The death of a powerful Chinatown crime boss thrusts (beloved) private eye Lydia Chin and her partner Bill Smith into a storm of double-dealing, subterfuge, murder, and New York City real estate scandal in this new mystery by multiple award-winning novelist S. J. Rozan.
Choi has left the Tong headquarters building to his niece, who hires Lydia and her partner, Bill Smith, to accompany her to inspect it. The building is at the center of a tug-of-war between Chinatown preservation interests-including Lydia's brother Tim-and a real estate developer who's desperate to get his hands on it.
When Lydia, Bill, and Choi's niece go to the building, they discover the Tong members are equally divided on the question of whether the niece should hold onto the building, or sell it-and make them rich. Entering Choi's private living quarters, they find the murdered body of Choi's chief lieutenant.
The battle for the building has begun. Can Lydia and Bill escape being caught in the crossfire?
In the latest mystery from S. J. Rozan, Bill Smith and Lydia Chin must track down a serial killer stalking women in New York's contemporary art scene.
Former client Sam Tabor, just out of Greenhaven after a five-year homicide stint, comes to Bill Smith with a strange request. A colossally talented painter whose parole was orchestrated by art world movers and shakers, Sam's convinced that since he's been out he's killed two women. He doesn't remember the killings but he wants Smith, one of the few people he trusts, to investigate and prove him either innocent or guilty.
NYPD detective Angela Grimaldi thinks Sam's "a weirdo." Smith has no argument with that: diagnosed with a number of mental disorders over the years, Sam self-medicates with alcohol, loses focus (except when he's painting), and has few friends. But Smith doesn't think that adds up to serial killer. He enlists Lydia Chin to help prove it.
Smith and Chin delve into the world surrounding Sam Tabor, including his brother, two NYPD detectives, and various other artists, dealers, collectors, curators, and art connoisseurs. No answers appear. Evidence is found and lost again. And more bodies turn up.
Sam Tabor might be just a crazy artist. But someone is killing people in his orbit. If not Sam, who? Why? And who will be next?
The latest Lydia Chin/Bill Smith mystery takes the acclaimed detective duo into the Deep South to investigate a murder within the Chinese community.
The Most Southern Place on Earth: that's what they call the Mississippi Delta. It's not a place Lydia Chin, an American-born Chinese private detective from Chinatown, New York City, ever thought she'd have reason to go. But when her mother tells her a cousin Lydia didn't know she had is in jail in Clarksdale, Mississippi?and that Lydia has to rush down south and get him out?Lydia finds herself rolling down Highway 61 with Bill Smith, her partner, behind the wheel.
From the river levees to the refinement of Oxford, from old cotton gins to new computer scams, Lydia soon finds that nothing in Mississippi is as she expected it to be, including her cousin's legal troubles?or possibly even his innocence. Can she uncover the truth in a place more foreign to her than any she's ever seen?
Chinese-American PI Lydia Chin is brought in by former mentor Joel Pilarsky to help with a case that crosses continents, cultures, and decades. In Shanghai, excavation has unearthed a cache of European jewelry dating back to World War II. The jewelry was immediately stolen by a Chinese official who fled to New York City. Hired by a lawyer specializing in the recovery of Holocaust assets, Chin and Pilarsky are to find any and all leads to the missing jewels. Lydia soon learns that there is much more to the story than they’ve been told.
“[A] rich blend of historical mystery and contemporary suspense.”--Publishers Weekly
American-Born Chinese P.I. Lydia Chin is called in on what appears to be a simple case. Jeff Dunbar, art world insider, wants her to track down a rumor. Contemporary Chinese painting is sizzling hot on the art scene and no one is hotter than Chau Chun, known as the Ghost Hero. A talented and celebrated ink painter, Chau's highly-prized work mixes classical forms and modern political commentary. The rumor of new paintings by Chau is shaking up the art world. There's only one problem--Ghost Hero Chau has been dead for twenty years, killed in the 1989 Tianamen Square uprising. Not only is Ghost Hero Chau long dead, but Lydia's client isn't who he claims to be either. And she's not the only P.I. hired to look for these paintings. Lydia and her partner, Bill Smith, soon learn that someone else--Jack Lee: P.I., art expert, and, like Lydia, American-Born Chinese--is also on the case. What starts as rumors over new paintings by a dead artist quickly becomes something far more desperate--a high-stakes crisis the P.I.'s will find themselves risking everything to resolve.
PI Bill Smith is sent on a high-stakes chase when an electronically modified voice on his cell phone informs him that Lydia Chin, his occasional partner, has been kidnapped. Now, if Bill wants to keep Lydia alive, he’ll have to play an elaborate game of the kidnapper’s devising. The first move sends him to an abandoned building, where Bill finds the corpse of a small Chinese woman dressed like Lydia and the building being rapidly surrounded by police. Now he’s on the run from the cops and in the worst trouble of his very troubled life.
“Exciting…Neat twists keep the reader guessing to the surprise kick ending.”--Publishers Weekly
Three years ago, a child's death sent one innocent man to prison and blew open a vortex of corruption at the heart of Manhattan's lucrative construction industry. Joe Cole was that innocent man. A former Buildings Department inspector, the ex-con now lives a broken life, cut off from his wife and daughter, and from the city he loves. But a woman's murder and the death of a young man rip open old wounds--plunging Joe and his former partner, a beautiful, hard-charging investigator, into the darkest corners of the city and into a desperate race to expose the secrets that help the powerful hide their crimes.
Lydia Chin, a Chinese-American P.I. who lives in New York City’s Chinatown, is hired for a simple job. She’s to deliver the ransom for a set of stolen sketches that comprise the inaugural collection of fashion designer Genna Jing and her new label, Mandarin Plaid. But everything on this simple job goes terribly wrong. The ransom is stolen out from under Lydia, her sometimes partner, Bill Smith, is arrested, and just as she is trying to sort out exactly what is really going on, the client fires her. Lydia, however, isn’t about to just let it go. Determined to find answers and preserve her pride, Lydia and Bill follow a confusing trail that leads from the sweatshops of Chinatown to the drawing rooms of Manhattan’s wealthy Upper East Side and into a dark underworld of prostitution, drugs, and murder. All they need to uncover is who stole the sketches, who hijacked the ransom payment, and—most important—who would kill to keep them from the truth.
“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.”--Amazon.com editorial review
Private detective Bill Smith is hurtled headlong into the most provocative—and personal—case of his career when he receives a chilling late-night phone call from the NYPD, who is holding his fifteen-year-old nephew Gary. But Gary escapes Bill’s custody and disappears into the dark, unfamiliar streets. Bill and his partner, Lydia Chin, try to find the missing teen; their search takes them to a small town in New Jersey, where they discover that one of Gary’s classmates was murdered. Bill and Lydia delve into the crime—only to find it eerily similar to a decades-old murder-suicide. Now, with his nephew’s future—and his very life—at stake, Bill must unravel a long-buried crime and confront the darkness of his own past.
“Rozan delivers strong characters, deft plotting, and a hard-driving narrative…Don’t miss this one.”--Booklist (starred review)
Asian-American private investigator Lydia Chin knows New York City’s Chinatown, its people, and its ways as no outsider ever could. It’s a city within a city, a rich melange of smells, sounds, dark shops, and close-knit families—a world all its own. And in all of Chinatown, there is no one like Lydia, 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.
“Rozan shows a knack for characterizing Chinatown’s denizens, apothecaries, shops and food, but her story has more flavor than substance.” --Publishers Weekly
The secrets of a group of childhood friends unravel in this haunting thriller by Edgar Award winner S. J. Rozan. Set in New York in the unforgettable aftermath of September 11, Absent Friends brilliantly captures the mood of a singular time and place, winding through the wounded streets of New York and Staten Island and into a maze of old crimes, damaged lives, and heartbreaking revelations. The result is not only an electrifying mystery and a riveting piece of storytelling but an elegiac novel that powerfully explores a world changed forever on a clear September morning. Absent Friends is guaranteed to become a classic, a masterful tale about the bonds of friendship, the meaning of truth, and the stuff of heroism.
