The Bottom Line: RHINO is a luminous debut thriller that is terrifying, deeply atmospheric and morally fearless.
RHINO begins in Hanoi, where Linh Tran, a promising young scientist and devoted daughter to 55-year-old oncologist Dr. Minh Tran, faces the quiet terror of her father’s cancer. Debut novelist Paul Smith delivers his first dose of heartbreaking irony as Dr. Tran struggles to communicate the steps to treat his own patient’s breast cancer. Soon after, daughter Linh searches for cures late into the night.
She soon encounters a potential solution that is too powerful to ignore – the age-old claim that powdered rhino horn can heal that which is otherwise incurable. For Linh, this potential lifeline is bound in secrecy, personal peril and the iron grip of organized crime. In the early going, Linh is confronted by whispers, threats and half-seen dangers, never certain whom to trust. These early chapters, where the stakes are deeply personal but tinged with something larger, are among the book’s strongest. Smith layers dread throughout with subtle cues: a masked intruder rifling through Linh’s home, a chilling warning dropped at a lecture, the way her father’s illness seems both natural and orchestrated. In the process, Smith draws us into Linh’s understandable paranoia.
Smith’s memorable villain, trafficker Khanh Pham, demands more than simply money. In one of the book’s most gripping scenes, he demands that Linh do the unthinkable while forcing her to cross moral boundaries: “You want rhino horn to save your father, but loyalty must be proven first…Do you seek your father’s salvation or do you cling to your morals?”
Elsewhere, Smith’s supporting cast is nearly as intriguing. Nguyen Vu and Inspector Hoang Le, investigators enmeshed in the fight against trafficking, deliver cautious pragmatism that contrasts with Linh’s desperation. Mai, Linh’s closest friend, functions as a warm and watchful counterpoint.
Smith roots the narrative in the fierce love between father and daughter while exposing the rot of systems that profit from desperation. In execution, Smith’s prose balances immediacy with atmosphere: a hospital room buzzing with fluorescent sterility, the clammy air of black-market warehouses, rain-slicked Hanoi streets where danger clings to every shadow. While a pure joy to read, the book’s strongest aspect is actually the way it refuses to deliver easy answers. Instead, Smith compels readers to sit with discomfort. What would you risk to save a loved one? The novel offers plenty of suspense and drama, as well as the unsettling reminder that every choice, no matter how well-intentioned, carries a cost.
