The Snakehead - Patrick Radden Keefe

In the pre-dawn darkness of June 6, 1993, a ship named the Golden Venture crashed into the coast near Queens, and 300 illegal Chinese found themselves in The United States. How that ship got there is the central narrative of this well-written, well-researched book. The center of the story is Sister Ping, a Chinese shopkeeper who ran a multi-million dollar business bringing people from the Fujian Province to the US. She has trails all over the world, but it all comes undone after the Golden Venture crash.

Heavy on the facts, and told in a cold, detached journalistic style, the book could have benefited from more of a personal touch, but the power of the narrative pulls the reader along.