About the Book
On a sunny afternoon in Hartford, Connecticut, PI Rick Van Lam's Vietnam-vet mentor and partner, Jimmy, and Jimmy's old army pal, Ralph, are attacked as they walk down a city sidewalk. Ralph is killed, and Jimmy, backing up, is struck by a car. While the battered Jimmy is under the care of Rick's landlord and friend, Gracie, where an improbable romance seems to be blooming, Rick finds himself in a quandary-he's asked to clear the name of the two attackers named by the police. One is a boy named Simon Tran, known as Saigon; the other, Simon's buddy, Frankie Croix.
Rick himself is a bui doi or child of dust, meaning the child of a Vietnamese mother and an American GI father. Leading a life of disdain and torment in a Ho Chi Minh City orphanage as a child, a battered Rick turned on a newly arrived child of dust, a more despised case- a boy who was the son of a Vietnamese mother and a black GI. He's still ashamed of how savagely pleased he was to have another boy become the new target for mistreatment, someone the Vietnamese community viewed as even lower than him.
Years later, in Hartford, Rick has to grapple with that troubling childhood memory because Simon is the son of the same bui doi, Mike Tran. Mike is a hard-working, decent man. Despite the difficulties of being Amerasian, he embodies the American Dream- a house, a loving wife, and exemplary children-students at prestigious private schools and colleges. Except for Simon, who seems hell-bent on a life of crime.
Working with Hank Nguyen, a young colleague now a state-cop-intraining, Rick tracks Simon to a Vietnamese gang in Little Saigon. How can he not strive to save Simon and Frankie, boys who refuse to be saved? And who may be facing not just murder charges but becoming victims in a vicious gangland war?
A unique investigator in a crowded field, Rick's cases both surprise you, and wring your heart.
About the Author :
Andrew Lanh lives in West Hartford, Connecticut. He is the author of two previous Rick Van Lam mysteries, Caught Dead (2014) and Return to Dust (2015). His works explore the little-known Vietnamese community in Hartford, Connecticut.
Review :
The best in the series yet! What I love about Rick Van Lam mysteries is the human factor, the understanding of complicated lives without any judging, just seeing them as they are with a more than a bit of caring for them.
Can solving a tough case expiate a detective's private sins?~~~Years before resigning from the NYPD and moving to Hartford, where he works insurance fraud cases with Jimmy Gadowicz, Rick van Lam spent many of his early years in an orphanage in Ho Chi Minh City, where, as an Amerasian, he was treated as a foreign devil by the nuns and the other orphans. When an orphan of even lower caste—his father was black—arrived, Rick, to his everlasting shame, joined in the taunting and beating. Now Rick's friendship with aspiring State Trooper Hank Nguyen, whose family treats him as another son, has helped him establish a relationship with the Hartford Vietnamese community. When Jimmy is injured and his friend killed after they're mugged by two street kids, one white, the other Asian, in hoodies, Rick agrees to try to prove that Mike Tran's son Simon, aka "Saigon Kid," and his white buddy Frankie weren't involved. Mike is a half-black Vietnamese who works hard and drives his children to attain success. All have won scholarships to prestigious private schools and strive to achieve the highest grades—all but rebellious Simon, who's already served time in juvie. Despite Simon's connection to street gangs, Rick believes him when he claims that he and Frankie are innocent. Meantime, Rick's ex-wife, Liz, has also become involved in the Tran family drama by mentoring their daughter Hazel, a beauty controlled by a preppie boyfriend who's both verbally and physically abusive.~~~Determined to get to the bottom of the attacks on a growing number of victims, Rick must delve deeply into the dynamics of a family whose problems bring back unwelcome memories of his childhood.~~~Lanh (Return to Dust, 2015, etc.) poses an excellent mystery with a surprising twist while exploring the psychological scars inflicted by a war long ago.
Two elderly gentlemen walking along a sidewalk in Hartford, Connecticut, are attacked from behind. One of them dies. The survivor owns the detective agency Rick Van Lam works for, and Van Lam is asked to find out what happened and who's responsible. Two teenage boys appear to be the culprits, playing the cruel knockout game, coming at old guys and punching them in the head. Skeptical PI Lam suspects there was more going on. Author Lanh manages to get 300 pages out of this mini-mystery by turning it into an examination of a Vietnamese family's struggles in America. Interestingly, the family turns out to be a recognizable version of miserable families anywhere. Father so pressures the kids to succeed that one retreats into airy aestheticism and the other—a mugging suspect—is drawn to the gangs, and the beautiful daughter falls for a boy who is definitely not good for her. The lack of crime-story tension in this long section may lose some readers, but those who hang on will be rewarded both by the richness of the family story and by a furious, suspenseful finale.
Andrew Lanh is a terrific storyteller. His prose style eschews multiple bells and whistles, but his plots are straightforward, his mysteries plausible, and --- perhaps most importantly --- he makes you care about things and events that may have been off your radar. This is an author and a series to watch and read carefully.
No Good to Cry takes a new and fresh look at crime and those who want to change the course of a life.
