No Good to Cry: A Rick Van Lam Mystery

In Lanh’s absorbing if uneven third mystery featuring Hartford, Conn., PI Rick Van Lam (after 2015’s Return to Dust), Rick’s 70-something business partner, Jimmy Gadowicz, is attacked by a thuggish pair of teens. One of the accused is Simon Tran, the son of Mike Tran, a fellow outcast from Rick’s orphanage days, who was brutally stigmatized as the child of a black GI father and a Vietnamese mother. Hoping to clear Simon’s name, Rick probes the fault lines of the Tran children—rebellious Simon, beautiful and emotionally erratic Hazel, resentful and reclusive Wilson, and aloof Michael—all caught in the wake of their father’s striving to make it in America. Lanh (the pen name of Ed Ifkovic) makes an empathetic if jumbled foray into the legacy of war and immigration and the intricate, contradictory shapes of familial love, but the mystery itself unfolds haphazardly. Rick’s investigation technique consists of equal portions of luck and leisurely chats, and the final revelation lacks punch. (July)