Those Opulent Days

One will lose his mind. One will pay. One will agonise. 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 pitch-perfect murder mystery with a cast of characters you won’t soon forget.

PRAISE FOR THOSE OPULENT DAYS

‘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

‘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

‘1920s Vietnam is lushly and lovingly described, and its characters vividly realised. 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.’ – LA Times

‘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

‘This historical crime thriller is rich with heart and mystery, perfect for readers who crave thrillers with more depth.’ – Books+Publishing

‘As a murder mystery it is faultless’ – Artshub

‘a page-turning murder mystery’—Jane Pek, author of The Verifiers