Stone Quarry - Hardcover

Rozan, S. J.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0312209126 ISBN 13: 9780312209124

Publisher: Minotaur Books, 1999

Synopsis

Traveling upstate to recover stolen paintings for a reclusive artist, private investigator Bill Smith soon finds his services needed when a hoodlum turns up dead and two teenagers disappear

About this title

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

From the Publisher

"Stone Quarry is S.J. Rozan at her best. She has created a story in which the tension and intrigue never lets up. She constantly has you looking over your shoulder into the dark."--Michael Connelly, author of Angel's Flight

"With the Bill Smith and Lydia Chin mysteries, S.J. Rozan has written the most consistently compelling series of traditional detective novels published in this decade. Stone Quarry combines the sure, controlled prose of Ross MacDonald with the fury of early Hammet. Now is the time to discover what Rozan's loyal readership has known all along." --George Pelecanos, author of The Big Blowdown

"S.J. Rozan can write sentences that make my jaw literally drop. She's as good a prose stylist as I've seen in a long, long time." --Dennis Lehane, author of Prayers for Rain

"In a departure from her usual gritty urban settings, S.J. Rozan blends the elegiac beauty of upstate New York with a gripping tale of rural corruption. A solid addition to a solid series." --Margaret Maron, author of Home Fires Burning

"The finest of the new private eye writers, the one who brings a fresh eye and a singular approach, the one who's unafraid of subtlety, the one who remembers to combine all the elements--character, plot, setting, description and distinctive narrative voices--and who, most importantly, remembers to tell a story." --The Drood Review

Edition details

• Publisher: Minotaur Books
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 0312209126
• ISBN 13: 9780312209124
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 276