Back Bay Blues
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
Theft, greed, and corruption collide in Peter Colt’s hard-edged mystery featuring Vietnam veteran turned Boston P.I. Andy Roark.
1985, Boston. In Vietnam, Andy Roark witnessed death and horrifying destruction. But for the soldiers who made it back alive, there are other casualties of war—the loss of tenderness, trust, and connection. Still feeling adrift, Andy has struck up a welcome friendship with Nguyen, a Vietnamese restaurant owner. Sipping beer and trading memories after the restaurant shutters, Andy gradually learns of the extraordinary lengths Nguyen took to flee Saigon shortly after its fall.
Andy’s latest case, too, has ties to Vietnam. His new client, a young Vietnamese woman, hires him to investigate her uncle’s murder. Andy discovers a connection to a group of refugees determined to overthrow the communist government—and extorting local business owners to raise funds. The search for more answers takes Andy to D.C. and San Francisco, and into a web of political and personal betrayal. For near the heart of this mystery is a link to Nguyen’s daring escape. Decades have passed, but sometimes the price of freedom twists allies into enemies, loyalties into betrayals, and truth into lies . . .
“Excellent. . . . Colt makes his wounded lead sympathetic, and balances a gripping plot with further development of Roark’s character. Jeremiah Healy fans looking for a new Beantown hero will be eager for more.”
—Publishers Weekly, STARRED REVIEW
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Set in 1985, Colt's excellent second hard-boiled mystery featuring Boston PI Andy Roark (after 2019's The Off-Islander) finds Roark, a Vietnam War vet still traumatized by his combat experiences, supporting himself with routine investigations, until Thuy Duong brings him the case of her journalist uncle, Hieu, a shooting victim. While the police have treated the murder as a botched mugging, Thuy believes Hieu was gunned down because of his reporting. Hieu was critical of the work of the Committee, an anti-communist group opposed to the Vietnamese regime. He'd told his newspaper colleagues that he believed that the Committee was fraudulent and was ripping off the Boston Vietnamese community rather than advancing its political agenda. Duong also suspects that her uncle's death is related to the recent fatal stabbing of a Vietnamese businessman. The nature of the case inevitably reawakens some of Roark's demons as he doggedly searches for the truth. Colt makes his wounded lead sympathetic, and balances a gripping plot with further development of Roark's character. Jeremiah Healy fans looking for a new Beantown hero will be eager for more.
