Death Money

February 17, 2014
Born and raised in Manhattan’s Chinatown, Chang puts his familiarity with the neighborhood to good use in his fourth novel featuring NYPD officer Jack Yu (after 2010’s Red Jade). When a floater that surfaces in the Harlem River turns out to be Chinese, Yu leaves his downtown precinct to investigate. Eventually, the authorities identify the dead man as Yao Sing Chang. Yao worked for about a month at a Chinese restaurant under an alias, but little else is clear about him. Yu knocks on the usual doors, looking into street gangs and the shadowy tongs that control the lives of Chinatown’s residents. The trail leads to the Gee family, noodle manufacturers who on the surface are an immigrant success story. While the investigation follows familiar lines, the depiction of a Chinatown that tourists don’t see (e.g., seedy strip clubs) sets this apart from other gritty police procedurals. Agents: Dana Adkins and Debbie Phillips, Adkins & Phillips Agency.

April 1, 2014
NYPD Detective Jack Yu scours Chinatown to find out who killed a man whose body was found miles away. When a pair of Homicide North officers fish a John Doe out of the Harlem River, the call goes out to Jack. Why reach all the way down to the 5th Precinct when the Big Apple is crawling with cops? Because someone thinks the department needs a Chinese--um, make that an Asian--investigator on the case. Maybe the higher-ups put a premium on ethnic sensitivity. Maybe they've read Jack's first three adventures (Red Jade, 2012, etc.). Whatever the reason, they certainly get their money's worth. Jack isn't the one who discovers that deliveryman Jun Wah Zhang was stabbed to death, but he is the one who establishes that the dead man is indeed Jun Wah Zhang and that he's also Yao Sing Chang, an orphan from Poon Yew village whose trail halfway around the world ended before he turned 24. Consulting with elderly Chinatown wise woman Ah Por and his old friend Billy Bow, who reluctantly takes time out from drinking and whoring to steer him toward leads, Jack retraces Sing's footsteps through four restaurants owned by James "Bossy" Gee, director of Dynasty Noodles and a hard man to cross. He finds the young man who was beaten until he gave up Sing's identity to his killers. But he doesn't find a motive for Sing's death--not until every other piece of this untidy puzzle has fallen into place. The plot is familiar and forgettable, but Jack's odyssey is consistently fast-paced, edgy and flavorful. Sometimes it really is better to travel hopefully than to arrive.

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April 15, 2014
When an Asian body is found in the Harlem River, the NYPD calls Detective Jack Yu. Recently returned from the West Coast, where he killed two men and was shot himself, Yu needs to talk to a department shrink. But before he can, he's working on the homicide of the unidentified young Chinese man pulled from the water with only scraps of paper to offer leads. Yu's neighborhood friend, Billy Bow, the unofficial eyes and ears of Chinatown, who runs Tofu King, and old Chinese wisewoman Ah Por provide help, but it's Yu's persistence that eventually pays off. When Yu traces the murder of the victim, identified as restaurant deliveryman Yao Sing Chang, back to a powerful person in Chinatown, the connection puts Yu himself in danger. Chang's fourth in the Jack Yu series (after Red Jade, 2010) continues a pattern of sensitive exploration of the Chinese American community, from its rival gangs to its generational differences. Another brisk police procedural with a protagonist who manages to bridge two cultures.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)