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Title: Caught Dead

Subtitle: A Rick Van Lam Mystery

Author: Andrew Lanh

Narrator: Feodor Chin

Format: Unabridged

Length: 9 hrs and 22 mins

Language: English

Release date: 02-04-15

Publisher: Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Ratings: 3.5 of 5 out of 3 votes

Genres: Mysteries & Thrillers, Suspense

Publisher's Summary:

When one of the beautiful Le sisters is killed, 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 shooting. Her twin sister insists that dutiful Mary wouldn't be caught dead in that drug-infested zone, but the police rule it an unlucky accident. Skeptics hire private eye Rick Van Lam to get to the truth.

Amerasian Rick is one of the bui doi--children of the dust --who are so often rejected by Vietnamese culture. But his young sidekick Hank Nguyen, a pureblood Vietnamese man, 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 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.

Members Reviews:

Slow and predictable

Very slow going.....Characters go from place to place and eat and talk, over and over. Gradually a little more is revealed, and finally the case is solved very predictably.

Five Stars

Great story. Well-written. I couldn't guess 'who dun it'.

Caught Dead

I received a copy of this novel from Poisoned Pen Press in exchange for a review. My copy is an ARC so there is a chance that the subject matter I talk about in this review will not have any relevance to your own copy. That aside I liked this book, the character is from a heritage I'm unfamiliar with, their was a simple yet complex mystery going on, and it's overall pretty well written.

Caught dead is centered around Rick Van Lam, mostly an insurance fraud investigator, until someone in the Vietnamese community is the victim of murder. One of the beautiful Le sisters is dead. The police are ready to just write it off as gang violence but then the other Le sister dies in the exact spot a while later. Now the question is why would these woman go to a place where shooting happen all the time and so far away from their homes? That's when Rick Van Lam officially assigns himself to the case. During the case he uncovers simmering family feuds, jealous children, and racism.

The book immerses you in the Vietnamese culture, from the foods to racism that is an ongoing thing. Our main character refers to himself as a dust boy, because his mother was Vietnamese and his father was a faceless American Soldier. He receives a lot of hatred because of this, but it does give us a better perspective into the culture and to our main character.

Like most mystery books this one will keep you guessing until the end. The one think I didn't like about this is that it gave us a lot of half facts about what was going on. Although we knew when Rick knew so this could attest to being more to be being based on the main character. But still I like having the opportunity to figure it all out for myself.

I liked that our main character was still good friends with his ex-wife.