Rozan, S.J. Books

In this Rain

S.J. Rozan

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 12 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Three years ago, a child’s death blew open a vortex of corruption inside Manhattan’s lucrative construction industry. And it sent one innocent man to jail. Joe Cole is a former city investigator who now lives a broken life, cut off from his wife and daughter, and from the city he once knew so well. But for Joe, everything changes when a woman’s murder and a teenager’s rooftop freefall rip open old wounds—and reveal a shocking layer of rage and deception.

It is Joe’s former partner, beautiful, hard-charging investigator Ann Montgomery, who first sees the lies, forcing Joe out of his self-imposed isolation to help her unravel the cover-ups and secret relationships that allow the powerful to hide their crimes. Soon, the two are entering the darkest corners of their city, delving into the hidden desires of a borough president who wants to be mayor, the motivations of a charismatic community activist, and the machinations of a mayor whose ambitions know no bounds. As the secrets of each player are exposed, as the primal forces of greed, sex, and power come to the surface, Ann and Joe know they must press their search all the way to the end—because the most powerful revelations are yet to come.

From a brilliantly choreographed press conference to a scandalous love affair gone terribly wrong, In This Rain takes us into the heart of a sprawling, brawling city—in a masterpiece of suspense that proves once again the unique and daring genius of S. J. Rozan.


From the Hardcover edition.

Mandarin Plaid (Bill Smith/Lydia Chin Novels)

S. J. Rozan

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 4 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Another excellent Rozan mystery 4 out of 5 stars.
7 of 7 people found this review helpful.

This book loses a star for a plot that is not quite up to Rozan's usual high standard (but is still not bad). It would be a mistake to pass this one up, though, in spite of the plot flaws. The characters are terrific, as is the dialogue. The ending is very suspenseful. The best thing about this book, however, is the two detectives. After a somewhat shaky start in China Trade, Lydia Chin and Bill Smith have improved to become extremely entertaining. The chemistry between these two could burn a house down. (Rozan has wisely toned down Bill's fawning over Lydia). In sum, very worthwhile.

Editorial Review:

Lydia Chin, Rozan's sharp, funny and sexy detective who operates out of New York's Chinatown, is back in action in this lively story about the fashion industry -- from the glamorous designer studios to the sweatshops where illegal immigrants do the dirty work. Lydia knows the sweatshop scene well: her mother worked in one while she was growing up. Now she and her sometimes dangerous partner, Bill Smith, have to find out who will do anything -- including murder -- to keep a young designer from launching her new company. (Previous Lydia Chin books are China Trade and Concourse.)

Reflecting the Sky (Bill Smith/Lydia Chin Novels)

S. J. Rozan

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 19 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

S.J. Rozan's reputation grows with every new installment in her lively series starring the redoubtable Lydia Chin, a twentysomething New York PI and her partner Bill Smith. Here Lydia's venerable family friend Grandfather Gao dispatches the twosome to Hong Kong to deliver a jade amulet to the grandson of Wei Yao-Shi, whose American family knew nothing of the son and heir he left in Asia. A simple assignment quickly turns into a kidnapping, as Chin and Smith make their way through the complex world of triad politics, Asian intrigue, and the smuggling of Chinese antiquities. Along the way, Rozan treats us to an insider's view of Hong Kong; if someone you know is headed in that direction, this would be a great guidebook as well as a diverting plane read.

The relationship between the two protagonists has a nice subtext; there's sufficient sexual tension to spice up the narrative, but not enough to slow down the action. Rozan excels at pacing, and her characters are complex enough to linger in the reader's mind after the last page is turned. This is a standout performance from a writer who ought to break out in the bestseller ranks with this eighth in a series that keeps getting better. --Jane Adams

Concourse: A Bill Smith-Lydia Chin Mystery (Bill Smith/Lydia Chin Novels)

S. J. Rozan

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 16 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

A dramatic and well-written P.I. novel 4 out of 5 stars.
3 of 4 people found this review helpful.

I thought this was a well plotted and hard hitting PI novel. It is a fast paced, well-written page-turner with a dramatic and satisfying conclusion. Smith and Chin are interesting and likeable characters, but possibly a bit underdeveloped. (But I'll attribute this minor complaint to the fact that I did not read the first Rozan book.) The Smith/Chin relationship seems a little familiar, and the relationship with the burned out detective also seems overdone, but overall, Rozan creates a believable and original story that blends big-city corruption and inner city violence.

The minor complaints mentioned above notwithstanding, I give this a strong recommendation and I am looking forward to the next installment.

Editorial Review:

It flows through the Bronx like a river between banks of faded elegance. And at the end of the avenue called the Grand Concourse is the place people go to die, the Bronx Home for the Aged. The only trouble is the people dying there are going before their time.

Bill Smith has been hired by an old friend to investigate the brutal killing of a young security guard on the Bronx Home grounds. Going undercover, Smith wades out into a sea of violence and lies washing up against the old brick building. When a second murder is committed, Smith knows that there's a method to the madness. With the help of bright, young Chinese-American investigator Lydia Chin, Smith uncovers a web of corruption that's found a home in the Bronx. Now he has to figure out who will die next.

No Colder Place (Bill Smith/Lydia Chin Novels)

S. J. Rozan

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 16 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

The Best of S. J. Rozan ... so far 5 out of 5 stars.
8 of 9 people found this review helpful.

No Colder Place was my introduction to S. J. Rozan's books (I have subsequently read all of her work), and it's a breathtakingly fine piece of writing. Of her two leading series characters, Bill is, by far, my favorite. This talented, clever, brooding, somewhat lovelorn man is a superb creation. Bill lives; he breathes audibly. When he sits down to his piano to learn a piece of music, you can almost hear the melancholy classical notes pouring into the atmosphere.

In this book, his undercover role as a bricklayer is so real that you can almost feel the ache in his spine and the soreness of his hands. It remains, to date, my favorite of Rozan's books. It has my highest recommendation. This is an author at top form, doing what she does best--giving us the wonderful Bill, deep in his element.

Editorial Review:

S. J. Rozan is a New York architect who knows how to design a fine mystery novel: by doing her homework, using the best quality materials, and keeping the surprises coming until the very end. In her fourth book about unlikely detective partners Lydia Chin and Bill Smith, Rozan plants Smith high up in the clouds, laying brick on a troubled building site while Chin gets a job as a secretary in the construction bosses' trailer. Both see plenty of action, as what at first appears to be a simple case of a few crooked construction workers becomes a much more complicated story of twisted family relationships. Previous Chin/Smith outings available in paperback include Mandarin Plaid, China Trade, and Concourse.

China Trade (Bill Smith/Lydia Chin Novels)

S. J. Rozan

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 13 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Entertaining, educational debut in Chinese American series 4 out of 5 stars.
8 of 8 people found this review helpful.

In a genre that is finally reasonalby well populated by woman and African Americans, an Asian slueth (of either gender) is still a rarity. Enter Lydia Chin, an ABC (American Born Chinese)who still lives with her mother in Manhattan's growing Chinatown. For me, a native of Oakland (which has a strong Asian community), the highlight of this book is the entire sensory experience. Rozan, an Anglo, does a wonderful job of writing a book that stimulates the senses of smell and taste. It doesn't hurt that Lydia loves to eat and shares her wonderful meals with the reader.

The mystery revolves around a couple of crates of missing Chinese porcelains (hence a wonderful pun in the title). Lydia and her sort of partner, Bill, explore a mix of Manhattan museums and gangs as they seek the china. The resolution is nicely complicated and shouldn't be obivous - at least to the Anglo reader.

What keeps the book from pure hard boiled status is Lydia's meddling family (they don't approve of her work); a convenient best friend who's a cop; and Lydia's ambiguous relationship with Bill (good ABC girls aren't supposed to be attracted to white dectectives).

Bottom line: A solid debut in a series I'm already looking forward to reading again.

Editorial Review:

It's a city within a city, of smells, sounds, dark shops, and close-knit families; it's a world all its own. And in all of New York's Chinatown, there is no one like P.I. Lydia Chin, who has a nose for trouble, a disapproving Chinese mother, and a partner named Bill Smith who's been living above a bar for sixteen years.

Hired to find some precious stolen porcelain, Lydia follows a trail of clues from highbrow art dealers into a world of Chinese gangs. Suddenly, this case has become as complex as her community itself--and as deadly as a killer on the loose...

Stone Quarry (Bill Smith/Lydia Chin Novels)

S. J. Rozan

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 16 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

It's Bill Smith's turn to take center stage in this sixth entry in S.J. Rozan's memorable Lydia Chin/Bill Smith series of mysteries, and the tough and taciturn private eye really comes into his own. Smith has cloistered himself in his remote cabin in upstate New York, where he escapes from his private devils by fishing, hunting, and practicing Mozart and Bach on his piano, when he is sucked into two local crime cases.

The first involves Tony Antonelli, the brother of a young man whom Smith once helped out of trouble. Tony finds the body of a murdered local hoodlum in the cellar of his roadhouse. His brother Jimmy suspiciously goes missing and becomes the leading suspect. The second case involves a reclusive older woman (who turns out to be a world-famous painter). She asks Bill to track down some of her early works, which had been stolen from her studio. There's also a very nasty sheriff who hates Smith, a moderately tolerant state trooper who grudgingly helps, a corrupt executive of a babyfood company and his sad, dangerous teenage daughter, plus a crew of smalltime crooks who give the lie to the myth of rural safety. Lydia doesn't get called in from the Big Apple until quite late, and when she arrives she attracts stares in the local 7-Eleven "as though she were a black-petalled orchid that had sprung up in the daisy patch. Back in the car, Lydia grinned, said, 'Not many Asians up here, huh?' 'Especially in black leather,'" Bill answers."

The plot might have one or two tangles too many for its own good, but as usual Rozan proves herself to be one of the best descriptive writers in the genre, bringing to indelible life everything from a modern painter's latest work, to a depressed countryside where the last stone quarry is about to close down and grind away a few more dreams.

Other books in this award-winning series: A Bitter Feast, Concourse, Mandarin Plaid, and No Colder Place. --Dick Adler

Winter and Night (Bill Smith/Lydia Chin Novels)

S. J. Rozan

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 28 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Penzler Pick, January 2002: S.J. Rozan is an author whose reputation and prowess have been growing in tandem. A strong writer in the "newcomers to watch" category back when she published China Trade, her first novel featuring New York sleuths Bill Smith and Lydia Chin, she is now a real player on the scene, poised for bestsellerdom.

The story she tells here takes us out of the gritty five boroughs and onto the New Jersey Turnpike, where Smith's sister Helen lives, in a place called Warrenstown. But did we know Bill even had a sister? Over the course of seven books and several short stories, even Lydia Chin, his partner and best friend, hasn't known this. So what gives?

We learn about Helen Smith Russell through a totally unexpected phone call from a Midtown South police detective, answered by Bill in his Tribeca loft. It seems the cops have his nephew in custody, a 15-year-old runaway who is the son of the sister with whom Bill has not been in touch for 25 years.

Two mysteries are being set up here, but before Rozan is finished, more than even these two will have been followed to their tragic conclusions. Each of the sinister puzzles seems to circle back around to Gary, the frightened nephew, and also to that seemingly straight-arrow suburbia he's fleeing.

Warrenstown, New Jersey, is also where Scott, Gary's dad, grew up. The trouble is that Helen's husband is part of the problem, not the solution. And while Bill, Lydia, and young Gary are trying to expose to fresh air the secrets from the past that keep festering (and killing), the villains (those with a deep interest in preserving reputations, as well as the legendary local football team, at all costs) want nothing more than to stop them.

It may be unusual territory, but S.J. Rozan can now be listed alongside Harlan Coben and Janet Evanovich as writers helping to give New Jersey the right kind of bad name. --Otto Penzler

A Bitter Feast (Bill Smith/Lydia Chin Novels)

S. J. Rozan

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 8 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

There's lots of action, great food, and social insight into the attitudes of various generations of immigrants in S.J. Rozan's fifth book in her superlative Lydia Chin-Bill Smith series. There's also a remarkable moment when Lydia's mother actually admits that she approves of the way her daughter does her job. Mrs. Chin has always hated the fact that Lydia's work as a private detective puts her in danger and in the company of men, like Smith, who don't make suitable husbands. But when Lydia refuses to knuckle under to the demands of a venerable Chinatown patriarch, her mother astonishes her (and us) by praising her "professional manner"--and then goes on to give her a clue that helps her unravel a mystery involving the smuggling of people and drugs. With each novel, Rozan alternates the narrative focus between Lydia Chin and Bill Smith, and this time it's Lydia's turn to take center stage. She uses her ethnicity and acting talent to work undercover as a dim sum waitress at the Dragon Garden (where four illegal aliens have disappeared) and her deep roots in New York's Chinatown to note and comment on subtle changes in the power structure as new Fukienese-speaking immigrants replace the old Cantonese. She and Smith also move their complicated personal relationship forward a notch and consume vast amounts of wonderful food--Chinese, Jewish, even a homemade meatloaf--in a story that manages to satisify all the senses. Previous Chin-Smith outings in paperback: China Trade, Concourse, Mandarin Plaid, and No Colder Place. --Dick Adler

Bronx Noir (Akashic Noir)

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 6 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Old School Short Stories w/ a Twist 5 out of 5 stars.
3 of 3 people found this review helpful.

I really like this collection (maybe even more so because I'm from New York) because it evokes so much atmosphere as well as history and context to various regions in the Bronx, that I suspect many readers do not know too much about. But after reading these stories, you will come away with more than a feeling for this borough that is world famous yet still over-stereotyped and misunderstood.

These stories as a whole create a fine read with great atmosphere and setting and again, a sense of authentic history. But in the end these are well crafted short stories that are driven by characters who are haunted by their dreams and desires and flaws--many trying to right wrongs from the past, many still living in the midst of conflicts they cannot escape, some by their own creation.

My favorite stories are: Terrence Cheng's "Gold Mountain" (after reading this you will never look at a Chinese delivery man the same way again); Kevin Baker's "The Cheer's Like Waves" (set in and around Yankee Stadium); S.J. Rozan's "Hothouse" (Botanical Gardens, the writing is so sharp and clear); Joseph Wallace's "The Big Five" (if you've been to the Bronx Zoo, you will be chilled by this piece); and "The Prince of Arthur Avenue" by Patrick Picciarelli (puts a twist on the stereotypical gangster story).

Editorial Review:

Brand-new stories by: Thomas Adcock, Kevin Baker, Thomas Bentil, Lawrence Block, Jerome Charyn, Suzanne Chazin, Terrence Cheng, Ed Dee, Joanne Dobson, Robert Hughes, Marlon James, Sandra Kitt, Rita Laken, Miles Marshall Lewis, Pat Picciarelli, Abraham Rodriguez Jr., S.J. Rozan, Steven Torres, and Joe Wallace.

S.J. Rozan was born and raised in the Bronx and is a lifelong New Yorker. She's the author of eight novels in the Lydia Chin/Bill Smith series, and of the stand-alones Absent Friends and In This Rain (forthcoming). Her books have won Edgar, Nero, Macavity, and Shamus awards for best novel. She's at work on another series novel, Shanghai Moon.