the sunlight glared in mustard-colored discs off the roofs of cars curdled air shimmered off the pavement.

The writing is a spare and terse but it often segues into quite beautiful passages. The characters are very well developed and Sanchez depicts Lowell, a city fallen from its former glory, its culture clashes, its hidden gangs, and the violence generated by greed and power, to bring the book to life. And Sam-a man in between-has his own issues finding acceptance in his adopted country his father-in-law is openly hostile toward him and makes it clear he wishes his daughter had married someone else. Although Sambath is one of them, speaks their language, knows their customs, and the pain of their past, he is also set apart. The case will take him back to the ghosts of his childhood and the nightmares of torture, repressive regimes, and the brutal death of his parents and his sister.īob Sanchez, author of two other crime novels, writes in tight prose, probing criminal elements of the Cambodian community in Lowell and the underlying distrust they have for police and the government in general.

Now, Sam is tasked with finding the perpetrator of a murder of a Cambodian landlord. He is also a refugee who fled the killing fields of Cambodia for a better life in America. Sambath 'Sam' Long is a devoted father, a husband, and a homicide detective working in Lowell, Massachusetts. (This review originally appeared on Amazon.) You'll be turning the pages long into the night. Long's beliefs in who he is and in the laws he upholds are challenged in a gut-wrenching way. His committment to solving the crime leads to his family being attacked. Now working in Lowell, Massachusetts, Detective Long is faced with solving the murder of a man he believes tortured and killed countless of his countrymen. One-third of the population of Cambodia was murdered during those years and Long's experience makes the tragedy a vivid reality for the reader. No simple who-dun-it, Little Mountain immerses the reader in the horror of the communist death camps where now Detective Sambeth Long watched Comrade Bin burn his father to death. For example, the opening line, 'Viseth Kim took a long last drag and filled his lungs with smoke,' signals the tone of this murder mystery, a haunting book that unnerves and bites at the soul. Bob Sanchez, author of Little Mountain, writes with a sharp cadence that reflects the harsh refugee community where the Cambodian residents live with the brutality of their past and the continuing violence that is their present.

Little Mountain by Bob Sanchez