A Bitter Feast: Bill Smith/Lydia Chin

While lots of amazing events happen in Rozan's fifth book in her superlative Lydia Chin/Bill Smith series, none surprises more than the moment when Lydia's mother actually admits that she approves of the way her daughter does her job. Mrs. Chin has always hated that her daughter's work as a PI puts her in danger and bad company, namely that of men, like Bill, who don't make suitable husbands. But when Lydia refuses to knuckle under to the demands of a Chinatown patriarch, her mother astonishes her by praising her "professional manner"?and then gives her a clue that helps her unravel a mystery involving the smuggling of people and drugs. Since Bill took center stage in the Shamus Award-winning Rozan's last book, No Colder Place (1997), this time it's Lydia's turn in the spotlight. Working undercover as a dim sum waitress at the Dragon Garden, where four illegal aliens have disappeared, Lydia calls upon her deep roots in New York's Chinatown to note and comment on subtle changes in the power structure as new Fukienese-speaking immigrants replace the old Cantonese. She and Bill also move their personal relationship forward a notch and consume vast amounts of wonderful food?Chinese, Jewish, even a homemade meatloaf?in a story that manages to satisify all the senses.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Last seen in No Colder Place , PIs Lydia Chin and Bill Smith return in their fifth adventure. Rozan--the only other woman besides Sue Grafton to have won the Shamus Award for Best Novel--has built a marvelous series around these two characters. Each installment has alternated between the voice of Lydia, a Chinese American born and raised in New York's Chinatown, and Bill, a veteran with a past he'd rather forget. This one focuses on the complexities of power in Chinatown that Lydia encounters when hired to find four missing waiters who all worked at the Dragon Garden, a popular dim sum restaurant owned by one of the community's Cantonese power brokers. The job leads Lydia and Bill to the conflict between the older Cantonese and the newer Fukienese immigrants, discovery of illegal aliens imported for cheap labor to prevent unionization of Chinese restaurants, the deadly business of drug running, and possible U.S. government involvement in smuggling dissidents out of mainland China. Quite a brew indeed, and one that Rozan handles with skill and verve in the most complex plot she has yet written. Lydia and Bill's relationship provides the intriguing subplot in what may be the best of this uniformly excellent, well written, and entertaining series. If you've missed the first four, now is the time to get acquainted with one of the best PI duos in contemporary mystery fiction. Stuart Miller