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by Tom Lin
A Chinese American assassin sets out to rescue his kidnapped wife and exact revenge on her abductors in this New York Times. Book Review Editors' Choice: a twist on the classic western from "an astonishing new voice" (Jonathan Lethem).
Orphaned young, Ming Tsu, the son of Chinese immigrants, is raised by the notorious leader of a California crime syndicate, who trains him to be his deadly enforcer. But when Ming falls in love with Ada, the daughter of a powerful railroad magnate, and the two elope, he seizes the opportunity to escape to a different life. Soon after, in a violent raid, the tycoon's henchmen kidnap Ada and conscript Ming into service for the Central Pacific Railroad.
Battered, heartbroken, and yet defiant, Ming partners with a blind clairvoyant known only as the prophet. Together the two set out to rescue his wife and to exact revenge on the men who destroyed Ming, aided by a troupe of magic-show performers, some with supernatural powers, whom they meet on the journey. Ming blazes his way across the West, settling old scores with a single-minded devotion that culminates in an explosive and unexpected finale.
Written with the violent ardor of Cormac McCarthy and the otherworldly inventiveness of Ted Chiang, The Thousand Crimes of Ming Tsu is at once a thriller, a romance, and a story of one man's quest for redemption in the face of a distinctly American brutality.
"Infused with magic realism, Lin's beautifully imagined first novel is an extraordinary epic with page-turning, often cinematic action that transcends the parameters of genre fiction. A brilliant debut, impossible to put down." ―Booklist (starred review)
"Lin displays remarkable skill in maneuvering his plot and characters… Ming is a unique figure. He's a murderer with a strange personal code… but he's also a score-settling outlaw worthy of True Grit… This is a major work that enlarges our view of the Wild West and marks Lin as a writer to watch." ―BookPage (starred review)
"Lin creates a wild, wild west hero who, in the name of true love, embarks on an epic quest for gruesome revenge… With dexterous agility, Lin showcases Ming's multi-faceted identity… Ming's story of denial becomes Lin's ingenious assertion of his own Chinese American heritage, his fiction a literal projection of the Chinese American experience onto the page." ―Shelf Awareness
"Considering the American West and the classic Western from a Chinese American perspective, Lin briskly and beautifully delivers a story that's at once thriller, romance, redemptive tale, historical, and deadly serious romp." ―Library Journal
"Explosively inventive ... an action-packed tale of magic, star-crossed lovers, and much-needed revenge" ―Publishers Weekly
This information about The Thousand Crimes of Ming Tsu was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Tom Lin was born in China and immigrated to the United States when he was four. A graduate of Pomona College, he is currently in the PhD program at the University of California, Davis. The Thousand Crimes of Ming Tsu is his first novel.
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