Caught Dead
A Rick Van Lam Mystery
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- 169,00 kr
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- 169,00 kr
Publisher Description
One of the beautiful Le sisters is dead. Hartford, Connecticut's small Vietnamese community is stunned. Mary Le Vu, wife of a poor grocery-store owner, is gunned down in a drive-by. Her twin sister insists dutiful Mary "wouldn't be caught dead" in that drug-infested zone. The police rule it an unlucky accident. Skeptics hire private eye Rick Van Lam to get to the truth. Amerasian Rick—his father an unknown US soldier—is one of the Bui Doi, children of the dust, so often rejected by Vietnamese culture. But his young sidekick, Hank Nguyen, a pureblood Vietnamese, can help Rick navigate the closed world of Little Saigon.
Surrounded by close friends—a former-Rockette landlady, his crusty mentor, and his ex-wife Liz—Rick immerses himself in a world that rejects him, but now needs his help. Especially when a second murder strikes in Little Saigon. Rick and Hank delve into the families of the Le sisters, one poor, one very rich, and uncover a world of explosive ethnic tension and sinister criminal activity ranging from Hartford's exclusive white suburbs to the impoverished inner city. To solve the murders—and bring closure to Mary's grieving circle—Rick looks to long-buried memories of his Buddhist childhood for the wisdom that will lead him to a murderer. Caught Dead starts a smart, unusual series.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
At the outset of this masterful series debut from Lahn (the pseudonym of Ed Ifkovic, author of Final Curtain and four other Edna Ferber mysteries), set in Hartford, Conn., Hank Nguyen begs his former professor, insurance fraud investigator Rick Van Lam, to take a look at the drive-by shooting of his relative, Mary Le Vu, who was known as one of the local Vietnamese community's "beautiful Le sisters." While the Hartford police are convinced Mary's death was just collateral damage in a gang war, Rick insists that the solution must lie in the lives of the first- and second-generation immigrants in her family. The Le family members initially seem to fit into obvious molds the spoiled heiress, the grieving widower, the conservative immigrant parents but Lanh expertly avoids stereotypes. Each character proves to be a richly drawn enigma. Indeed, Rick's exploration of the Le family is so engaging that readers may forget about the mystery itself. Lanh's faithful portrayal of the complexity of the human experience demonstrates that people, with their secrets and devious motives, are the most captivating mysteries of all.
