FORGOTTEN BOOKS: THIS IS A BUST!
ED LIN
I’M POSTING UP EARLY AGAIN THIS WEEK ~ DIFFERENT DRAGONS, BUT THE RUSTY LANCE OF TRUTH IS NEEDED AGAIN ALONG WITH MY SPAVIN STEED, SO I DON’T KNOW HOW MUCH I’LL BE POSTING OVER THE WEEKEND. HOPEFULLY, I’LL GET TIME TO HIT SOME OF THE REGULAR HIGH NOTES . . .
Not so much forgotten as overlooked, this 2007 gem of a novel from a small press may now get some well deserved attention as the sequel, Snakes Can’t Run, has just be published by the more mainstream Minotaur Books.
This Is A Bust, set circa 1976, is a slice of life novel following rookie NYPD patrol officer Robert Chow walk the beat on the streets of the last place on earth he wants to be a cop – Chinatown.
THIS IS A BUST
This Is a Bust, the second novel by award-winning author Ed Lin, turns the conventions of hard-boiled pulp stories on their head by exploring the unexotic and very real complexities of New York City’s Chinatown, circa 1976, through the eyes of a Chinese-American cop.
A Vietnam vet and an alcoholic, Robert Chow’s troubles are compounded by the fact that he’s basically community-relations window-dressing for the NYPD: he’s the only Chinese American on the Chinatown beat, and the only police officer who can speak Cantonese, but he’s never assigned anything more challenging than appearances at store openings or community events.
Chow is willing to stuff down his feelings and hang tight for a promotion to the detective track, despite the community unrest that begins to roil around him. But when his superiors remain indifferent to an old Chinese woman’s death, he is forced to take matters into his own hands. 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.
Lin, of Taiwanese/Chinese descent, truly writes from the heart. His plotting is sure handed, but the whodunit aspect of This Is A Bust is only a framework for much deeper literary aspects. I’m really looking forward to the sequel, Snakes Can’t Run to see what Lin has in store for his hero next.
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