PUBLISHER
Kaya Press

BOOK FORMAT
Paperback, 5.25 x 8.25 in. / 352 pgs / 3 bw.

PUBLISHING STATUS
Pub Date 11/1/2007
Out of print

DISTRIBUTION
D.A.P. Exclusive
Catalog: FALL 2007 p. 36

PRODUCT DETAILS
ISBN 9781885030450 TRADE
List Price: $14.95 CAD $21.00 GBP £12.99

AVAILABILITY
Not available

TERRITORY
WORLD

THE FALL 2025 ARTBOOK | D.A.P. CATALOG

Preview our FALL 2025 catalog, featuring more than 500 new books on art, photography, design, architecture, film, music and visual culture.

This Is a Bust

By Ed Lin.

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.