Little Saigon

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank the following people for their generous help in writing this book.

Many thanks to Wendy Asano, whose Saigon Cabaret in Garden Grove, California, served as a great inspiration — anyone who goes there will know why. I would like to thank Wendy, her daughter Rebecca, and son Jeff for hours of hospitality, good music, and good company.

Westminster Police Officer Dennis Gabrielli showed me the streets of Little Saigon and suffered my questioning presence in his patrol car more than once. I hope that his sense of humor and of fair play at least partially found its way into this story.

Detective Marcus Frank of the Westminster P.D., a specialist in Asian-American crime in southern California, was a candid and authoritative source of information.

Garden Grove Police Officer Mark Hutchinson showed me his beat in Little Saigon through the eyes of a young and capable patrolman.

I would also like to thank attorney Carolyn Malone of Immigration Law for taking me under her benevolent wing and introducing me to so many formidable and fascinating members of the refugee community of Orange County.

Thanks too, to the various workers of the National United Front for the Liberation of Vietnam, who spoke to me with openness and hope regarding their efforts to reclaim their homeland. One can only wish them well.

I also thank Donald Stanwood for his incisive reading of this novel in manuscript, and for his unfailingly good advice on what to leave out.

Last but not least, I thank Jared Kieling of St. Martin’s Press, whose guidance was invaluable.

Whatever truth this book contains is theirs; the mistakes and misjudgments are mine alone.

— T. JEFFERSON PARKER

April 1988

Laguna Beach