Book Review: Death Money by Henry Chang

Friday 56 Rules: *Grab a book, any book. *Turn to page 56 or 56% in your eReader  *Find any sentence, (or few, just don't spoil it) that grabs you. *Post it. *Add your (url) post in Linky at Freda's Voice.

Also Book Beginnings by Rose City Reader.

Death Money

Title: Death Money: a Detective Jack Yu Investigation by Henry Chang
Published April 15, 2014; Soho Crime
Genre: police procedural

  page 56
"Find out anything, bro?" It was Billy Bow.
"Yeah, he's Chinese,"snapped Jack. "Why?"
"Last name Chang, right?" teased Billy.
"And you know that how?"Jack countered.
"Ancient Chinese secret."
"Stop f---ing around, Billy. It's a homicide deal now."

Book beginning:
It was 7 A.M. when Detective Jack Yu stepped into the frigid dawn spreading over Sunset Park.A slate gray Brooklyn morning with single-digit temperatures driven by wind shrieking off the East River. He scanned Eighth Avenue for the Chinese see gay radio cars bur saw none, only a couple of Taipan minibuses, sai-ba, queued up a block away from the Double Eight Cantonese restaurant.

(above quotes taken from an advance uncopyedited edition of the book; final copy may differ)

Publisher description: 
Novelist Henry Chang returns us to the Chinatown of NYPD Detective Jack Yu, and spins one of his most noir tales yet. When the body of an unidentified Asian man is found in the Harlem River, NYPD Detective Jack Yu is pulled in to investigate. The murder takes Jack from the benevolent associations of Chinatown to the take-out restaurants, strip clubs, and underground gambling establishments of the Bronx, to a wealthy, exclusive New Jersey borough. It's a world of secrets and unclear allegiances, of Chinatown street gangs and major Triad players. With the help of an elderly fortune teller and an old friend, the unpredictable Billy Bow, Jack races to solve his most difficult case yet.

My comments:
I enjoyed the author's previous books, Year of the Dog and Red Jade, and continue to find the world of NYC's Chinatown fascinating, as it appears in this series. The novel has a no-holds-barred frankness that may shock some, but its honesty in its portrayal of people, places, and situations makes it an intriguing book.
There is a subplot that I wish had been developed more in the novel - Jack Yu's romance with an attractive Chinese lawyer. The subplot could help to lighten some of the tense events of the mystery novel as it went along.

I received a complimentary ARC of this book from the publisher.

Book Review: Red Jade: a Detective Jack Yu Investigation

Red Jade: A Detective Jack Yu Investigation
Author: Henry Chang
Hardcover: 256 pages
Publisher: Soho Crime; 1 edition (November 1, 2010)
Genre: crime fiction, PI, mystery
Setting: NYC, Seattle
Source: Library
Rating: 4/5

Comments: Interesting mystery that gets the reader into the world of Chinatown tongs and the criminal underworld they run. In Red Jade, The bodies of a man and his wife are discovered in a case that looks like a murder-suicide. Detective Jack Yu had been transferred from working in Chinatown, but the family of the victims asked for him to be recalled to do the investigation.

Pretty soon, Jack is also searching for a Hong Kong woman who disappears from Chinatown, escaping from the Chinese underworld with a stash of gold coins and a "fistful" of diamonds. She is one of the more intriguing characters in the novel. She is resourceful about hiding from the criminal elements hunting her down as she escapes from New York to Seattle, trying not to stand out or be discovered by the tongs.

"She had a lot of different jewelry. I remembered, but she always wore a jade charm. Hanging off her wrist. It was white and gray, with pa kua, Taoist, designs on it. Round, like a coin, a nickel." (p. 55)

Detective Yu takes us through Chinatowns in New York and Seattle - pawn shops, jewelers, restaurants, temples, while introducing the Cantonese and Toisanese dialects.

Publisher's description: Two bodies are discovered at an address on the Bloody Angle, Chinatown's historic Tong battleground. NYPD Detective Jack Yu's investigation takes him across the country to another Chinatown, this one in Seattle, in pursuit of a cold-blooded Chinese American gangster and a mysterious Hong Kong femme fatale

The Chinese cop, Tsai remembered, the American-born Chinese, the jook sing, empty piece of bamboo. They (the defense lawyers) would dredge up his tainted career, his Chinatown misadventures, and destroy his credibility. (p. 56)

About the author: Henry Chang was born and raised in New York's Chinatown, where he still lives. He is a graduate of Pratt Institute and CCNY. He is the author of Chinatown Beat and Year of the Dog, also in the Detective Jack Yu series.

Challenges: Immigrant Stories Challenge 2011, Mysery and Suspense Reading Challenge 2011, Chinese Literature Challenge 2011