"Totenkranz" Who would have thought Hanoi could be such a good setting for a film noir?

• Main Author: Britta Schmitz
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Arbeitsgemeinschaft für Pazifische Studien e.V. 2017-02-01
• Series: Pacific Geographies
• Online Access: http://pacific-geographies.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/07/PG47_Page_22_23_SCHMITZ.pdf

End of January in Hanoi: the Tet-festival – Vietnam’s New Year’s celebration – has brought a pause to the usual hustle and bustle in the city. People have left the capital and returned to their home villages. Even the police headquarters is deserted. This is the only reason why political commissar Hung calls criminal detective Pham Van Ly, who had been suspended from duty 10 months before. An old woman was found dead on a construction site. Only a few hours later a Chinese real estate investor dies from what looks like food poisoning. What first seem to be unrelated incidents turn out to be a series of murders with the killer leaving a track of mysterious funeral wreaths. Ly jumps at the chance for this case as he sees it as the only way to get his suspension lifted. His investigations lead quickly into the corruption and nepotism related to Vietnam’s real estate market. And while the grumpy detective with a taste for Thang Long cigarettes and beer is solving the case, the reader travels into the dark side of Vietnamese society with its corrupt officials, poor farmers and ruthless property sharks from China.