Dragonfish

Starred review from June 8, 2015
Tran’s thriller debut revolves around an elusive woman who seems lost in her own private—and haunted—world. Robert Ruen is an Oakland, Calif., police officer whose Vietnamese ex-wife, Suzy, has remarried a shady Las Vegan gambler named Sonny Van Nguyen, a figure with whom she shares a distant past. When Suzy disappears, Ruen is strong-armed by Sonny’s son, Junior, to help track down the woman Ruen never really knew. His search transpires in a wonderfully noirish Las Vegas, including second-tier casinos and strip-mall restaurants concealing underground aquariums stocked with illegal and exotic creatures—the titular dragonfish among them. Interspersed with Ruen’s quest is Suzy’s own first-person narrative about fleeing with her daughter war-torn Vietnam by boat for a Malaysian refugee camp. These long sections, addressed to the daughter she abandoned upon reaching the States, occasionally interrupt the novel’s momentum. However, they also feature the strongest writing and elegantly reveal the roots of Suzy’s mercurial behavior: “Everything that has happened since seems a shadow of what happened there.” This is a most enjoyable mystery, from its distinct, dazzling premise all the way to its satisfying conclusion.

Narrator Tom Taylorson's deep, sombre voice suits this gritty story, which wends from Las Vegas to Vietnam, then Malaysia, and back to the U.S. Robert Ruen is the standard jaded cop at the center of this noir. His past keeps coming back to haunt him. Suzy, his missing Vietnamese ex-wife, must be found, for her sake as well as his. Taylorson switches believably between the American main character and the supporting cast of Vietnamese hit men. His renditions of accented English add to the ambiance of non-native speakers, which is essential to these characters. Through his precise, insistent pace, the listener is drawn into the danger, shifting settings, and multicultural history at the heart of the story. M.R. © AudioFile 2015, Portland, Maine