Customer Reviews

The Two Chinatowns

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

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.

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

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!

The author obviously knows the inner workings of the NYPD. The story is fast-paced, dealing with murderous Chinese gangs and the cops who persue them. Mahoney could be the next Joe Waumbaugh if he would write real dialogue, spoken by real cops and bad guys. A great story, but an entire book without swearing (the cops call the bad guys "dopes" and "morons"), no sex, and lacking the normal cynicism that is any big city PD. Real people, particularly police officers, don't talk like this. I've read all the author's books, hoping for that breakout crime novel he's so very capable of writing. Still waiting.

Cisco has been a somewhat minor character, but in this book, The Two Chinatowns, he takes center-stage in a thrilling multi-national manhunt. His character has a charm that will appeal to all. Sure he's an egotist, but it's not ego....its Fact!! He is a great cop. His interaction with the Toronto PD and his own NYPD shows just how great he is. His dialogue, as written by Mr. Mahoney, is sometimes funny and sometimes serious, but always right on the money. I've read all of Dan Mahoney's books and since I love them all, I'd be hard-pressed to "slot" this one into a ranking. It's great....you'll enjoy it!!

Up to this point, I've enjoyed Dan Mahoney's books. They're well paced and always entertaining, with a wealth of insider police knowledge, and interesting, if not always entirely believable, characters. This time out, however, there are some serious flaws. Mr. Mahoney takes the time to credit a woman in Toronto for helping with details about the city. Unfortunately, the author should have taken the time to recheck those details because there are some glaring errors. The worst of those is the reference (a number of times) to grand jury hearings. The Canadian judicial system doesn't have grand jury hearings; that's a uniquely American institution. As well, references are made a number of times to a mythical entity called Court House. No such place. There are law courts downtown in various locations, but Court House doesn't exist.

These factual errors aside, the hero, Cisco Sanchez is, unfortunately, barely believable. He's driven to action against the triads because of the murder of Sue Hsu, the woman he plans to marry. Yet, within pages, she seems to be of the distant past. There is very little reference to the depth of his loss or his feelings about it and in no time at all he's been persuaded to begin dating a former lover.

The book has Mahoney's signature speed-of-light narrative, with lots of action, lots of locations, lots of characters, but Cisco is not an entirely sympathetic character (although a likeable one) because of the absence of any depth of emotion. He's all ego and, as the character himself says, (but not meaning it), "You might even say I'm shallow." Well, sadly, yes. He is.

Read Mahoney's earlier books to see what this author can do when he really pulls out all the stops.

absolutely terrible writing. Very dissapointed.
mark goldstein
scottsdale az

If you like "process," you might like this police "procedural." The protagonist of The Two Chinatowns is NYPD Detective First Grade Cisco Sanchez, an overblown braggart apparently gifted with second sight or deductive abilities rivaling those of Sherlock Holmes, but staggeringly short on any emotions short of pride and an erratic lust for revenge.

Cisco's Chinese-American girlfriend is cruelly murdered by a Chinese gang member. Up to that point Mahoney leads you to believe that their relationship is the greatest love of the age, so it seems quite natural that Cisco would be a little than ticked and ready to render the evil genius behind the event limb from limb. But here's where I think Mahoney sadly falls down and leaves his "hero" a mono-dimensional character. Instead of being driven by love and grief over his loss, Cisco seems more driven by protecting his own sense of cleverness and self-concept as "the world's greatest detective." His relationship with the late Sue Hsu is pretty much forgotten as the book drags along from one intercop meeting to another, interminable phone calls and conversations, and descriptions of administrative and other procedures that simply blot out full-fleshed character development and much expected normal human emotion that would have made Cisco seem real.

What author and NYPD veteran Mahoney does do well is to detail the frightening scale of the Asian illegal migration business, which rivals the old slave trade we tend to think of as an artifact of another age. He draws a scary picture of tongs, triads and official corruption in high places that deserves to be shoved out into the light of day. And his action sequences are good, when he gets around to them--in between procedures.

I liked all of Dans books upto this point. To many characters to follow and Cisco should put his retirement papers in.

This author keeps writing terrific book after terrific book. The Two Chinatowns showcases what he does best: great action, interesting characters, inside police stuff (the real stuff, not like on tv), and moving outside New York to an international perspective (in this case, the Chinatowns of NYC and Toronto and how the Asian gangs work ). Another winner!