Book reviews: non-fiction from Bob Halloran, Rosalind Powell and Marian Keyes
A white man in the Chinese mafia, the trials and tribulations of adoption, and the funny thoughts of a ‘fluffy eejit airhead’
by Bob Halloran
BenBella Books (e-book)
John Willis’ story is somehow familiar: a white boy from Boston taken in by Chinese mobsters when he is a teenager, who learns Cantonese, who embellishes himself with dragon and koi fish tattoos, and who rises up the ranks to become a “dai lo” himself, trafficking in oxycodone, despite warnings from fellow mobsters to stay away from drugs. Before he makes his millions dealing in narcotics and laundering money, he is the right-hand man of Boston’s Chinese mafia chief Bai Ming (also known as Bike Ming and Tan Ngo), for whom he starts working as a collector in the late 1980s. His ascendance, writes Bob Halloran, came from his fierce loyalty to his “brothers” in the Ping On gang. As with so many narratives about the Chinese or Japanese mafia, romanticisation seeps in and the sense that perhaps too much is made of their code of rules, which somehow is supposed to put them above common criminals. Not surprisingly, a “drop-dead gorgeous” woman is involved and Willis is with her when he is busted by the police. Halloran tells an interesting story, but readers will come away with the feeling they’ve heard it all before.
by Rosalind Powell