The Thousand Crimes of Ming Tsu

By: Tom Lin

Narrated by: Feodor Chin

A Chinese American assassin sets out to rescue his kidnapped wife and exact revenge on her abductors in this New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice: a twist on the classic western from "an astonishing new voice" (Jonathan Lethem).

Orphaned young, Ming Tsu, the son of Chinese immigrants, is raised by the notorious leader of a California crime syndicate, who trains him to be his deadly enforcer. But when Ming falls in love with Ada, the daughter of a powerful railroad magnate, and the two elope, he seizes the opportunity to escape to a different life. Soon after, in a violent raid, the tycoon's henchmen kidnap Ada and conscript Ming into service for the Central Pacific Railroad.

Battered, heartbroken, and yet defiant, Ming partners with a blind clairvoyant known only as the prophet. Together the two set out to rescue his wife and to exact revenge on the men who destroyed Ming, aided by a troupe of magic-show performers, some with supernatural powers, whom they meet on the journey. Ming blazes his way across the West, settling old scores with a single-minded devotion that culminates in an explosive and unexpected finale.

Written with the violent ardor of Cormac McCarthy and the otherworldly inventiveness of Ted Chiang, The Thousand Crimes of Ming Tsu is at once a thriller, a romance, and a story of one man's quest for redemption in the face of a distinctly American brutality.

"In Tom Lin's novel, the atmosphere of Cormac McCarthy's West, or that of the Coen Brothers' True Grit, gives way to the phantasmagorical shades of Ray Bradbury, Charles Finney's The Circus of Dr. Lao, and Katherine Dunn's Geek Love. Yet The Thousand Crimes of Ming Tsu has a velocity and perspective all its own, and is a fierce new version of the Westward Dream." —Jonathan Lethem, author of Motherless Brooklyn

Winner of the Carnegie Medal for Excellence

Finalist for the Young Lions Fiction Award

Critic reviews

“A book out of bounds.... Saves the western by blowing it to bits. Don’t wait for the movie.”—Marlon James, Wall Street Journal

“Lin’s assured debut novel... hums with striking descriptions of an unforgiving landscape.”—New York Times Book Review (Editors' Choice)

“Tom Lin is a sublimely gifted debut novelist... He offers a window onto a buried history [and] exposes the racism that was, is, and will be at the heart of the American experiment... In McCarthy-like sentences, Lin also pays homage to the arduous journey of Ming and his companions and to the landscape that sprawls around them... Lin’s pilgrims meet their fates in startling, wondrous moments... The body count is high, but so is the level of literary skill and topicality... Lin flips the script: his outlaw is a living, breathing rebuke to white racism, an Angel of Death to the worst perpetrators... While Lin probes American obsessions with race, guns, and myth-making, he also imbues his grittiness with stunning lyricism and a larger spiritual aura.”—Oprah Daily

“Impressive… As a kind of redemptive imaginative act, Lin has created a poetic and cinematic story centered on a Chinese American sharpshooter.”—San Francisco Chronicle

“A rollicking gallery of Western archetypes.”—Los Angeles Times (Best Books of Summer 2021)

"A western gothic revenge tale ripe for a Coen brothers adaptation."—Boston Globe

“Part revenge fantasy, part classic bloody tale of the Old West. In this book, things return—people, oceans, violence—but remembering is a choice and the body bears the cost... In this unforgiving landscape, which Lin vividly and meticulously describes in prose whose music is reminiscent of Cormac McCarthy’s, even a rainstorm can take on mythical proportions.”—New York Times Book Review

“Brilliant.”—New York Magazine

“Eminently entertaining… There's a lot to love in this expansive debut novel from Tom Lin. The Thousand Crimes of Ming Tsu is a truly cinematic Western. Its vistas and action sequences are perfectly designed for fans of graphic novels and the big screen alike. Similarly, the body count is crafted for an audience that enjoys adrenaline's pulse in its ears. Lin's wordcraft is deft and painterly, whether he's describing a fight scene or a desert… an important, vivid story, with characters led through the landscape by the demands of its plot… I hope we see more of all these stories from Tom Lin in the future.”—NPR.org

“A thrilling journey that calls to mind beloved Westerns... The Thousand Crimes of Ming Tsu is a smart, modern take on a classic genre that defies expectations and delivers serious entertainment.”—Town & Country

Enjoyed, but predictable ending; just not 5 worthy

The ending and how it wrapped up was predictable. The characters and those with the miracles I actually enjoyed a lot for their overall uniqueness. I wanted to know them more. Meet them in my imagination at a minimum.
Eeven despite the predictable parts,was a solid 4.
Felt totally believable for time period and that the story occurred and the characters could have all existed.
Glad I got this to read when audible offered it.

Good Twist on Western Genera with Magical Realism

interesting and entertaining book. Addresses the treatment of Chinese immigrants and Americans of Chinese descent by white Christians in the old west. One reviewer alleged that Tom Lin basically plagiarized Haruki Murakami, which I strongly dispute. In fact, I think that analysis is so odd that I wonder if it's a bit of racial bias, even though Murakami is Japanese and Lin is of Chinese heritage. I have read nearly everything ever published by Murakami and I see little similarity other than magical realism in general. Anyway, this book is somewhat serious and philosophical, but expressed through visual descriptions and actions, so you may not like it if your preference is for action/adventure/suspense novels. This is a bit more like Cormac McCarthy.

Engrossing tale from an under-represented perspective

This is a story that vividly describes the Chinese American experience in building the Transcontinental Railroad. Performer provided an engrossing listen with good variety of accents and dialects.

truly one thousand

I lost count after the first hundred but it does seem that the book did actually detail 1,000 different murders by Ming.

Kill Bill Three

Revenge with violence without sensible limits is the theme of this book. It is one in the genre of real American western stories mixed with Samurai histrionics—with hand guns and Henry rifles instead of swords. The Central Pacific Railroad is another character as is the Sierra Nevada mountain range. Magic and surrealism are intertwined to aid our “hero.” A story for almost everyone.