This Is a Bust

October 22, 2007
Lin (Waylaid) examines the life of a 1976 Chinatown beat cop in his understated second novel. Young officer Robert Chow is unabashedly used by the NYPD to create the illusion of diversity in the force, despite anti-Asian bias from white cops who don’t know or don’t care that Chow served with U.S. forces in Vietnam. Chow can’t get his superiors’ attention when he suspects that a woman may have been murdered by her husband, and he soon finds himself caught between the corrupt rulers of the local Chinese-American community and the average men and women who toil for meager wages to survive. Chow is a little too enigmatic to engage most readers, and the murder plot remains in the background throughout much of the story; nonetheless, Lin succeeds at recreating his chosen time and place, even if authors like Reggie Nadelson and S.J. Rozan have better handled issues of assimilation and real-life policing.

Starred review from November 1, 2007
Lin follows his smashing debut, Waylaid (2002), with a murder mystery, sorta. Theres a murder in it, and the narrator-protagonist, NYPD foot patrolman Robert Chow, figures out whodunit. But if thats why you finish the novel, youre a strange one. This is, like Waylaid, a brilliant, economical character, setting, and period piece. The token Chinese cop in 1976 Chinatown, Chow is a 25-year-old Vietnam vet suffering from what would later be called post-traumatic stress disorder. He copes by drinking heavily when off duty. Thinking himself a failure for having returned to Chinatown, he is briefly uplifted by a short affair with a brainy high-school classmate, but thats a flash in the pan. When he finally starts dating the beautiful 20-year-old he buys his daily coffee from, things start turning toward a fairly happy ending. Before he reaches it, though, he has to kick the bottle, which is a beast and a bear to do, and involves discovering that the friendly faces of many who see him daily on his beat are genuine. Part New York neighborhood portrait la American-theater staples Street Scene and Dead End, part hard knocks but optimistic little-guys story la Edward Dahlbergsnovel Bottom Dogs (1929), Lins juicy, dialogue-heavy sophomore effort is rich, flavorful, and humane.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2007, American Library Association.)