Winter and Night: A Bill Smith/Lydia Chin Novel (Bill Smith/Lydia Chin Novels) - Softcover

Rozan, S. J.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0312986688 ISBN 13: 9780312986681

Publisher: Minotaur Books, 2003

Synopsis

Private detective Bill Smith is hurtled headlong into the most provocative-and personal-case of his career when he receives a chilling late night telephone call from the NYPD, who are holding his fifteen-year-old nephew Gary. But before he can find out what's going on, Gary escapes Bill's custody and disappears into the dark and unfamiliar streets...

Bill and his partner, Lydia Chin, try to find the missing teen and uncover what it is that has led him so far from home. Their search takes them to Gary's family in 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 perhaps his very life-at stake, Bill must unravel a long-buried crime and confront the darkness of his own past...

Winter and Night is the winner of the 2003 Edgar Award for Best Novel.

About this title

Review:

Penzler Pick, January 2002: S.J. Rozan is an author whose reputation and prowess have been growing in tandem. A strong writer in the "newcomers to watch" category back when she published China Trade, her first novel featuring New York sleuths Bill Smith and Lydia Chin, she is now a real player on the scene, poised for bestsellerdom.

The story she tells here takes us out of the gritty five boroughs and onto the New Jersey Turnpike, where Smith's sister Helen lives, in a place called Warrenstown. But did we know Bill even had a sister? Over the course of seven books and several short stories, even Lydia Chin, his partner and best friend, hasn't known this. So what gives?

We learn about Helen Smith Russell through a totally unexpected phone call from a Midtown South police detective, answered by Bill in his Tribeca loft. It seems the cops have his nephew in custody, a 15-year-old runaway who is the son of the sister with whom Bill has not been in touch for 25 years.

Two mysteries are being set up here, but before Rozan is finished, more than even these two will have been followed to their tragic conclusions. Each of the sinister puzzles seems to circle back around to Gary, the frightened nephew, and also to that seemingly straight-arrow suburbia he's fleeing.

Warrenstown, New Jersey, is also where Scott, Gary's dad, grew up. The trouble is that Helen's husband is part of the problem, not the solution. And while Bill, Lydia, and young Gary are trying to expose to fresh air the secrets from the past that keep festering (and killing), the villains (those with a deep interest in preserving reputations, as well as the legendary local football team, at all costs) want nothing more than to stop them.

It may be unusual territory, but S.J. Rozan can now be listed alongside Harlan Coben and Janet Evanovich as writers helping to give New Jersey the right kind of bad name. --Otto Penzler

From the Inside Flap:

"To read S.J. Rozan is to experience the kind of pure pleasure only a master can deliver."
--Dennis Lehane

EDGAR AWARD-WINNING AUTHOR

S.J. ROZAN

WINTER AND NIGHT

"S.J. ROZAN IS ONE OF THE FINEST WRITERS TODAY."
--Linda A. Fairstein, author of The Deadhouse

"A POWERFULL MOVING TALE."
--L A Times

"VERY WELL WRITTEN...COMPLEX, HARROWING."
--Boston Globe

"A TENSE THRILLER."
--Washington Post

"COMPELLING."
--Library Journal

"A SOPHISTICATED STORY THAT WILL STAY WITH YOU LONG AFTER THE BOOK HAS ENDED."
--South Florida Sun-Sentinel

WINTER AND NIGHT
BACK COVER

"TERRIFIC."
--Washington Post
Private detective Bill Smith is hurtled headlong into the most provocative-and personal-case of his career when he receives a chilling late night telephone call from the NYPD, who are holding his fifteen-year-old nephew Gary. But before he can find out what's going on, Gary escapes Bill's custody and disappears into the dark and unfamiliar streets...

"WONDERFUL."
--Robert Crais, author of Hostage
Bill and his partner, Lydia Chin, try to find the missing teen and uncover what it is that has led him so far from home. Their search takes them to Gary's family in 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...

"CHILLING."
--Linda A. Fairstein, author of The Deadhouse
Now, with his nephew's future-and perhaps 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

About this edition

• Publisher: Minotaur Books
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 0312986688
• ISBN 13: 9780312986681
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 400