[1] He is the author, besides, of two other novels, Carmichael's Dog (1992) and Glass Mountain (2001), and (with Panamanian man of letters Guillermo Sánchez Borbón), of In the Time of the Tyrants (1990), a history of the Torrijos-Noriega dictatorship in Panama.
Now a quadriplegic, blasted into a wheelchair by the gun of his only friend, he reviews the histories of his country and his father along with his own as a complete man of action—wrestler, arms smuggler, Olympic champion, Lothario, gambler at Yale, Ambassador to Paris, husband of a movie star, and eventually presidential candidate.
Amid the typical tragedies of a Central American Republic—poverty, coups and countercoups, disastrous financial intrigues—are interspersed bouts of high comedy and magical realism: the national sport of Tinieblas is running for president; Kiki at one point in his smuggling career becomes so calloused that he is literally bulletproof; his father runs one election campaign entirely by astrology; conflict over an American military base near the capital of Tinieblas causes a "flag plague" in which activists break out in stinging rashes of their national colors.
"Mandragon" relates the tale of the title character, a Tinieblas native, hermaphrodite, and circus freak who develops genuine powers of psychic healing, telepathy, and prophecy.
The prose abounds with flights of fancy, spectacular allusions to literature, chess terms, world history and theology, along with multiple puns in Spanish and English.
Carmichael's Dog (1992), takes place in a parallel universe wherein the United States is a kingdom, the Army's service pistol is an "Ingersol," and characters quote the poet-playwright Robin Speckshaft, whose works include Launcelot and Guinevere, Ornella Whore of Tunis, and Malaspina Duke of Ancona (the latter’s protagonist has his dwarf strangled for making him smile).
John le Carré thanked Koster in the acknowledgements to his The Tailor of Panama for his great help in providing local history and details.
Larry J. McDowell, author of Alabama Slim: It All Started in Korea, acknowledged, "to Richard Dick Koster of Panama, who wrote and inspired others, who taught me to love literature and who discouraged me from accepting mediocrity in myself— to work to overcome weaknesses, as other professors just told me that I had no talent.