No Good to Cry

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.--Kirkus Reviews 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.--Goodreads 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.--Booklist 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.--Joe Hartlaub The Book Reporter No Good to Cry takes a new and fresh look at crime and those who want to change the course of a life.--Mary Ann Smyth BookLoons