Books And Stories By S. J. Rozan
ABSENT
FRIENDS
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 a
time and place unlike any other, as it winds 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.
In a novel that will catch you off guard at every turn, and
one that is guaranteed to become a classic, S. J. Rozan masterfully ratchets up
the tension one revelation at a time as she dares you to ponder the bonds of
friendship, the meaning of truth, and the stuff of heroism.
In the middle of the night, private investigator Bill Smith
is awakened by a call from the NYPD. They're holding a 15-year-old kid named
Gary—a kid Bill knows. But before Bill can find out what is going on, Gary
escapes Bill's custody into the dark night and unfamiliar streets. Bill, with
the help of his partner Lydia Chin, tries to find the missing teen and uncover
what it is that led him so far from home. Tracking Gary's family to a small
town in New Jersey, Bill finds himself in a town where nothing matters but
high school football, where the secrets of the past—both the town's and Bill's
own—threaten to destroy the present. And if Bill is to have any chance of
saving Gary and preventing a tragedy, he has to both unravel a long buried
crime and confront the darkness of his own past.
Lydia Chin, a Chinese-American private investigator in her
late twenties, is hired by Grandfather Gao, one of the most respected figures
in New York City's Chinatown, for what appears to be a simple task. Lydia,
along with her professional partner Bill Smith, is to fly to Hong Kong to
deliver a family heirloom to the young grandson of a recently deceased colleague
of Grandfather Gao. They arrive in Hong Kong safely but before they can deliver
the heirloom, the grandson is kidnapped and two, separate ransom demands are
made. While the family of the kidnapped boy tries to freeze them out, Lydia
and Bill must quickly learn their way around a place where the rules are different,
the stakes are high, and the cost of failure is too dire to imagine.
For
the past twelve years that private investigator Bill Smith has owned his cabin
in the woods in a small upstate New York town, he has used it as an escaping, a
place of refuge, never letting city life or his work intrude. All that changes,
however, when Eva Colgate, a local farmer, summons Bill to meet with her. She
wants him to quietly recover some recently stolen possessions--items which, if
known to be hers, would expose her past and a secret she has kept for thirty
years.
As Bill, with the help of his sometime-partner Lydia Chin,
begins the search for the stolen goods, the usual quiet of this rural county
abruptly shatters. A local hoodlum is found murdered in the basement of a local
bar, the young daughter of a prominent businessman runs away from home, and
Jimmy Antonelli, a teenager with a troubled past who is tied to these events,
is missing. Now Bill and Lydia have to find the missing boy--and uncover the
connection among these events--in time to save him.
A gripping story of power, corruption, and long-held secrets,
Stone Quarry is a most compelling novel from one of the finest mystery
novelists of our time.
It's Lydia Chin's turn to go underground as the Chinese-American
P.I. investigates a case that strikes at the heart of Chinatown's dangerously
shifting power structure. Four restaurant workers, including a union organizer,
have disappeared, and the union's lawyer hires Lydia to find them. But when
a bomb shatters the Chinese Restaurant Workers' Union headquarters, killing
one of the missing men and injuring the lawyer, Lydia is summoned by the prime
suspect, one of Chinatown's most powerful men, to continue the search--on
his payroll. With backup from her partner Bill Smith, Lydia goes undercover
as a dim sum waitress, slinging steamed dumplings while dodging a lethal conflict
between the old and the new orders, and searching for the missing waiters
and their deadly secret--before someone serves them their last supper.
Bill Smith is going undercover again as a favor to an old friend
who wants him to investigate thievery on the 40-story Manhattan site of Crowell
Construction's latest project. His bricklaying is a little rusty, but passable
as he checks out the foreman who's under suspicion. A crane operator has disappeared--along
with some heavy machinery. But when a well-orchestrated riot causes the foreman's
“accidental” death, Smith plunges into a morass of bribery, blackmail and
blood looking for answers. With the help of his Chinese-American partner Lydia
Chin, he follows a trail of twisted loyalties, old-fashioned greed and organized
crime to its heart-stopping conclusion. Murder--with no end in sight.
MANDARIN
PLAIDmurder to more money: a million dollars
in exchange for
It's a long way from the cramped, dreary sweatshops where
Lydia Chin's mother once sewed for the heady world of fashion. But in New York
City, worlds collide. And a petite, Chinese-American P.I. can still rub
shoulders with the rich, the poor, the beautiful, and the depraved.
Elegant, porcelain-skinned Genna Jing is sure her latest designs
are worth a fortune. That's why she is willing to pay the fifty grand being
demanded by the person who stole her design book. But when Lydia--backed by
her partner Bill Smith--makes the drop, everything goes wrong. Soon a simple
case of high-fashion extortion leads Lydia and Bill from Chinatown to Park
Avenue, and from murder to more money: a million dollars in exchange for a
missing man's life.
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.
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...
In addition to her novels, S J Rozan is the author of
numerous short stories. Below is a complete list, starting with the most
recently published.
Motormouth. "Ellery Queen Mystery
Magazine," March 2001
Doublecrossing Delancey. Mystery
Street, (publisher tba), 2001
Childhood. Available
online at MightyWords, 2000
World's Finest Crime and Mystery II, Tor Books, 2001
Grift of the Magi.
Christmas story for Mysterious Bookshop, 2000
Marking the Boat. Shamus Game, ed.
Robert J. Randisi, Signet, 2000
A Tale About a Tiger. Criminal Records,
ed. Otto Penzler, Orion, 2000
Hunting for Doyle. "Ellery Queen Mystery
Magazine," May 1999
Cooking the Hounds. Canine Crimes, ed.
Jeffrey Marks, Ballantine, 1998
Subway. Vengeance Is Hers, ed.
Mickey Spillane & Max Allen Collins, Signet, 1997
Hoops.
"Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine," 1996
The Best American Mystery Stories
1997, ed. Robert B. Parker, Mariner Books,
1997
Year's 25 Finest Crime and Mystery
Stories: Sixth Annual Edition, ed. Joan
Hess, Ed Gorman,
and Martin H. Greenberg, Carroll & Graf, 1997
Crime After Crime, ed. Joan Hess,
Ed Gorman, and Martin H. Greenberg, St.
Martin's Press,
1999
CrËme de La Crime, ed. Janet
Hutchings, Carroll & Graf, 2000
Film at Eleven. Deadly Allies II, edited
by Robert J. Randisi & Susan Dunlap, Doubleday, 1994
Birds of Paradise.
"Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine," 1994
Body English.
"Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine," 1992
Women of Mystery II, ed. Cynthia Manson, Carroll & Graf, 1994
Hot Numbers. "PI Magazine," 1992
Once Burned. "P.I. Magazine," 1991
Lethal Ladies, Nancy Collins & Robert J. Randisi, Berkley, 1996
Prosperity Restaurant. The Fourth Woman
Sleuth Anthology, ed. Irene Zahava, The Crossing Press: Freedom, CA, 1991
Lethal Ladies II, Christine Matthews & Robert J. Randisi, Berkley,
1998
Heartbreak. "PI Magazine," 1990
All descriptions taken from www.sjrozan.com