Underkill: An Allen Choice Novel [Hardcover]

Leonard Chang (Author)

Book Description

Series: Allen Choice, 2 | Publication Date: May 7, 2003

Edgy and as engrossing as Leonard Chang's acclaimed debut crime novel Over the Shoulder, Underkill finds Korean American investigator Allen Choice on a case that becomes as much a personal journey as an exploration of murder and its harrowing consequences.

Two years have passed since Allen examined his late partner's death in San Francisco, which eventually exposed secrets about the death of Allen's immigrant father twenty years earlier, with the help of journalist and girlfriend Linda Maldonado. Now Allen follows Linda down to Los Angeles--and into the unfamiliar world of illegal raves and small-time drug dealers--to uncover the details of her brother's unexpected and suspicious death, hoping to repair their deteriorating relationship and aiding her as she once helped him.

Underkill is a dark and riveting look at the mysteries of families and relationships, and delves deeply into Allen's complicated interior life. With Allen Choice in this new series, Chang is skillfully creating an unforgettable and unique character in the world of noir.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The elements that made Chang's first mystery, Over the Shoulder (2001), so notable-the unusual take on Silicon Valley and San Francisco and its lead character's tortuous investigation into his own tangled roots-are, alas, absent in the author's second book about Korean-American executive protection expert Allen Choice. Fraught with doubts about his deteriorating romance with Linda Maldonaldo, the tough Hispanic reporter who lent a hand in Over the Shoulder, Choice is also facing serious workplace stress-the executive protection market is drying up, and he's doing seedy private detective work that he considers beneath him. When Linda's younger brother is killed in a drug-related car crash in Malibu, Allen takes a load of emotional baggage with him as he flies down to L.A. to help. Chang is a gifted writer, but he often makes his hero as lugubrious and full of self-doubts as a Woody Allen character, without the redeeming laughs. It doesn't help that the death of Linda's brother explodes into a complicated but not terribly interesting family saga involving an abusive father and an Internet child pornography venture. But one character-a Korean-American woman named Serena who is about to move up to the San Francisco area-offers hope that Choice's next adventure might return him to more friendly terrain.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

The only bad thing about the latest entry in the Allen Choice series is its lame title. Past that, it's a treat, with a protagonist who really grows on you. It's impossible not to root for Choice, a Korean American security specialist now dipping his toes into PI work, as he leaves San Francisco to help his soon-to-be-ex-girlfriend find her younger brother's killer. Raised by a bitter aunt after his parents died, Choice is adrift when it comes to figuring out family and love relationships. His secretive girlfriend, Linda, doesn't make things easier when she refuses to discuss their future while sucking him into an increasingly dangerous investigation. Even after he's almost killed trying to help Linda, her family--led by a manipulative mother and a raving bitch of a stepsister--alternately rages at him and gives him the cold shoulder. Choice is a good guy who deserves better--and he just might get it, in the form of a beautiful, young computer geek named Serena who helps him navigate the dark corners of L.A.'s rave scene. Frank Sennett
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 336 pages
• Publisher: Minotaur Books; First Edition edition (May 7, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312308434
• ISBN-13: 978-0312308438
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.4 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,063,121 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Leonard Chang was born in New York City, and grew up on Long Island, where he attended the public schools in Merrick. After high school, Leonard studied at Dartmouth College, interned with the Peace Corps in Kingston, Jamaica, and continued his studies in Philosophy at Harvard University, where he graduated with honors. He attended the graduate creative writing program at the University of California at Irvine, and received his Master's of Fine Arts. His first novel, entitled The Fruit 'N Food, was published in 1996 and won the Black Heron Press Award for Social Fiction that year, and is now taught at universities around the world. His second novel, Dispatches from the Cold, won a San Francisco Bay Guardian Goldie Award for Literature. He is also the author of a popular and critically-acclaimed noir trilogy, which includes Over the Shoulder, Underkill, and Fade to Clear, a USA Today Summer Reading Pick and a finalist for the Shamus Award. His latest, Crossings, was published in 2009. His novels have been translated into French, Japanese and Korean, and are regularly studied in literature, sociology and theology courses throughout the U.S., Europe and Asia. Recently the U.S. Consulate in Berlin sponsored his multi-city lecture/reading tour of Germany.

In addition to novels, he writes short stories, essays, and book reviews, and his work has appeared in numerous literary journals, including The Crescent Review, Prairie Schooner, Confluence, The Literary Review, Bamboo Ridge, and Lynx Eye. He was a Visiting Distinguished Writer at Mills College, and currently teaches at Antioch University's MFA Program.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This is a superb new series!, May 3, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Underkill: An Allen Choice Novel (Hardcover)

This series is turning out to be one of the best and most interesting ones I've read, and I've read a lot of them. I love Michael Connelly and Dennis Lehane and Sue Grafton and a bunch of others, and this one definitely ranks up there because Allen Choice is a very realized and intriguing character. I was trying to tell a friend about this series and found it hard to describe because it's so centered on the character instead of just the mystery. It's almost like this is a regular novel about an investigator and so there's naturally a mystery because it's his job, but it's not about the mystery...it's about the guy himself. The writing is awesome.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars So when's the next Allen Choice novel coming out??????, May 3, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Underkill: An Allen Choice Novel (Hardcover)

Wow. I was up all night reading this. I loved Over the Shoulder, and found Underkill to be equally engrossing. Chang does an incredible job of writing literary fiction (his use of language is just gorgeous) that's propelled by a real, page-turner plot. I wish more books combined being this well-written with being this suspenseful.

Choice makes a great reluctant protagonist, and his thoughtful, candid narration is enough to make this book worth reading by itself (even without the raves, car chases, and gun fights!).

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Standout Well Written Mystery, July 5, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Underkill: An Allen Choice Novel (Hardcover)

I'm a literature grad student, and I've had the opportunity to follow Chang's writing for some time now. His first two novels were clearly attempts to delineate the racial dynamics in America (Asian/African American as well as class issues), and with this Allen Choice series he seems to be trying to write about Korean Americans in a similar but almost subterranean way. He is writing about an Americanized Korean American man as a Private Investigator, a man who looks into the grit of American lives (Korean American lives in Over the Shoulder, and now the L.A. Underground and ecstasy scene in Underkill) all the while investigating his own life, both external and internal life. Allen Choice has no ethnic or racial ties--he's afloat and alone. He actually has NO ties (familial or relationship), which on some level echoes Chang's previous novels. The archetype of the PI is the isolated man, and here Allen Choice is isolated on so many levels it's dizzying, because family, race, profession, and now relationships have served to separate him from conventional society. Chang has taken the model of the PI and used this to exploit his other themes of alienation. This takes not only mystery fiction but Asian American fiction to new levels. I highly recommend this series for readers looking for exciting, well-written stories with a bit more substance than the usual genre entertainments.