White Tiger

by Michael Allen Dymmoch

Book Overview

John Thinnes, a detective on the Chicago police force, and Jack Caleb, a well-known psychiatrist, were friends---unlikely friends, maybe, with very different lives, but men who liked and respected each other. And they had one significant experience in common: Both had been "in country" in Vietnam during the war. Their "labels" were different---Thinnes had been in the military police, Caleb a medic, a conscientious objector who chose to fight with...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0312323026
• ISBN13: 9780312323028
• Release Date: November 2005
• Publisher: Minotaur Books
• Length: 311 Pages
• Weight: 1.10 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.1" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

Dymmoch writing superbly, as one might expect.

Police Detective John Thinnes is stunned when he realizes that the middle-aged Vietnamese murder victim is someone he knows - the wife of his best friend in Viet Nam, a man named Bobby Lee. Her son, Tien Lee, who teaches Tae Kwan Do, identifies the woman. Thinnes is quite surprised to find out that Bobby Lee and Hue had a son, since Bobby Lee had, literally, gotten his balls shot off in the war. Someone wants Thinnes off the case; they claim that there is conflict of interest because Tien Lee is Thinnes's son. Tien Lee won't do the DNA test that would decide the issue once and for all. The whole case gives Thinnes a bad feeling; he's hard put to say whether it's because of the weather, which is as hot and humid as Viet Nam was, or because the case brings back unpleasant memories. Dr. Jack Caleb is dealing with his own demons and those of other vets in his group therapy sessions for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. The case and his group eventually intersect, with Thinnes and Caleb helping each other. WHITE TIGER deals with Thinnes's ancient history as well as problems surfacing in his contemporary life. Dymmoch is a master at making those tenuous connections between then and now, at sketching in the tiny details that reveal the relationships and how they reach out to tweak today's world. WHITE TIGER is a masterful continuation of a series which just keeps getting better and better.

interesting thriller

Chicago Police Detective John Thinnes investigates the murder of a Vietnamese-American starting with interviewing the woman's son Tien Lee. At the morgue, John recognizes the naked victim having lived in her Saigon apartment for six months back in 1972; Hue Ann was the wife of his friend Bobby who apparently died five years ago. The brass pulls John off the case due to the obvious conflict of interest. An anonymous tipster claims John is Tien's biological father though the cop is certain that he never slept with his buddy's wife except maybe when he got drunk celebrating the marriage; that evening he remembers nothing else. Additionally Bobby was unable to sire a child. Adding to John's need to get involved is that the dangerously amoral former Saigon gang leader White Tiger has opened shop in Chicago allegedly seeking to avenge the homicide of a prostitute Jasmine back in `72 though the detective believes that is a Little Saigon cover for this thug's real deadly activities. Rotating perspectives between Thinnes and his friend psychiatrist Jack Caleb, who was also in country in 1972 enable readers to obtain a deep look at the horrors and aftermath of the Viet Nam War. Both vets try to forget what they saw and did, but vivid gruesome flashbacks do not allow one to escape their past. The murder of Hue and the word on the Little Saigon streets of the White Tiger preying on everyone add to John and Jack looking back especially the cop's need to know what happened the night Bobby married. The current police procedural never takes charge as it serves more as a window to a past everyone wants to forget, but cannot. Harriet Klausner