This Is a Bust

What I really liked about this book is when you're reading it, you can really see Chinatown in the time period of the 70's. A lot of people have been to Chinatown, but aside from eating there, we usually know nothing about the people. After reading this, I got a really good sense of the community of Chinatown. The main character, Robert Chow, is a policeman, but he's been assigned to Chinatown for the fact that he's Chinese. The police force sends him to do all the public events such as restaurant openings. He's the face of the police department in Chinatown with no real hope of advancing to the role of a detective so he feels stuck in this position. He hates what he does so he's a raging alcoholic. Even though Chow was able to figure out the killer in a case that the NYPD dismissed, he's still more viable to the department as a friendly Asian face than as a detective. The protagonist is an immensely interesting character - not your typical hero. He's not a likable person, but he draws you in nevertheless. I highly recommend this book. It has a dark feel to it, but the author, Ed Lin, takes you to the underside of Chinatown beyond the gift shops and restaurants that you won't soon forget.

Ed Lin's protagonist, Robert Chow, an American-born Chinese police officer who grew up in New York's Chinatown, not only speaks but also reads Chinese, and served in the U.S. military in Vietnam is a unique and complex character and a valuable addition to the body of Asian-, or more specifically, Chinese-American fiction. A must-read for those with an interest in Asian-American literature. My thanks to the Angry Asian Man blog ([...]) for pointing me to Mr. Lin's writing.

There's a murder, or at least a dead woman, in Linn's second novel, and it shapes the plot, while remaining almost incidental. It's 1976 and NYPD beat cop Robert Chow is a 25-year-old Vietnam vet. His beat is Chinatown, the last place he wanted to be assigned, and he sees his career stretching pointlessly ahead of him in a series of community relations appearances. His old partner and only real friend, Vandyne, a black detective who is also a Vietnam vet, has moved on to the detective squad, but Chow is more useful as the token Chinese cop in Chinatown. Or so it seems at first. Narrator Chow is not wholly reliable. Lonely and disillusioned, he drinks in his off-hours. Then we learn that he drinks when he gets up in the morning. The bottles proliferate. He has blackouts. He tries not to drink hard liquor because he doesn't like to recap a bottle once it's opened, doesn't like to leave it until it's finished. Officer Chow has a problem with his temper too. He's quick with his fists and not very choosy - teenagers, tourists, fellow cops - violence scratches that resentful itch, at least momentarily. To the modern, enlightened reader it seems obvious Chow is suffering from what will later be called post traumatic stress syndrome. But, wait, not so fast. Just when we begin to sympathize with Chow for the help he's not getting, Lin lets us know Chow was always a loose cannon. As a teen he played hockey with PAL, the Police Athletic League. "Mike Donovan told me you used to sock the other team's goalie when he made a save. And that was in practice." Still, Chow has his appeal. He shows unexpected kindnesses, acts on principle when it's least convenient and struggles to maintain a balance between cultural expectations and his own desire to be an American first. The reader never stops rooting for him, though Chow sinks deeper into alcohol as the novel proceeds. It opens with the poisoning death of an old woman. Though Chow is first on the scene, the case goes to his old partner, Vandyne. Yip, the old woman's husband, makes a friend of Chow, following him around, trying to find out about the investigation, trying to get Chow to plead his case. Chow sometimes shakes him off, sometimes comforts him. As he makes his rounds, he asks questions, though his superiors warn him off more than once. But mostly Chow makes his rounds. He goes first to the bakery where he gets his coffee and hot-dog pastries from Lonnie, an attractive girl who obviously likes him. Chow hasn't had a girl since Vietnam but considers Lonnie, at 20, too young. He passes by the Jade Palace Restaurant where the underpaid employees are picketing and the enraged owner demands that he do something about it: " 'You know how bad this looks for the Chinese people?' " He might stop by the toy store where his friend Moy works with his father or Columbus Park to pass the time with the midget, a never-beaten board game champion. Chow's resentments, sympathies, memories and self-disgust all

Wonderful. Nails a place and time, but most importantly, brings the people of 1976 Chinatown to life. Nothing is simplistic in this novel - not the people, not the situations, not the issues of race and class. Most of all, I liked the moody, non-heroic toughness of the main character, Robert Chow. He is unsentimental, and yet full of heart. True noir.

I stumbled across This Is a Bust, by Ed Lin, in my local library by accident--because the cool, funky cover art grabbed my attention. The interior of the book also had a somewhat funky design. There are no first line paragraph indents; instead, everything is flush left with an extra return between each paragraph. This was all very appealing to me as a book designer (yes, I do judge a book by its cover). OK, enough on the design. The novel also appealed to me as a writer. The back cover text states "This Is a Bust explores the unexotic and very real complexities of New York City's Chinatown, circa 1976, through the eyes of a Chinese American cop. This Is a Bust is at once a murder mystery, a noir homage and a devastating, uniquely nuanced portrait of a neighborhood in flux, stuck between old rivalries and youthful idealism." This is a good description, but it was the character of Robert Chow, the cop, who intrigued me more than the solution to the murder mystery itself. In fact, the mystery really isn't the focus of this book. The characterization of Chinatown as a whole, its culture (which was unknown to me), and all the individual characters who populate Lin's novel are the real story. There is Chow's former partner Vandyne, an African-American, who is on the fast track to making detective; the Midget, who hangs out in Columbus park and beats all opponents in every board game imaginable; Paul, a young, brilliant tough; Lonnie, a college student and bakery worker who has eyes for Chow; Barbara, an old love interest of Chow's who made it out of Chinatown, only to return; and Yip, an elderly man who may or may not have killed his wife. All of this is set against the background of a 1976 Chinatown, an era before the internet, before cell phones, and before the U.S. opened up relations with communist China (but is putting out feelers). Policeman Chow wonders at one point why he fought against communism in Vietnam. Though only 25, he feels old, having seen both the big world (Vietnam), and the small world (Chinatown), and how it can wear a man down. He's lost, and alcoholic, and knows he is just a token in the police department, and will never be given the investigations he desires to become a detective. Chow is drawn to the murder mystery, though, because he understands the Chinatown culture, more so than his friend Vandyne, who is leading the investigation. He wants to prove to himself and his boss that he is more than just a patrolman walking a beat, more than just a token face for photo ops. He's warned off the case by his boss, but it nags at him, and clues occasionally fall into his lap whether he wants them to or not. As Chow puts the pieces of the mystery together, he also sorts out his own personal life. This Is a Bust is anything but a bust. It's first-rate. Check it out.