Winner of the 2022 ALA Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction • Finalist for the 2022 New York Public Library’s Young Lions Award • A New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice

Orphaned as a boy, 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 clairvoyant old man known only as the Prophet. Together the two set out to rescue his wife and to exact revenge on the men who destroyed him, aided by a troupe of magic-show performers, some with supernatural powers, whom they meet on the journey. Ming fights 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.

EXTRAORDINARY PRAISE FOR THE THOUSAND CRIMES OF MING TSU

“Tom Lin’s debut novel is a special pleasure. There’s blood and humor, wit and wide knowledge, in his telling of this revenge odyssey that rambles across the vastness, harshness, and myriad dangers of the Old West. The nuanced prose is firm and evocative, and we have a gritty, luminous, and fantastic take on the era and the people. Ride this one hard, folks, and put it up wet.” —Daniel Woodrell, author of Winter’s Bone

“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. This is a superb novel that declares the arrival of an astonishing new voice.” —Jonathan Lethem, author of Motherless Brooklyn and The Feral Detective

“The prophet in Tom Lin’s extraordinary novel refers to his friend Ming as a ‘man out of bounds.’ Likewise The Thousand Crimes of Ming Tsu defies the boundaries of genre, at times standing staunchly within a perfectly researched historical world, and then strolling nonchalantly past those barriers into the world of magic and haunted souls. It’s a story that’s both brilliantly vibrant and brutally dark.” —Elizabeth Crook, author of The Which Way Tree

“A book out of bounds, that saves the Western by blowing it to bits. Don’t wait for the movie.” —Marlon James, author of A Brief History of Seven Killings

“Infused with magic realism, Lin’s beautifully imagined first novel is an extraordinary epic with page-turning, often cinematic action that transcends the parameters of genre fiction. A brilliant debut, impossible to put down.” —Michael Cart, Booklist (starred review)

“Lin displays remarkable skill in maneuvering his plot and characters so that readers continue to believe the tale even when it seems impossible… A major work that enlarges our view of the Wild West and marks Lin as a writer to watch.” —Grace Lichtenstein, BookPage (starred review)

“Ming’s story of denial becomes Lin’s ingenious assertion of his own Chinese American heritage, his fiction a literal projection of the Chinese American experience onto the page… With dexterous agility, Lin showcases Ming’s multi-faceted identity as a native-born American, a builder of transcontinental railroads, a rebel against racist laws, a killer of injustice – and maybe even a hero who might finally get the girl.” —Terry Hong, Shelf Awareness

“Considering the American West and the classic Western from a Chinese American perspective, Lin briskly and beautifully delivers a story that’s at once thriller, romance, redemptive tale, historical, and deadly serious romp.” —Library Journal

“Lin’s assured debut novel…hums with striking descriptions of an unforgiving landscape.” —The New York Times

“Tom Lin centers our vision to a time and place long forgotten but forever burned into our collective memory: The American West. The landscape is brutal, the whiskey might as well be for medicinal purposes only, guns are drawn, and the desert holds magic and horror. There is action, adventure and some very curious scenes throughout. We love this novel. It is as poetic as it is profane.” —Barnes & Noble

“A smart, modern take on a classic genre that defies expectations and delivers serious entertainment.” —Town & Country