The Two Chinatowns [Hardcover]

Dan Mahoney (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 2001

Cisco Sanchez, a talented but volatile NYPD detective, has long struggled with personal and professional troubles, but recent successes on the job and a new love promise to make life sweeter. Then, gang members kill Cisco's girlfriend. Grieving and bitter, Cisco wants revenge. His search takes him into the uncertain territory of Chinese organised crime where he discovers secrets that go deeper than the murder of one woman.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

A complex plot is no deterrent to enjoyment of Mahoney's ambitious thriller, in which a Cuban-American NYPD detective takes on a powerful 300-year-old Chinese crime association, or triad, whose tentacles reach all over the world. On a visit to Toronto, Det. Cisco Sanchez takes his new fianc?e, Sue Hsu, to her uncle's restaurant, where she stumbles into a gang kidnapping of a kitchen worker and is killed. Executing swift justice, Sanchez holds off the local cops. Bailed out by his partner, well-connected series regular Brian McKenna (Black and White) and their boss, Sanchez and his fellow NYPDers join forces with a Chinese investigator in Toronto. They soon discover that the Chinese gang responsible for the killing has been hired by the triad to "collect" big money payments from illegal Chinese aliens smuggled into New York and Toronto. Launching an attack in both cities, their investigation sends out shock waves far and wide as bodies pile up and the husband and wife triad enforcement team known as Boris and Natasha are captured in Toronto. The couple turn informer to protect their family, but the cops don't count on meeting up with Murray Don't Worry a real-life New York City lawyer who almost steals the book. Murray plays the cops like a Stradivarius while matchmaking between his secretary/niece and Sanchez. When the team finally targets Johnny Eng, the dragon head of the triad (and another Murray client) the action really picks up. McKenna takes a back seat in this outing as Sanchez runs the show, with a little help from his friends. Mahoney's characters are always solid, and this tale is almost a primer on Chinese community dynamics. He pulls no punches and speeds to a perfect ending. (July 27) FYI: The author is a 25-year veteran of the NYPD.
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Cisco Sanchez, who considers himself the best detective in the NYPD, is in Toronto for an interdepartmental boxing tournament. He's smart and tough, but that isn't enough to prevent tragedy when his lover, Sue Hsu, is murdered by members of a street gang as the couple dines in a Chinese restaurant. Sanchez kills the two men directly responsible, but he wants revenge on the gang leader who ordered the hit, to which he and Hsu were innocent bystanders. Despite his personal stake in the case, Sanchez becomes a key member in a joint Toronto-New York strike force charged with dismantling the two key gangs involved in trafficking illegal aliens. One by one, Sanchez and his crew arrest the street soldiers until eventually they find someone willing to turn on the well-protected superiors. Mahoney, who retired as a captain after 25 years in the NYPD, knows the nuts and bolts of a sweeping multijurisdictional police operation. He is also able to portray complex, believable characters struggling mightily with their own muddled lives. Fans of William Caunitz, Robert Daley, and Ed McBain will savor this top-drawer procedural. Wes Lukowsky
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 368 pages
• Publisher: St. Martin's Press; 1st edition (July 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312261349
• ISBN-13: 978-0312261344
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.3 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,161,816 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Cheap Life, August 14, 2001

By 

Roger L. Lee - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Two Chinatowns (Hardcover)

The Two Chinatowns By Dan Mahoney

This is well written by an author who knows his subject. Dan Mahoney worked as a policeman for 25 years before retiring as a captain. This novel is written carefully with the smallest detail covered. It is a tragic adventure that covers two cities in two different countries in America with the exciting final in Hong Kong, Singapore and Guam. Cisco Sanchez the star in the story claims to be the best detective in New York. Besides, he is a boxer for the New York police team and an actor in the ring who has never lost a fight.

Cisco saw Sue Hsu the woman he wanted to marry. She was an airline hostess. As usual he planned every move to meet her under the best of circumstances. He even took a flight she was working before introducing himself. Everything worked as planned except she was killed by a group of Chinese, part of the `Born to Kill' street gang. She accidentally got in their way on the way to the ladies toilet. Sue had taken Cisco to visit her Chinese Uncle's restaurant in Toronto when it happened. Cisco swore that he would not rest until all the people concerned with her death were taken down.

Cisco discovered that The Chinese gangsters who contracted the `Born to Kill' street gang were heavily involved with smuggling illegal Chinese into New York and Toronto by way of containers ships from China. The novel grows from there to the climax at the end in Guam.

For ones who are interested this book has some very interesting part facts about smuggling Chinese and other Asians into America. It is a very dangerous, interesting and a lucrative business. Life is very cheap in this novel.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Badly written with worse premise, October 8, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: The Two Chinatowns (Hardcover)

The idea that a guy, upon merely SEEING a girl, would fly back and forth between Hong Kong and New York just to see her; learn Chinese just to talk to her; all before actually meeting her is ridiculous. Mahoney may try to pass it off as romantic and "meant to be" but c'mon, let's get real. On a cop's salary no less? Does he know how much roundtrip tickets to Asia cost?

Right away the girl gets killed, and the cop immediately starts referring to her as his fiance. I mean the lovely couple hadn't even discussed it at that point, okay?

Furthermore, I find the idea that a cop could find a Chinese airline attendant so enthralling he is going to go through all the things I mentioned above a little racist and insulting.

Never finished the book

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Mahoney Knows His Stuff!!, September 20, 2001

By 

Joseph L Burke - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Two Chinatowns (Hardcover)

Dan Mahoney is unique in that he does not write the usual police or detective "thriller." What he really writes are police-procedure novels. As a retired NYPD Captain he takes you behind the sceens and shows you exactly how a law enforcement team (and, of course, the novel's hero) track down the bad guys. You are in on their conversations, their thoughts, and their actions. If you want to know how it all works, plus get-to-know a number of fascinating characters, this is your book. I gave it 4 stars, not 5, because I miss Mahoney's usual hero, "McKenna"; this book features one of his other detectives, "Cisco" who was a minor character in other Mahoney books. A good read!