The Heaven Stone by David Daniel (St. Martin's Press)
The Heaven Stone by David Daniel won the 1993 St. Martin’s Press / PWA Best First Private Eye Novel contest. Set in the mill town of Lowell, Massachusetts, it is the first in a series featuring ex-cop turned private eye Alex Rasmussen. During the time of the Cambodian genocide, Lowell accepted an influx of Cambodian refugees and currently boasts one of the largest Cambodian-American communities in the nation, second only to Long Beach, California.
Bhuntan Tran, one of the refugees from Cambodia, was found ded in his own home. The local police believe it’s an open and shut case of a drug deal gone wrong as they found some cocaine at Tran’s house. However, Ada Stewart, a Chinese-American social worker, has doubts about the official report. She works with the refugee community and knows that Tran was holding down two jobs and had recently moved into his new house. She believes Tran was a model citizen and cannot accept that Tran was involved in anything illegal. She hires Rasmussen to further investigate the cause of Tran’s death.
Rasmussen had worked on the force for eight years before an unfortunate incident found him on the outs with internal affairs. This led him to resigning from the force and becoming a private eye. Thankfully, he still has friends on the force who sometimes give him a helping hand.
Ramussen’s former colleague and friend told him the killing was done execution-style and may have been a professional hit with two shots to the back of the head at point blank range. This information makes Rasmussen uneasy. “Nothing takes heat off a killing—and therefore the police—like calling it gangland.” “Folks figure, Hey, play with fire you get burnt, victim probably got his due.”
Tran was the only one of his family to survive the “Killing Fields'' of Cambodia. It was with the help of a non-governmental organization Tran was given the chance to leave the refugee camp in Thailand and start a new life in the U.S. Tran’s neighbors and employers said he was a hard-working, law-abiding citizen; they did not believe he was involved with drugs.
The deeper Rasmussen digs into the case, the less likely he is inclined to believe in the official police report. He also discovers that many Cambodians had hidden their family treasures and often used them to cut through the red tape and make their way to the land of opportunity. This is a story of the American Dream becoming an American Nightmare.
David Daniel is a fresh voice in the hard-boiled mystery genre. His story will appeal to fans of Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett as Alex Rasmussen joins the ranks of Sam Spade and Philip Marlowe. The story Rasmussen narrates keeps you guessing throughout as you try to determine who the killer is and what his motives were. And what exactly is the “heaven stone”? How does the “heaven stone” relate to the Cambodian community? You will be inclined to return to Lowell, Massachusetts by the time you are done reading. ~Ernie Hoyt