NONFICTION - March 24, 1991

THE TRIADS: The Chinese Criminal Fraternity by Martin Booth (St. Martin’s Press: $16.95; 215 pp.). Martin Booth argues in this book that the Triads, the Mafia-like crime brotherhood, are the world’s “Public Enemy Number One.” He lives in the Triads’ home base, Hong Kong, where their influence is endemic. Booth’s characterization of the threat isn’t entirely convincing, despite his citation of numerous frightening facts--the Triads, he writes, “control 90 percent of the world’s heroin trade”--but considering how difficult it is to gain insight into, let alone infiltrate, these secretive brotherhoods, he’s done a reasonable job. One fact alone makes the book significant: the unification of Hong Kong with mainland China in 1997, which will greatly accelerate the internationalization of the Triads because of their historical alliance with the anti-Communist Koumintang Party of Nationalist China.