Nominally a mystery, the main thrust of this novel is the Asian experience in the United States, more particularly in the Chinatown of New York City. The protagonist, Robert Chow, is a Vietnam vet and an alcoholic [sober for three months as the tale opens]. He is also a cop, now on detective track, formerly the “token” NYPD prop at various Chinatown community events, trotted out for photo ops at ribbon-cutting ceremonies and the like. He finds that “everybody largely avoided me, for a variety of reasons, including my race, my profession, and my past instability due to alcoholism.”
This reviewer is somewhat abashed to admit that I, a lifelong New Yorker, was unaware of the distinctions instantly made among the Chinese factions within the community, an ignorance which I suspect is shared by most non-members of that community, one which won’t cooperate with the police to report criminal elements, or events. Chow says “Chinese people are far too superstitious for their own good. They think that if you go see the doctor for a checkup, you’ll get cancer. It you buy life insurance, you’re going to die. If you visit a police station – - for any reason – - you’ll be thrown in jail.” A result of this is that no one will give him any information, although they all know something of what is going on.
As the novel opens, Chow and his partner are checking storm drains after a report of shots being fired; ultimately, two bodies are found with gunshot wounds, simply dumped under the Brooklyn Bridge underpass, the victims two Chinese men who it appears had been smuggled into the country by “snakeheads.” The term gives rise to the book’s title: The ones being smuggled in are referred to as the “human snakes.” Chow asks, “Is it really better to be dead in America than alive in China?”
The city is in the throes of a terrorism scare, which took me aback as the book takes place in the summer of 1976. One tends to think of the time before September of 2001 as a more innocent age. But of course there were incidents in that era when a group such as the FALN, for example, was seeking independence from Puerto Rico and wreaking its own brand of terror, placing a bomb outside of Police Headquarters. All precinct detectives have been assigned to track down the perpetrators, the Fifth Precinct detectives in particular, because it happened in their jurisdiction. But when the bodies of the two Asian men are found Chow, despite the fact that he doesn’t yet have his gold shield, takes this on as his own very personal mission, since it is a reminder of his own father, who entered this country illegally and found life far different from what he believed it would be. During the course of the investigation, all kinds of alliances are discovered, including one made many years ago when Chow’s father entered the country, a human snake of another era, which had its own costs to be paid.
