Born to Kill: The Rise and Fall of America's Bloodiest Asian Gang

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Open Road Media, Nov 15, 2011 - True Crime - 326 pages
The “riveting” true story of the Vietnamese gang that terrorized Manhattan’s Chinatown, from the New York Times–bestselling author of The Westies (Newsday).
 They are children of the Vietnam War. Born and raised in the wasteland left by American bombs and napalm, these young men know a particular brand of cruelty—which they are about to export to the United States. When the Vietnamese gangs come to Chinatown, they adopt a name remembered from GI’s helmets: “Born to Kill.” And kill they do, in a frenzy of violence that shocks even the old-school Chinese gangsters who once ran Canal Street. Killing brings them turf, money, and power, but also draws the government’s eye. Even as Born to Kill reaches its height, it is marked for destruction. This story is told from the perspective of Tinh Ngo, a young gang member who eventually grows disenchanted with murder and death. When he decides to inform on his brothers to the police, he enters a shadow world far more dangerous than any gangland.
 

Contents

Acknowledgments
The Gang
PART
The Investigation
Epilogue
Copyright

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About the author (2011)

DIVAs a journalist and nonfiction author, Thomas Joseph “T. J.” English (b. 1957) is one of America’s foremost authorities on the recent history of crime. Born in Tacoma, Washington, he moved to New York in 1981, where he spent his nights driving a taxi and his days writing for Irish America magazine, producing a series of articles that would lead to his first book, The Westies (1990), an account of the last decades of a once-powerful Irish mob./divDIV /divSince then English has written about Vietnamese gangs, mafia infiltration of pre-Castro Cuba, and, in Savage City (2011), the history of racial tension between New York City’s police and its citizens. He has written magazine articles on modern crime for Playboy, Esquire, and New York magazine, and has also written for the screen, producing episodes for the gritty cop shows NYPD Blue and Homicide: Life on the Street. He lives in New York City.

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