Martin Love

The Girl from Ha Giang Martin Love

Set in contemporary Vietnam The Girl from Ha Giang is a journey into the complicated culture and history of this ancient country. Marshall McLean, a veteran American journalist, has landed a job at the English-language newspaper in Ha Noi. During an excursion to exotic Ha Long Bay, he meets the captivating Tao, an alluring young Vietnamese woman who seems to know her way around the expatriate community in Ha Noi. McLean soon meets a cast of other characters and becomes embroiled in a tightening web of intrigue and, ultimately, an assassination related to the conflicts in the Middle East. The tale provides an authentic look at what Vietnam is like almost 40 years since the end of what the Viets called the ?American War.?

Not since Graham Greene's The Quiet American in the 1950s, has there been a novel that better captures the ambience of a distinctive nation in a stable time without the burden of foreign interference and control.