Paperback: American-Born Chinese PI Lydia Chin is called in on what appears to be a simple case. Jeff Dunbar, art world insider, wants her to track down a rumour. 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 rumour of new paintings by Chau is shaking up the art world. There ia only one problem - Ghost Hero Chau has been dead for twenty years, killed in the 1989 Tianamen Square uprising.
But not only is Ghost Hero Chau long dead, but Lydia's client is not who he claims to be either. And she is not the only PI hired to look for these paintings. Lydia and her partner, Bill Smith, soon learn that someone else - Jack Lee: PI, art expert, and, like Lydia, American Born Chinese - is also on the case.
What starts as rumours over new paintings by a dead artist quickly becomes something far more desperate - a high-stakes crisis the PI's will find themselves risking everything to resolve.
Ghost Hero (2011) is the eleventh instalment in the PIs Bill Smith and Lydia Chin series set in New York City's Chinatown and won the Dilys Awards for Best Book in 2012.
About the author: S J Rozan, a native New Yorker, is the author of fifteen novels and five dozen short stories. Her work has won the Edgar, Shamus, Anthony, Nero, and Macavity awards for Best Novel and the Edgar for Best Short Story. She is also the recipient of the Japanese Maltese Falcon Award and recently received the Life Achievement Award from the Private Eye Writers of America. Bronx Noir, a short story anthology S J edited, was chosen NAIBA “Notable Book of the Year.” She also co-edited, with Jonathan Santlofer, the anthology Dark End of the Street.
S J has served on the National Boards of Mystery Writers of America and Sisters in Crime, and is ex-President of the Private Eye Writers of America. She speaks, lectures and teaches, and runs a summer writing workshop at the Art Workshop International in Assisi, Italy.
In January 2003 SJ was an invited speaker at the Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. The 2005 Left Coast Crime convention in El Paso, Texas made her its Guest of Honor and she was Toastmaster at Bouchercon 2009.
A former architect in a practice that focused on police stations, firehouses, and zoos, S J Rozan lives in lower Manhattan.
Rating: 5/5
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