Reviewed By: Carl Brookins - RAM
The White Tiger
Amazon US HC Amazon Canada HC
Michael Allen Dymmoch
Class/Genre: Mystery Thriller Police Procedural
Series: Thinnes/Caleb # 5
St. Martin's Minotaur, Hardcover 308 pages, $24.95
It is difficult, even for a careful and dedicated writer to take a very controversial and contentious subject like the Viet Nam war and write a good, viscerally enjoyable novel about it. Dymoch has done exactly that. Her principal characters in her detective novels are John Thinnes, a Chicago cop and Doctor Jack Caleb, a psychologist. They both did tours in Viet Nam. While Thinnes was overseas, a marauding, vicious killer, nicknamed White Tiger, was active in Saigon. Thinnes knows the killer's work and the death of a Vietnamese woman has this killer's mark. Thinnes knows it, but he's abruptly yanked from the case because of an apparent conflict of interest. It puts him on the sidelines, adding to his frustration because he discovers he badly still wants this killer.
Shut out of direct involvement, Thinnes turns to the support groups of vets, hoping their recollections will help him identify the killer and the motives. Dymoch uses Thinnes as a guide to the memories as the book moves back and forth in time between the war in Southeast Asia, the ongoing police investigation among resettled Vietnamese immigrants to Chicago, and the sometimes tortured revelations of a group of veterans in therapy sessions.
Couched in the language and the rhythms of that time, Dymoch has crafted a novel of rising frustration and tension with many twists and turns in a community in which almost nothing is what it seems. Authentic, brutal, even beautiful at times, this is a novel to savor.
Carl Brookins - RAM
Reprinted with permission. Do Not repost without permission from the author, Carl Brookins - RAM
Please visit Carl's website at http://www.carlbrookins.com/
If you enjoy this website, a link would be appreciated. |