Recipes for Love and Murder

    by Sally Andrew

    Published 2016

    About This book

    More by this author

    A bright new talent makes her fiction debut with this first entry in a delicious crime set in rural South Africa - a flavorful blend of The #1 Ladies Detective Agency and Goldie Schulz series, full of humor, romance, and recipes and featuring a charming cast of characters.

We have 6 read-alikes for Killed at the Whim of a Hat, but non-members are limited to two results. To see the complete list of this book's read-alikes, you need to be a member.
More books by Colin Cotterill
Search read-alikes
How we choose read-alikes

BookBrowse Book Club

  • Book Jacket
    Real Americans
    by Rachel Khong
    From the author of Goodbye, Vitamin, a novel exploring family, identity, and the shaping of destiny.
  • Book Jacket
    The Mysterious Bakery on Rue de Paris
    by Evie Woods
    From the million-copy bestselling author of The Lost Bookshop.

Members Recommend

  • Book Jacket

    Happy Land
    by Dolen Perkins-Valdez

    From the New York Times bestselling author, a novel about a family's secret ties to a vanished American Kingdom.

  • Book Jacket

    The Fairbanks Four
    by Brian Patrick O’Donoghue

    One murder, four guilty convictions, and a community determined to find justice.

  • Book Jacket

    One Death at a Time
    by Abbi Waxman

    A cranky ex-actress and her Gen Z sobriety sponsor team up to solve a murder that could send her back to prison in this dazzling mystery.

  • Book Jacket

    The Seven O'Clock Club
    by Amelia Ireland

    Four strangers join an experimental treatment to heal broken hearts in Amelia Ireland's heartfelt debut novel.

Who Said...

Being slightly paranoid is like being slightly pregnant – it tends to get worse.

Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!

Wordplay

Solve this clue:

A C on H S

and be entered to win..

Your guide toexceptional          books

BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.