Review: ALL THAT'S LEFT UNSAID, Tracey Lien

• 
  This edition made available as an e-book by my local library on Libby
  
• Published by Harper Collins 2022
• ISBN: 9780008547080
• ISBN 10: 0008547084
• Pages: 352
• Reading guide
  

Synopsis (publisher)

There were a dozen witnesses to Denny Tran’s brutal murder in a busy Sydney restaurant. So how come no one saw anything?

‘Just let him go.’ Those are words Ky Tran will forever regret. The words she spoke when her parents called to ask if they should let her younger brother Denny out to celebrate his high school graduation. That night in 1996, Denny – optimistic, guileless, brilliant Denny – is brutally murdered inside a busy restaurant in Cabramatta, a Sydney suburb facing violent crime, an indifferent police force, and the worst heroin epidemic in Australian history.

Returning home for the funeral, Ky learns that the police are stumped by her brother’s case: several people were at Lucky 8 restaurant when Denny died, but each of the bystanders claim to have seen nothing.

As an antidote to grief and guilt, Ky is determined to track down the witnesses herself. With each encounter, she peels away another layer of the place that shaped her and Denny,exposing the trauma and seeds of violence that were planted well before that fateful celebration dinner: by colonialism, by the war in Vietnam,and by the choices they’ve all made to survive.

Tracey Lien's extraordinary debut pulls apart the intricate bonds of friendship, family, culture and community that produced a devastating crime. All That's Left Unsaid is both a study of the effects of inherited trauma and social discrimination, and a compulsively readable literary thriller that expertly holds the reader in its grip until the final page.

My Take

When Ky Tran finds that her parents have no idea how or why her baby brother Denny was killed, that they had refused an autopsy, and that all of those present at the time claim to have seen nothing, she is determined to conduct her own investigation.

Ky is a journalist, and her profession and her own guilt about the way she has left her brother to his own devices, push her to track down those present at Denny's death, convinced that she must be able to work out what actually happened even if the police can't. 

At the same time we are filled in on how Ky and her brother were raised, the cultural values important to them and their parents, and the effects of living in Cabramatta. 

The result is an unusual crime fiction debut novel, raising issues that most Australian readers have never thought about.

My rating: 4.8

About the author
Tracey Lien was born and raised in southwestern Sydney, Australia. She earned her MFA at the University of Kansas and was previously a reporter for the Los Angeles Times. She lives in Brooklyn, New York. All That’s Left Unsaid is her first novel.