Author Henry Chang will read from his acclaimed novels CHINATOWN BEAT and YEAR OF THE DOG and will discuss the origins and methodology of his writing style, evoking Chinatown not only as setting but also as a character. He will explain how he has combined noir mystery with Chinese American sociology and history.
Chinatown Beat – Chinese-American NYPD Detective Jack Yu has transferred back to his old neighborhood, Chinatown, to be closer to his ailing Pa. He encounters boyhood friends who have become hardened gangsters, and is haunted by the murder of a former teenage blood brother. After his father’s untimely death, Jack investigates the murder of Chinatown tong boss Uncle Four, an investigation that drives Jack into the depths of the Chinatown underbelly.
Year of the Dog – He’s been transferred to a different precinct, but Detective Jack Yu cannot get away from Chinatown’s criminals – his old friends – who have hooked up with the Hong Kong based triads in an elaborate nationwide credit card fraud, nor from the Chinese victims whose stories cry out for justice, like the teenage Chinese take-out delivery boy brutally murdered in the projects.
