Those Opulent Days

De: Jacquie Pham

Narrado por: Ryan Do, Graham Halstead, David Lee Huynh, Saskia Maarleveld, Quyen Ngo, Vyvy Nguyen, Trieu Tran

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.

©2024 Jacquie Pham (P)2024 Simon & Schuster Audio

Couldn't connect with Those Opulent Days

Set in Vietnam during the French colonial period, this novel initially drew me in with its evocative historical backdrop. The author vividly captures the era’s social hierarchies, contrasting the lives of entitled Vietnamese elites, French colonialists, and the marginalized servants who navigate their world from the periphery. While the servants are portrayed with sympathy and nuance, their roles remain secondary to the story’s focus.

The central characters are complex but largely unlikable, their actions and motivations shaped by privilege and power. Although this choice may be intentional—reflecting the moral ambiguities and tensions of colonial society—the unrelenting negativity of their arcs made it difficult for me to connect or invest emotionally in their journeys. I found myself hoping for moments of redemption or transformation, but the narrative’s persistent bleakness ultimately tested my patience.

Readers who appreciate novels that explore the darker facets of human nature and society may find value in the author’s uncompromising approach. However, those seeking more hopeful or redemptive character arcs might struggle with the relentless tone. Ultimately, while the novel offers a vivid portrait of a turbulent era, its emotional distance and focus on flawed protagonists made it a challenging read for me