Book Review : Dragonfish // Vu Tran

Synopsis :

Robert, an Oakland cop, still can't let go of Suzy, the enigmatic Vietnamese wife who left him two years ago. Now she's disappeared from her new husband, Sonny, a violent Vietnamese smuggler and gambler who's blackmailing Robert into finding her for him. As he pursues her through the sleek and seamy gambling dens of Las Vegas, shadowed by Sonny's sadistic son, "Junior," and assisted by unexpected and reluctant allies, Robert learns more about his ex-wife than he ever did during their marriage. He finds himself chasing the ghosts of her past, one that reaches back to a refugee camp in Malaysia after the fall of Saigon, as his investigation soon uncovers the existence of an elusive packet of her secret letters to someone she left behind long ago. Although Robert starts illuminating the dark corners of Suzy’s life, the legacy of her sins threatens to immolate them all.

Rate : 4.5 / 5 ⭐

Review :

❝It's just the way of memory and loss. we never truly forget the things that have passed out of our lives. we merely move further away from them in time, until they become either less important than they actually were or more profound than we might have ever imagined.❞
- Vu Tran

I was completely clueless about this book when I dove in except for the fact that there is a woman missing and the current husband seeks out the ex-husband to help him find her.

But of course, not everything is as it seems and the current husband, Sonny, is having another motive to find his wife, Hong (the main protagonist, Robert, calls her Suzy).

In terms of plot and storyline, it was open ended. This was sort of foreshadowed in the book. I thought I might get annoyed because of it but I preferred the ending this way mainly because I didn’t really want the thing to happen. (The thing being called the thing because I don’t want to spoil anything). The story was paced good and the some of the twists were unexpected.

In terms of characters, they were raw and real and unnerving. I loved how Vu Tran wrote his characters in a way where you could relate to their situation even though I will never really have found myself in a situation like that in the first place. The narration was mostly done by Robert and in merges well with the letters written by Suzy before she goes missing. It overlaps so where Robert is confused about his wife and her peculiar actions, she explains in her letters of her past on how she came to be who she is now.

But there were certain things that I wasn't a big fan of. One, as I mentioned earlier Robert, a white American man, calls her Suzy instead of her real name Hong. Apparently it sounds 'piggish' to him. I also did not like how he stereotyped Asian woman saying that she smelt like shrimp paste and would always whimper in bed like how Asian woman do. What it implied left a bad feeling.

 But other than that the book was great, had a nice mystery and gave a noir vibe (sort of).

With Love,

picture credits : mine

synopsis : from goodreads