Purchase
An Epic Tale of the Chinatown Underworld and the American Dream
Doubleday
August 2009
On Sale: July 21, 2009
432 pages
ISBN: 0385521308
EAN: 9780385521307
Hardcover
Add to Wish List
Thriller
A mesmerizing narrative about the rise and fall of an unlikely international crime boss. In the 1980s, a wave of Chinese from Fujian province began arriving in America. Like other immigrant groups before them, they showed up with little money but with an intense work ethic and an unshakeable belief in the promise of the United States. Many of them lived in a world outside the law, working in a shadow economy overseen by the ruthless gangs that ruled the narrow streets of New Yorkโs Chinatown. The figure who came to dominate this Chinese underworld was a middle-aged grandmother known as Sister Ping. Her path to the American dream began with an unusual business run out of a tiny noodle store on Hester Street. From her perch above the shop, Sister Ping ran a full-service underground bank for illegal Chinese immigrants. But her real businessโ a business that earned an estimated $40 millionโwas smuggling people. As a โsnakehead,โ she built a complexโand often viciousโ global conglomerate, relying heavily on familial ties, and employing one of Chinatown's most violent gangs to protect her power and profits. Like an underworld CEO, Sister Ping created an intricate smuggling network that stretched from Fujian Province to Hong Kong to Burma to Thailand to Kenya to Guatemala to Mexico. Her ingenuity and drive were awe- inspiring both to the Chinatown communityโwhere she was revered as a homegrown Don Corleoneโand to the law enforcement officials who could never quite catch her. Indeed, Sister Pingโs empire only came to light in 1993 when the Golden Venture, a ship loaded with 300 undocumented immigrants, ran aground off a Queens beach. It took New Yorkโs fabled โJade Squadโ and the FBI nearly ten years to untangle the criminal network and hone in on its unusual mastermind. The Snakehead is a panoramic tale of international intrigue and a dramatic portrait of the underground economy in which Americaโs twelve million illegal immigrants live. Based on hundreds of interviews, Patrick Radden Keefeโs sweeping narrative tells the story not only of Sister Ping, but of the gangland gunslingers who worked for her, the immigration and law enforcement officials who pursued her, and the generation of penniless immigrants who risked death and braved a 17,000 mile odyssey so that they could realize their own version of the American dream. The Snakehead offers an intimate tour of life on the mean streets of Chinatown, a vivid blueprint of organized crime in an age of globalization and a masterful exploration of the ways in which illegal immigration affects us all.
 Media BuzzFresh Air - NPR - August 5, 2009
| 
© 2003-2026