Henry Chang Books In Order

Publication Order of A Detective Jack Yu Investigation Books

Publication Order of Anthologies

Henry Chang
Henry Chang is a native son of Chinatown and is a lifetime New Yorker. He writes from the world of the urban Chinese immigrant demimonde, and his work has appeared in Gangs in New York’s Chinatown, Bridge Magazine, Murdaland2, and The NuyorAsian Anthology.

His “Detective Jack Yu” series of novels (“Year of the Dog”, “Chinatown Beat”, and “Red Jade”) is the hard-boiled reflection of some lifelong experiences in the Chinese community, and the books have gotten high praise from The Washington Post, the New York Times Book Review, and the Boston Globe, as well as others.

Henry’s appeared on Asia Pacific Forum radio WBAI, on ‘Asian America’ WNYC TV, and he has been featured in ‘The Voice’ NY Times, in the World Journal, the ‘Book Mark’ NYPL, Ming Pao Chinese news press, and Sing Tao.

Henry is a graduate of CCNY and the Chinatown School of hard knocks. He’s been a Security Director for commercial properties and major hotels in New York City and he continues living in Chinatown and in post-9/11 Lower Manhattan.

Henry writes about Chinatown because he’d always wanted to tell these stories, which are true stories about ordinary immigrants that struggle to succeed, against the backdrop of organized Chinese crime: the Tongs, Triads, and the vicious street gangs. He’d also wanted to position the stories within the greater context of what affects Chinese-American nationality and internationally.

Jack Yu acts as tour guide, taking the reader on a tour of the Chinatown underbelly as he follows a police investigation. To Henry, the stories should not just revolve around the conventional mystery of the ‘whodunit’ but should also interpret the mystery of how and why things occur in all of these Chinatowns across America, and show exactly how crime impacts the families and survivors involved.

Henry always includes tidbits of Chinatown sociology and history dancing in the shadows of his storyline, to give voice back to the voiceless, shedding a light on things that people do not like talking about, things like violence, exploitation, racism, and discrimination.

“Chinatown Beat” is the first novel in the “Detective Jack Yu” series and was released in 2006. Detective Jack Yu’s been assigned to the Chinatown precinct as the sole officer of Chinese descent. He investigates this series of attacks on kids and one missing mistress, shifting back and forth between the world of street gangs and thugs and the Chinatown of the powerful and rich.

Detective Yu has been transferred to New York’s Chinatown, he is not ready to face some of the changes in his old neighborhood. His childhood friends have now become hardened gangsters, his dad is dying, and he is constantly getting reminded of this teenage blood brother, that was murdered right in front of him years prior.

Then Uncle Four (tong boss and community leader) gets gunned down and his mistress disappears. However unlike the rest of the culturally clueless cops, he knows the gritty secrets of his district. He’ll need to draw upon his knowledge in order to catch this killer in a crime-ridden precinct where brotherhoods are just as likely to distribute charity as they are to mete out vigilante justice.

“Year of the Dog” is the second novel in the “Detective Jack Yu” series and was released in 2008. A rollercoaster ride with NYPD Detective Yu, illuminating the underground world of Chinatown protection, gambling, and smuggling.

Jack Yu is one of the few ethnically Chinese officers in the NYPD. Now Jack has just been promoted out of the Chinatown Precinct. With multiple murders occurring just days after his transfer, the Ninth Precinct is not less violent, exactly, however at least Jack does not know most of the perps this time.

When one bloody shootout goes down in Chinatown, however, the upper echelons of the NYPD reach out for help from him to help squelch the escalating gang violence, and Jack learns that he cannot get away from Chinatown’s criminals, his old friends, for very long.

“Red Jade” is the third novel in the “Detective Jack Yu” series and was released in 2010. As NYPD Detective Jack Yu is investigating two bodies found in Chinatown’s historic Tong battleground, his pursuit takes him from New York’s Chinatown to Seattle’s Chinatown, tracking a clod-blooded Chinese-American gangster and one mysterious Hong Kong femme fatale.

The bodies of a young woman and man are found at an address on the Bloody Angle, Chinatown’s historic Tong battleground. NYPD Detective Jack Yu had believed he was finished working in Chinatown, however some old allegiances pull him right back into the thick of it. Could it just be a simple murder-suicide? The grieving families want him to keep a lid on any and all stories which may further tarnish their family name, however the Golden Galaxy club, where the young woman was working, is made for scandal. Smuggled prostitutes, drugs, snakeheads. Girls do not last that long before they get dirty.

While a puzzling web of links between these murders and the criminal underworld reveals itself, Yu’s investigation takes him clear to the other side of the country to another Chinatown, in Seattle. In this new city, stymied by the uncooperative local police, he tracks down a cold-blooded Chinese American gangster and this mysterious Hong Kong femme fatale.

“Death Money” is the fourth novel in the “Detective Jack Yu” series and was released in 2014. A floater surfacing in the Harlem River winds up being Chinese, and Yu leaves his downtown precinct in order to investigate. Yu knocks on the typical doors, and the trail leads him to the Gee family, noodle manufacturers that on the surface just look like the ideal immigrant success story.

An unidentified Asian man is discovered in the Harlem River, NYPD Detective Yu gets asked to investigate. The murder takes him from the benevolent associations of Chinatown to the strip joints, takeout restaurants, and underground gambling establishments in the Bronx, to this exclusive and wealthy New Jersey borough.

It is a world of unclear allegiances and secrets, of Chinatown street gangs and some major Triad players. With help from one elderly fortune teller and one old friend, the unpredictable Billy Bow, Jack races against time to solve his toughest case to date.