Paper Son: S. J. Rozan

The Lydia Chin / Bill Smith mystery series is one my favorite contemporary mystery series; the 11th book in the series was published in 2011.  After eight long years, another book has been published. I had no idea she was even working on it and as soon as I saw it, I purchased it and read it.

Paper Son is one of the best in the series. This book earned a starred review at Publishers' Weekly and I was glad to read the praise for the book and the author there and at Kirkus Reviews.

Summary from S.J. Rozan's website:

The Most Southern Place on Earth: that’s what they call the Mississippi Delta. It’s not a place Lydia Chin, an American-born Chinese private detective from Chinatown, NYC, ever thought she’d have reason to go. But when her mother tells her a cousin Lydia didn’t know she had is in jail in Clarksdale, Mississippi—and that Lydia has to rush down south and get him out—Lydia finds herself rolling down Highway 61 with Bill Smith, her partner, behind the wheel.

Other than being set in Mississippi, which is very different from New York, the big surprises here are that Lydia's mom, who has always disliked Lydia's profession, has requested that Lydia go help out a cousin in Mississippi, and that she insists that Bill Smith go along to help. She has also resisted Lydia's partnership with Bill for years.

The strongest point in previous books in the series is the characters. Lydia and Bill each have their own opinions and strengths. Each book also features other characters, such as Lydia's mom, that stand out and are interesting. The setting is often New York City's Chinatown, where Lydia lives and works. And, in addition, the mystery element is handled well.

Another joy in this book was reading about Lydia in a new environment and one I am pretty familiar with. I grew up in Alabama and I had relatives in the small town of Batesville, Mississippi. I visited them often in my childhood, and my husband and I made a special trip to Mississippi to visit them right before we got married.

This is a pretty good look at the South, without being over the top, not that I have spent a lot of time there in the last few years. Bill lets his southern roots show in this story, and I know exactly how that is. As soon as you are back in the South, a good bit of your Southern accent comes back. Lydia's reaction to sweet tea was humorous; the relative she and Bill stay with has a pitcher available at all times. I personally was never a fan of sweet tea and did not even have any until I was in college, but it is clearly popular throughout the South.

I would like to share this quote from The Irresponsible Reader:

Rozan’s at her strongest when in addition to the mystery, she’s using the circumstances around it to have Lydia and/or Bill explore another culture/sub-culture. She’s displayed this strength when helping her readers understand the Jewish refugees in the 1930’s who fled to Shanghai (The Shanghai Moon), Hong Kong (in Reflecting the Sky), Small Town High School Football (Winter and Night), the Contemporary Chinese Art scene (Ghost Hero), and so on. Here we get a Yankee perspective on Mississippi black/white relations (and a glance or two at how it differs from neighboring states), as well as a fascinating look at the Chinese in the Mississippi Delta in the late Nineteenth Century (which left me almost as shocked as Lydia). You give us that kind of history and commentary while delivering a solid mystery? It’s hard to ask for more.

If you are already a fan of this series, I highly recommend this book. If you haven't tried the others, I would read a couple of the earliest books in the series first, just to get a feel for Lydia and Bill's relationship in the early books. There is a definite progression of the partnership and their relationship in the series but each book can stand alone.

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Publisher:  Pegasus Books, 2019.
Length:      312 pages
Format:      Hardcover
Series:       Lydia Chin / Bill Smith, #12
Setting:      Mississippi
Genre:       Mystery
Source:      I purchased my copy.

This is a Bust: Ed Lin

Published in 2007, this book is the first of three books about Robert Chow, a Chinese-American policeman in New York's Chinatown in 1976.

The description at Kaya Press is very apt:

This Is a Bust, the second novel by award-winning author Ed Lin, turns the conventions of hard-boiled pulp stories on their head by exploring the unexotic and very real complexities of New York City’s Chinatown, circa 1976, through the eyes of a Chinese-American cop. A Vietnam vet and an alcoholic, Robert Chow’s troubles are compounded by the fact that he’s basically community-relations window-dressing for the NYPD: he’s the only Chinese American on the Chinatown beat, and the only police officer who can speak Cantonese, but he’s never assigned anything more challenging than appearances at store openings or community events.

Robert Chow is a Vietnam vet and that experience changed his view of the world.

Then in 1969 the draft came to Chinatown. I didn't care about getting out of it. I had finished high school and was drifting. But I knew how bad it was in China and how we should be grateful for the better life we had in the U.S. I knew that serving was the best way to prove how much I loved America. We had to stop Communism.
....
I was real stupid and innocent back then. That was before we were in basic training and the instructor pulled me out of line, faced me to the company, and said: "This is what a gook looks like. He's the complete opposite of you, and he's out to kill you. What are you going to do about it?"

Robert is not happy in his job as a policeman, where the powers that be have chosen him to be the Chinese cop poster boy for the Chinatown precinct.  He makes a effort to get on the detective track and gets pushed back every time he tries. Somewhere along the way he has become an alcoholic.

This is a very unusual book, and I mean that in a good way. Even though the story is generally a downer, it has something of an upbeat ending, which I did not expect at all. A large part of the story is dialogue, which I don't usually care for, but it worked here. There are great characters that you meet and get to know along the way. I don't know that This is a Bust will appeal to everyone, but I found it memorable and enlightening, and compelling.

There are two more books in this series, Snakes Can't Run (2010) and One Red Bastard (2012). Ed Lin's second series, the Taipei Night Market series, is set in Taiwan.

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Publisher:   Kaya Press, 2007 
Length:       345 pages
Format:       Trade paperback
Series:        Robert Chow, #1
Setting:       Chinatown in New York City
Genre:        Police Procedural
Source:       I purchased my copy.