First line in the book: I jumped a pothole in Canal Street as I dashed between honking cars and double-parked ones.
My thoughts: As I said I would after reading S J Rozan's The Shanghai Moon, I am back with her superb debut called China Trade introducing the original tea-drinking American-born Chinese private investigator Lydia Chin and her sidekick, Bill Smith.
Set in the heart of New York's Chinatown, Lydia is hired by the local Chinese community organizers to find a set of rare Blair porcelains stolen from the basement of its headquarters. Lydia works with her low fann sometimes partner, Bill, to find a link between groups of rival Chinese tongs and the black market in stolen art. An investigation that Lydia eventually finds not as straightforward as it first appears when violence intervenes in the courtyard behind the kitchen of a seafood restaurant...
Face. Reputation. People desperate to protect their good names. When it comes to the Chinese people, you can be pretty sure this is what it is all about on all counts!
Rozan certainly has Chinatown and Chinese cultural nuances down pat and is a talented writer in the contemporary sleuth genre. What I like most is that it is funny and witty and the relationship between Lydia and Bill is so comfortable and easy that it seems Rozan must have been writing about a rea life friendship. A very interesting reader's comment about this book went like this, "...this book was written in the early 90s and it was amusing to remember that not so long ago people used answering machines, answering services and pay phones!" I wonder if anyone noticed while reading the book at the present time.
An excellent start to a long series of books alternating between Lydia and Bill. Highly recommended.
S J Rozan is a former architect and lives in lower Manhattan, New York City.
Rating: 5/5
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