Ed Lin’s excellent first novel, Waylaid, was a coming-of-age
story set in a motel, the perfect setting for a young Asian-American
protagonist obsessed with alienation and random acts of sex. His
second novel, This Is a Bust, is a noir set in New York City’s
Chinatown in 1976. Expect funny, angry riffs on tokenism and
hard-boiled detective fiction. (Elliott Bay Book Company, 101 S
Main St, 624-6600. 7 pm, free.)