“I’m talking to you nicely, and you think I’m some kind of gentleman? Pretending you don’t understand? Fine. I’ll set your house on fire in the middle of the night, kidnap your mother, and make off with your wife... Then we can sit down and talk it over, nice and slow!”
From the start, Lin Jiu awakens in 1865 in the body of a laborer at a saltpeter mine.
An unexpected riot gives him a chance to escape the mining camp. He sneaks aboard a merchant ship bound for New York.
New York is caught between eras: the old age and its order are on their last legs, while the new age and its order have yet to take shape.
The Irish mob rules the docks, while Tammany Hall politicians carve up the city.
With his ruthlessness and the wits he brought from his previous life, Lin Jiu rises from a protection-racket enforcer to a major player in the underworld.
Greedily accepting a job from a Jewish merchant nearly brings about his ruin. His employer wants him silenced, and the federal government is hot on his heels, forcing Lin Jiu to flee to San Francisco.
Here, he sees for the first time what a lawless place really looks like: corruption is the rule, violence is wealth, and federal wanted posters are worthless scraps of paper. Railroad tycoons and mining magnates are the true masters of this land.
So he hijacks a private train belonging to a railroad company, robs banks that launder money, extorts the underworld, lends money to Chinese family associations, takes over bankrupt ranches, then turns around and demands ten times the price from the railroad company. He bribes judges to frame his enemies and keeps Irish thugs on hand to eliminate his rivals...
To be objective, I've read up to Chapter 2, and so far, my impression of it is much better than many others on the market. I'm referring to books that suit my personal taste, specifically those set in 19th-century American gangsters. However, so far, readers have identified the protagonist as a Chinese laborer. I wonder if this character can be well-developed later on.
Ah, let me tell you all, some of the wording has been changed, and it's really tedious. It makes the writing a bit less engaging. For example, there's a section where the manager's dialogue goes something like this: "How high is it?" He says, "About three or four floors high." If you look at it now, it's referring to beauty, but initially it wasn't about beauty.
Rotten!!!!!!
The pace needs to be faster; it's too wordy.