Fri 26 Feb 2021
A PI Mystery Review by Barry Gardner: S. J. ROZAN – Concourse.
Posted by Steve under Reviews[10] Comments
S. J. ROZAN – Concourse. Lydia Chia and Bill Smith #2. St. Martin’s, hardcover, 1995; paperback, 1996. Shamus Awards Best Novel winner (1996).
I thought that the first Rozan book, 1994’s China Trade, was one of the better first novels of the year, and for that matter one of the better PI novels of the year, period. Despite the ethnicity of that book’s heroine, Rozan herself is not Oriental.
Bill Smith, the private detective who assisted Chin in the first book, takes center stage here. His former mentor, who operates a security service, calls him for help when one of his operatives is brutally beaten to death. The young man, who was also his nephew, was working as a guard at the Bronx Home for the Aged, which is situated in the midst of a particularly violent gang area – and the police and others suspect that the murder is gang-related. Bill isn’t so sure, even though he manages rather quickly to run afoul of the area’s major gang himself.
This isn’t really a Lydia Chin book, though she is frequently in and out of the narrative, any more than the first was a Bill Smith book. It’s told first-person from his viewpoint, and Rozan appears to be one of the few women who can write from a male viewpoint effectively and credibly.
This lady does just about everything right. Her characters are likable and believable, her pacing is excellent, and her prose is smooth and readable. On the basis of two books, I’d have to say that she is one of the better of the 90s crop. It will be interesting to see where she goes with Chin and Smith, both in terms of their relationship and to see if she continues to alternate between the two as narrators. I’ll certainly be on hand to see.
The Bill Smith & Lydia Chin series —
1. China Trade (1994)
2. Concourse (1995)
3. Mandarin Plaid (1996)
4. No Colder Place (1997)
5. A Bitter Feast (1998)
6. Stone Quarry (1999)
7. Reflecting the Sky (2001)
8. Winter and Night (2002)
9. The Shanghai Moon (2009)
10. On the Line (2010)
11. Ghost Hero (2011)
12. Paper Son (2019)
13. The Art of Violence (2020)
14. Family Business (2021)
February 26th, 2021 at 11:51 pm
This is discouraging if not out-and-out depressing. I bought each of these books as soon as they came out in paperback, boxed them up and told myself I’d read them as soon as I retired.
That was almost 20 years ago, and guess what?
You’re right.
Now what do I see, but that she’s written six more.Groan.
February 27th, 2021 at 12:34 am
It’s ironic that when Barry wrote this no one would have thought twice about using the word Oriental to describe an Asian character or objected to it, and barely ten years later it was already frowned on, and now something worse.
If you don’t believe language is a living thing, look how quickly it changes.
I know Rozan from somewhere, and not these books, was it EQMM? Her name sounds familiar.
February 27th, 2021 at 8:34 am
Some stories in the series did appear in either EQMM or AHMM. Here’s a list:
Body English (ss) Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine Dec 1992
Birds of Paradise (ss) Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine mid-Dec 1994
Hoops (nv) Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine Jan 1996
Chin Yong-Yun Meets a Ghost (ss) Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine Mar/Apr 2015
Chin Yong-Yun Stays at Home (ss) Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine Jan/Feb 2017
Chin Yong-Yun Helps a Fool (ss) Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine Sep/Oct 2018
Chin Yong-Yun is Lydia’s mother, who according to the Thrilling Detective website, sometimes “assists” her daughter.
Besides these, Smith & Chin stories have also appeared in various anthologies. See https://www.thrillingdetective.com/chin_lydia.html for a partial list. (The three Chin Yong-Yun stories above are not included, for example, although two others are.)
February 27th, 2021 at 8:06 am
I was a big fan of this series until she killed my interest with ON THE LINE, which some might like but with a story line that I find so personally off-putting that it has been hard to get back to the series. Lydia Chin is kidnapped and held prisoner by someone calling her partner Bill Smith to taunt him and challenge him to find her before he kills her. This is supposed to create unbearable suspense. Will he be in time? Will he save her or will she be murdered? As if. She is the central character of the series. Unless and until the author decides to end it, she won’t be killed or even permanently damaged. I just skimmed this one until the inevitable conclusion. Trust me, read any other one but not this.
February 27th, 2021 at 8:50 am
Sometimes stories like that work, and sometimes they don’t. I think it depends firstly on how good the writer is, but then on how willing the reader is to go along with what’s almost always (always?) a pretense being told.
February 27th, 2021 at 8:39 am
I liked a short story by Rozan, “Prosperity Restaurant” (1991).
So I read Concourse. Thought it was uninventive and routine.
Have had that response to a lot of post-1970 English language mystery novels. Reviewers praise them, but on reading, can’t see what’s good about them.
The title refers to a real-life boulevard in the Bronx known as Grand Concourse.
February 27th, 2021 at 8:56 am
I can’t reply in regard to CONCOURSE, of course, or any of Rozan’s books, but while I try to keep up with what is being published as crime fiction today, I find almost none of it of any interest, to me. I’m not complaining. I know it’s me, and it doesn’t matter. I have plenty to read!
February 27th, 2021 at 3:42 pm
I’ve read two of the Chin Yong-Yun stories: “Chin Yong-Yun Meets a Ghost” and “Chin Yong-Yun Stays at Home”. These are wonderful stories and in both Mrs. Chin helped people without her daughter’s help using a combination of common sense and Chinese culture. Rozan should do a book’s worth of these stories. They are really good.
February 27th, 2021 at 4:50 pm
Thanks Steve, those were the stories I remembered. I lost track of anything new in the genre in that period due to a personal tragedy, and never caught up again really.
To go on a tangent here I have to admit that most of todays crime fiction just isn’t for me, even some writers whose skills I admire just don’t write books I much care for.
Luckily, or tragically, there is more than enough to read or reread, and ironically sometimes when I reread I have greater appreciation for some writers I took for granted then whose skills impress me now in comparison to my indifference to much of the genre today.
February 28th, 2021 at 9:01 am
Re beb’s comment: there is a new story, “Chin Yong-Yun Finds a Kitten,” in the Bill Crider tribute anthology, BULLETS AND OTHER HURTING THINGS. I agree – the stories really humanize her mother, who can come across as something of a stereotype in the novels.