Those Opulent Days - by Jacquie Pham (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

Jacquie Pham's transportive debut, Those Opulent Days, delivers a classic historical murder mystery centered around the glamor, violence, wealth, and opium of 1920's French-colonial Vietnam that meshes the structural brilliance of Lucy Foley's The Guest List with the historical vitality of Vanessa Chan's The Storm We Made, and the upstairs-downstairs drama of Downton Abbey.

One will lose his mind. One will pay. One will agonize. And one will die.

Duy, Phong, Minh, and Edmond have been best friends since childhood. Now, as young men running their families' formidable businesses, they make up Saigon's most powerful group of friends in 1928 Vietnam's elite society.

Until one of them is murdered.

In a lavish mansion on a hill in Dalat, all four men have gathered for an evening of indulgence, but one of them won't survive the night. Toggling between this fatal night and the six days leading up to it, told from the perspectives of the four men, their mothers, their servants, and their lovers, an intricate web of terror, loyalty, and well-kept secrets begins to unravel.

As the story creeps closer to the murder, and as each character becomes a suspect, the true villain begins to emerge: colonialism, the French occupation of Vietnam, and the massive economic differences that catapult the wealthy into the stratosphere while the poor starve on the streets.

Those Opulent Days is at once both a historical novel of vivid intensity and a classically structured, pitch-perfect murder mystery featuring a robust cast of characters you won't soon forget.

Review Quotes

One of Publishers Weekly & CrimeReads' Most Anticipated Mysteries of the Fall!

"1920s Vietnam is lushly and lovingly described, and its characters vividly realized. Rather than being a mystery, the novel has far more in common with noir: It examines the dark griminess that is part and parcel of the spectrum of humanity."--Ilana Masad, Los Angeles Times

"Well-plotted, with a tangled web of possible outcomes...Pham is a young writer with a lot to offer. She succeeds admirably in laying out an enticing mystery... And by linking it to a faded period of history, presaging the United States' own tragedy in the Vietnam War, she establishes herself as a writer to watch."--Associated Press

"Written in precise, elegant prose, Those Opulent Days explores the many imbalances that wealth, gender, and power wield. While delivering a solid mystery, this novel touches on issues of colonialism, racism, queerness, sexual violence, addiction, and more."--Jenny Bartoy, CrimeReads

"Pham debuts with a memorable and disturbing historical set in French-occupied Vietnam...Pham's prose is lyrical, and her evocation of the period immersive...this is a tense and unique dispatch from a key period in Vietnamese history."--Publishers Weekly

"Debut author Jacquie Pham builds a novel that is both a complex murder mystery and an exploration of the problematic nature of colonization...Those Opulent Days brims with lush detail and characters at once rich, corrupt, and ambitious. It's the best type of historical fiction--a novel that reveals new and nuanced layers of context within the structure of a compelling plot."--Kerry McHugh, Shelf Awareness

"Eerie, atmospheric, and shot through with peril, Those Opulent Days captures six heady, violent days in French-colonial Vietnam that will forever alter the lives of this unforgettable cast of characters. Both a riveting mystery and a moving historical drama, this is a glittering debut." --Kirstin Chen, New York Times bestselling author of Counterfeit

"A compelling and complex portrait of human relationships, desires and failings, set against the beautifully evoked backdrop of colonial Vietnam." --Jane Pek, author of The Verifiers

"A fascinating portrait of French colonial Vietnam, replete with simmering class tensions and murderous consequences. Pham succeeds at evoking an era both grim and glamorous in the service of a mystery that informs as much as it entertains." --Andromeda Romano-Lax, author of The Deepest Lake

"A masterful portrait of the enduring power of friendship and the weight of family--the ones we are born into and the ones we create on our own. Harrowing, suspenseful and beautifully written, Jacquie Pham's debut novel, Those Opulent Days, introduces a stunning new voice in crime fiction."--Danielle Girard, USA Today bestselling author of Up Close

"Pham delivers a lush tale weaved with deceit, friendship, and privilege. The opulent language will entice you in, the mystery will keep you there. What a debut!"--Sharlene Allsop, author of The Great Undoing

"Intricately plotted and full of dark secrets, Jacquie Pham's Those Opulent Days is for lovers of smart and sophisticated crime fiction."--Mirandi Riwoe, author of Sunbirds

About the Author

Jacquie Pham is a Vietnamese-Australian writer of adult fiction. Growing up in Vietnam during the New Korean wave around 2007, Jacquie started writing short stories about Korean boy bands. She then moved to Australia to attend the University of Sydney--not wanting to let 13-year-old Jacquie down, she has decided to pursue a career as an author. She currently lives in Sydney with two very goofy dogs. Don't tell them, but Jacquie also loves cats.