AFTERSHOCKS A Tale of Two Victims

Hardback. On an unseasonably hot, muggy April afternoon in 1977, former marine and combat veteran Louis Dorian Kahan encountered a teenaged girl. She was Vietnamese - the daughter of a Saigonese intellectual, and a refugee from the 1975 collapse of South Vietnam. But in the mind of Louis Kahan, reeling in a long psychotic tailspin, young Le My Hanh was the enemy. Believing he was back in Vietnam, Kahan interrogated her. Then, he raped and strangled her in a quiet Queens, New York neighbourhood, a world away from southeast Asia and years after the cease fire. Another casualty of war was added to the tragic toll. The author explores the facts behind the immediate tragedy. It is a compassionate and compelling journey into the lives of two families - one American, one Vietnamese - who were swept by the horror of war along paths that finally intersected in a shattering moment of violence. The author recreates with remarkable precision the entire spectrum of emotions that tore America apart during its years of agony, and lays bare the residue of guilt which continued to haunt America. The author's powerful account of the human tragedy holds both veteran and refugee in its embrace. A sensitive confrontation with a recent past that cannot be left behind. With Epilogue, Appendix and Bibliog. 241pp. 8vo. h/back. From the library of true crime writer, Wilfred Gregg, with his personal b/plate. Possibly inscribed and signed by the author on half-tp. as inscription reads 'For Joyce, With thanks, David 26 August 82...' Vg. in sl. torn Nr. Vg. dw.