Viet Thanh Nguyen: The Sympathizer, 9781472151360, Corsair (Atlantic Grove) paperback

German: Viet Thanh Nguyen: Der Sympathisant,  9783896675965, Karl Blessing Verlag, Gebunden

Viet Thanh Nguyen’s „The Sympathizer“ won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2016 and several other internationally important literary prizes. It is one of the most unusual books I read all year with the 
potential to become a classic about the Vietnam War and the aftermath years, written from a Vietnamese viewpoint. 

Often the novel feels like an espionage thriller but especially towards the end the book turns into a philosophical, psychological and political reflection on what happens to societies once revolutions, ideologies and uprisings succeed. This was the most brilliant part of the book for me.

I read Nguyen’s follow up first, a book of short stories called “The Refugees”, centering on Vietnamese refugees in the US in particular before reading his debut, loving his exquisite storytelling and language.  The author fled Vietnam with his parents as a young boy and is now a Professor at the University of California.

“The Sympathizers”  I had to read with interruptions not finding it easy at times which was probably due to the fact that his writing is unusual in every  sense requiring dedication and concentration, very few characters appear with real names but most are referred to as “The General”,  “The captain” etc.  with very little direct speech throughout the book. 

The book is a confession by an unnamed narrator, a Vietnamese army captain with divided loyalties. Born to a Vietnamese mother with a French priest as a father, his  rank is with the South Vietnamese army but in secret he belongs to a Viet Cong cell in Saigon working for North Vietnam's victory.  With the fall of Saigon he is told to leave his homeland together with his general on one of the last planes out of Saigon heading for the US.  The descriptions of the fall of Saigon, the agony and misery of those lucky or unlucky enough  to make it having to start a new life in the US with all privileges of their  Vietnamese past gone,  are intense yet often funny.

The almost 500 pages never let up on intensity; they make for riveting reading,  humorous on occassion and at other times difficult to digest.
The description of murder, torture and the brutality of war made me take a deep breath several times.

Having visited Vietnam a few years ago, I knew why I did not want to 
visit the museum of war in Saigon (now Ho Chi Minh City) displaying all the atrocities committed. 
This is a book which will stay with you for some time. Anyone visiting this buzzing, beautiful country still affected by the Vietnam War would do well reading this novel before they leave. 

Cara Hunter: Close to Home, Penguin Viking UK, 9780241283097, paperback, pub date 14. December 2017

Cara Hunter: Sie finden dich nie, Aufbau Verlag, 9783746633589, 17. August 2018

One nightmare of anyone with children is that your child goes missing. This is how this debut crime mystery of Cara Hunter begins; Daisy Mason disappears during a costume party her family is throwing for their neighbors and children under everyone’s watchful eyes. 

Oxford Detective Inspector Adam Fawley and his team are assigned to the case and soon realize that something is utterly wrong with the Mason family.  A mother who is more concerned with her appearance then with what happend to her lost 8 year old, a very disturbed brother Leo and Barry, the father who is falling apart faster than his wife. As DI Fawley starts scratching at the surface of Daisy’s family, more questions popp up than answers.  Is it possible someone in her own family had a motive?

 

Despite Cara Hunter keeping a fast pace flowing between various suspects depending on new findings by the police, I would only give this debut a four star rating.  I was never bored but felt the novel was more of a kind that had been told before.  Perhaps the publisher intended to feed the appetite of readers of this genre with a new author. The ending is good but not totally unexpected as the author did not leave too many possibilities by the time the last chapter arrived. 

Jane Harper: The Dry, 978034914211, Abacus (Little Brown UK), paperback

German edition: Jane Harper: The Dry – Aaron Falk ermittelt, 9783499290268, Rowohlt Paperback

WINNER OF THE CWA GOLD DAGGER AWARD 2017
The Gold Australian Book Industry Award for Book of the Year
Australian Book Industry Award for Fiction Book of the Year

I discovered Jane Harpers breathtaking thriller when checking who had won the Gold Dagger Award 2017 – she did with “The Dry”.  It is hard to believe this is her debut, not too many crime novels set in the Australian hinterland make it into the International publishing circuit taking away major prizes. “The Dry” is not only a superb thriller but a precise, atmospheric portrait of the Australian small town community Kiewarra experiencing a 2 year draught and facing an atrocious killing.  Luke Hadler, a well-liked farmer, shot his wife and child, sparing his baby daughter Charlotte before turning the gun on himself.

Aaron Falk, a financial investigator with the police in Melbourne, returns to Kiewarra for the funeral of his childhood friend Luke in disbelief of what Luke supposedly did.  Barbara and Gerry Hadler, Luke’s parents, beg him to give the closed investigation by the Clyde police a second check for the sake of their old friendship believing their son to be innocent despite incriminating evidence.  Aaron is reluctant wanting to flee his former hometown remembering why he and his father were driven out of town, him an innocent suspect around his girlfriend Ellie Deacon’s drowning death. Gerry Hadler reminds Aaron of the note he mailed to him “Luke lied. You lied. Be at the funeral”.  When Aaron decides to face the past starting his investigation with the financial records of his friend’s farm, he encounters another policemen, Sergeant Greg Raco who is not convinced the official murder investigation is air tight having come up with too many question marks around the case. The two man team up against a farming town full of violent men and an explosive atmosphere fired by economic decline, hate  and suspicion.

What follows is a breathtaking peeling away of layers, every page reveals mysteries and betrayals of the past and present  leading eventually to the truth.  I could not put this book down, the plot and the characters are not only very well drawn out but I did not suspect the outcome, well at least not one. Highly recommend “The Dry”, one of the best thrillers I have read all year.