Child of My Winter: A Rick Van Lam Mystery

As much a whydunit as a whodunit, Lanh’s memorable fourth Rick Van Lam mystery (after 2016’s No Good to Cry) finds the Hartford, Conn., insurance-claim PI also working as a part-time instructor in Farmington College’s criminal justice program. The son of a Vietnamese mother and an unknown U.S. soldier, Rick remembers well how it felt to be treated as a social outcast, which is why he decides one day to reach out to a lonely, withdrawn student of Vietnamese heritage, Anh Ky “Dustin” Trang, sitting at a table in the student union. That Dustin rejects Rick’s initial overture doesn’t stop the kindhearted detective from helping the kid when he’s later suspected of murdering a beloved professor. Investigating the crime turns out to be less important than portraying Dustin’s appalling family and the toxic paralysis of Vietnamese refugees who can’t accept that the war has long been over. Lanh (the pseudonym of Ed Ifkovic) excels at creating quirky, complicated characters. (July)