Return to Dust: A Rick Van Lam Mystery
Andrew Lanh
Poisoned Pen, Oct 6 2015, $26.95
ISBN 9781464204289
In Farmington, Connecticut, house cleaner Marta Kowalski tumbles
off the Farmington River Bridge to her death.
The FPD quickly concludes she committed suicide. Though he detested Marta’s inability to
silently clean his home, Amerasian insurance fraud investigator Rick Van Lam
sends flowers but feels he has no reason to attend the funeral of an
acquaintance he employed.
Marta’s niece Karen Corcoran disagrees with the official cause of
death. She pleads with Rick to
investigate. Even though he knows Karen
has a powerful monetary incentive to get the ruling changed as Marta’s beneficiary,
Rick agrees to look into her aunt’s death.
Inside Marta’s home, Rick finds no evidence of a depressed person, but
instead learns the deceased was a devout Catholic; which makes killing herself
less likely. As he interviews people who
knew Marta, Rick finds many adored and cherished her; while others like her
nephew and a gardener loathed her; but a motive for murder remains elusive.
The second Rick Van Lam investigation (see Caught Dead) is an excellent
Vietnamese-American whodunit in which the sleuthing provides a fabulous look at
the subculture. The strong cast starting
with the late housecleaner turns this into a terrific mystery.
Harriet Klausner
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