The Snakehead
An Epic Tale of the Chinatown Underworld and the American Dream
Published on 16. February 2023
448 pages
978-1-5290-9989-8 (ISBN)
Description
**Patrick Radden Keefe's new book, London Falling, is on sale now**
LONGLISTED FOR THE 2024 CWA GOLD DAGGER FOR NON-FICTION
'Reads like a mashup of The Godfather and Chinatown, complete with gun battles, a ruthless kingpin and a mountain of cash. Except that it's all true' - Time
In this thrilling story of real-life events, the bestselling author of Empire of Pain investigates a secret world run by a surprising criminal: a charismatic middle-aged grandmother, who from a tiny noodle shop in New York's Chinatown, managed a multimillion-dollar business smuggling people.
In The Snakehead, Patrick Radden Keefe reveals the inner workings of Cheng Chui Ping aka Sister Ping's complex empire and recounts the decade-long FBI investigation that eventually brought her down. He follows an often incompetent and sometimes corrupt INS as it pursues desperate immigrants risking everything to come to America, and along the way he paints a stunning portrait of a generation of undocumented immigrants and the intricate underground economy that sustains and exploits them.
'A powerful piece of reportage about the violent underworld of New York's Chinatown' - The Times
Merging gripping storytelling with fearless investigative journalism, Patrick Radden Keefe is undeniably one of the great nonfiction writers of our time.
'The finest non-fiction writer we have' - Elizabeth Day
'A gifted storyteller who excels at capturing personalities - The Washington Post
'We are fortunate to have him pounding the pavement to expose real-life darkness' - The Irish Times
LONGLISTED FOR THE 2024 CWA GOLD DAGGER FOR NON-FICTION
'Reads like a mashup of The Godfather and Chinatown, complete with gun battles, a ruthless kingpin and a mountain of cash. Except that it's all true' - Time
In this thrilling story of real-life events, the bestselling author of Empire of Pain investigates a secret world run by a surprising criminal: a charismatic middle-aged grandmother, who from a tiny noodle shop in New York's Chinatown, managed a multimillion-dollar business smuggling people.
In The Snakehead, Patrick Radden Keefe reveals the inner workings of Cheng Chui Ping aka Sister Ping's complex empire and recounts the decade-long FBI investigation that eventually brought her down. He follows an often incompetent and sometimes corrupt INS as it pursues desperate immigrants risking everything to come to America, and along the way he paints a stunning portrait of a generation of undocumented immigrants and the intricate underground economy that sustains and exploits them.
'A powerful piece of reportage about the violent underworld of New York's Chinatown' - The Times
Merging gripping storytelling with fearless investigative journalism, Patrick Radden Keefe is undeniably one of the great nonfiction writers of our time.
'The finest non-fiction writer we have' - Elizabeth Day
'A gifted storyteller who excels at capturing personalities - The Washington Post
'We are fortunate to have him pounding the pavement to expose real-life darkness' - The Irish Times
Reviews / Votes
Reads like a mashup of The Godfather and Chinatown, complete with gun battles, a ruthless kingpin and a mountain of cash. Except that it's all true. * Time * Essential reading. . . . A rich, beautifully told story, so suspenseful and with so many unexpected twists that in places it reads like a John le Carre novel. * The Washington Post * A powerful piece of reportage about the violent underworld of New York's Chinatown * The Times * A masterwork . . . In this single tale about a global criminal, Keefe finds a story of quintessentially American hope. * Christian Science Monitor * Painstakingly reported and vividly told. . . . As immigration reform languishes in Washington . . . everyone involved - from policymakers to activists to the undocumented - would be wise to read The Snakehead. * Newsweek * Published in the UK for the first time, Patrick Radden Keefe's tireless investigation of human trafficking from China to the US reveals the desperation of the migrants and the woman at the heart of it * The Observer * A formidably well-researched book that is as much a paean to its author's industriousness as it is a chronicle of crime. -- Janet Maslin, <i>The New York Times</i> Bracing, vivid . . . Keefe writes gracefully, perceptively, insightfully . . . Without sacrificing one iota of narrative momentum, he untangles a dauntingly complicated human-trafficking operation so a reader can effortlessly follow along. * The New York Times Book Review * Thoroughly researched and creatively drawn (some scenes are highly dramatic and vivid) by the New Yorker writer, [The Snakehead] is ultimately about the risks these refugees took to play their part in the enduring, grand narrative theme of the American Dream. * The Sydney Morning Herald * Brilliant . . . Keefe's mastery of this chapter of our ongoing immigration saga is impressive. He muses thoughtfully about its many conundrums and highlights how our ethos of welcoming the persecuted gets soured by bad policy and the pervasive exploitation of the helpless. * Los Angeles Times * Engrossing. . . . Keefe's narrative delves deeply into Chinatown and the labyrinthine smuggling routes between China and America, but it's also a glimpse into our conflicted feelings about illegals and the morass of America's immigration policy. * New York Magazine * A timely, powerful and thoroughly researched book. * The Irish Times *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Pan Macmillan
Target group
Interest Age: From 18 years
File size
1,05 MB
ISBN-13
978-1-5290-9989-8 (9781529099898)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Book
02/2023
Picador
€14.00
Available immediately
Person
Patrick Radden Keefe is a staff writer at The New Yorker and the author of the bestsellers Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty (winner of the Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction), Rogues: True Stories of Grifters, Killers, Rebels and Crooks (a collection of his New Yorker stories) and Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland (named one of the 20 Best Books of the 21st Century by the New York Times and now streaming as a limited series on Disney+), as well as two previous critically acclaimed books, The Snakehead and Chatter. He is the writer and host of the eight-part podcast Wind of Change, which The Guardian named the #1 podcast of 2020, and the recipient of the National Magazine Award for Feature Writing, the Orwell Prize for Political Writing and the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction. He lives in New York.
