Dragonfish

Starred review from June 8, 2015
Tran’s thriller debut revolves around an elusive woman who seems lost in her own private—and haunted—world. Robert Ruen is an Oakland, Calif., police officer whose Vietnamese ex-wife, Suzy, has remarried a shady Las Vegan gambler named Sonny Van Nguyen, a figure with whom she shares a distant past. When Suzy disappears, Ruen is strong-armed by Sonny’s son, Junior, to help track down the woman Ruen never really knew. His search transpires in a wonderfully noirish Las Vegas, including second-tier casinos and strip-mall restaurants concealing underground aquariums stocked with illegal and exotic creatures—the titular dragonfish among them. Interspersed with Ruen’s quest is Suzy’s own first-person narrative about fleeing with her daughter war-torn Vietnam by boat for a Malaysian refugee camp. These long sections, addressed to the daughter she abandoned upon reaching the States, occasionally interrupt the novel’s momentum. However, they also feature the strongest writing and elegantly reveal the roots of Suzy’s mercurial behavior: “Everything that has happened since seems a shadow of what happened there.” This is a most enjoyable mystery, from its distinct, dazzling premise all the way to its satisfying conclusion.

Starred review from September 28, 2015
In Tran’s striking debut crime novel, Oakland, Calif., cop Robert Ruen could be a poster boy for noir fiction. A few years before the story begins, his Vietnamese wife, Suzy, suddenly deserted him for no apparent reason. He eventually found her in Las Vegas, living with Sonny Van Nguyen, a shady but obviously successful Vietnamese smuggler, gambler, and restaurateur. The novel begins with his being visited by minions of Sonny’s cool, sinister son, Junior. Suzy has disappeared and Junior, using threats, forces the detective to return to Sin City to search for her. This part of the thriller is narrated by Ruen, with reader Taylorson catching every rise and fall of his emotional thrill ride, notably his fear of Sonny and Junior, and his desire to help Suzy at any cost. The Chicago-based voice actor imparts a deadly seriousness to Sonny’s shifting, excessive moods and adds a silkiness to Junior’s emotionless demands; he is also convincing in his subtle Vietnamese inflections. Ruen’s narration is interrupted by segments from Suzy’s secret letters, written to the daughter she was forced to abandon at a point in her tumultuous past. These sad, yet lyrically penned missives are gracefully and passionately performed by reader Wu. Ruen’s story gives the book top crime credentials, but it’s Suzy’s letters, lovingly rendered by Wu, that lift it above its genre trappings. A Norton hardcover.