Lydia Chin & Bill Smith

Asian-American private investigator Lydia Chin knows New York City's Chinatown, its people, and its ways as no outsider ever could. It's a city within a city, a rich melange of smells, sounds, dark shops, and close-knit families-a world all its own. And in all of Chinatown, there is no one like Lydia, who has a nose for trouble, a disapproving Chinese mother, and a partner named Bill Smith who's been living above a bar for sixteen years. Hired to find some precious stolen porcelain, Lydia follows a trail of clues from highbrow art dealers into a world of Chinese gangs. Suddenly, this case has become as complex as her community itself-and as deadly as a killer on the loose.

Lydia Chin, a Chinese-American P.I. who lives in New York City's Chinatown, is hired for a simple job. She's to deliver the ransom for a set of stolen sketches that comprise the inaugural collection of fashion designer Genna Jing and her new label, Mandarin Plaid. But everything on this simple job goes terribly wrong. The ransom is stolen out from under Lydia, her sometimes partner, Bill Smith, is arrested, and just as she is trying to sort out exactly what is really going on, the client fires her. Lydia, however, isn't about to just let it go. Determined to find answers and preserve her pride, Lydia and Bill follow a confusing trail that leads from the sweatshops of Chinatown to the drawing rooms of Manhattan's wealthy Upper East Side and into a dark underworld of prostitution, drugs, and murder. All they need to uncover is who stole the sketches, who hijacked the ransom payment, and-most important-who would kill to keep them from the truth.

Lydia Chin is hired by Grandfather Gao, one of the most respected figures in Chinatown, for what appears to be a simple task. Lydia, along with her professional partner, Bill Smith, is to fly to Hong Kong to deliver a family heirloom to the young grandson of a recently deceased colleague of Grandfather Gao. But before they can deliver the heirloom, the grandson is kidnapped and two separate ransom demands are made.

Private detective Bill Smith is hurtled headlong into the most provocative-and personal-case of his career when he receives a chilling late-night phone call from the NYPD, who is holding his fifteen-year-old nephew Gary. But Gary escapes Bill's custody and disappears into the dark, unfamiliar streets. Bill and his partner, Lydia Chin, try to find the missing teen; their search takes them to 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 his very life-at stake, Bill must unravel a long-buried crime and confront the darkness of his own past.

Chinese-American PI Lydia Chin is brought in by former mentor Joel Pilarsky to help with a case that crosses continents, cultures, and decades. In Shanghai, excavation has unearthed a cache of European jewelry dating back to World War II. The jewelry was immediately stolen by a Chinese official who fled to New York City. Hired by a lawyer specializing in the recovery of Holocaust assets, Chin and Pilarsky are to find any and all leads to the missing jewels. Lydia soon learns that there is much more to the story than they've been told.

PI Bill Smith is sent on a high-stakes chase when an electronically modified voice on his cell phone informs him that Lydia Chin, his occasional partner, has been kidnapped. Now, if Bill wants to keep Lydia alive, he'll have to play an elaborate game of the kidnapper's devising. The first move sends him to an abandoned building, where Bill finds the corpse of a small Chinese woman dressed like Lydia and the building being rapidly surrounded by police. Now he's on the run from the cops and in the worst trouble of his very troubled life.

American-Born Chinese P.I. Lydia Chin is called in on what appears to be a simple case. Jeff Dunbar, art world insider, wants her to track down a rumor. Contemporary Chinese painting is sizzling hot on the art scene and no one is hotter than Chau Chun, known as the Ghost Hero. A talented and celebrated ink painter, Chau's highly-prized work mixes classical forms and modern political commentary. The rumor of new paintings by Chau is shaking up the art world. There's only one problem-Ghost Hero Chau has been dead for twenty years, killed in the 1989 Tianamen Square uprising. Not only is Ghost Hero Chau long dead, but Lydia's client isn't who he claims to be either. And she's not the only P.I. hired to look for these paintings. Lydia and her partner, Bill Smith, soon learn that someone else-Jack Lee: P.I., art expert, and, like Lydia, American-Born Chinese-is also on the case. What starts as rumors over new paintings by a dead artist quickly becomes something far more desperate-a high-stakes crisis the P.I.'s will find themselves risking everything to resolve.

The latest Lydia Chin/Bill Smith mystery takes the acclaimed detective duo into the Deep South to investigate a murder within the Chinese community. 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, New York City, 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. From the river levees to the refinement of Oxford, from old cotton gins to new computer scams, Lydia soon finds that nothing in Mississippi is as she expected it to be, including her cousin's legal troubles-or possibly even his innocence. Can she uncover the truth in a place more foreign to her than any she's ever seen?

In the latest mystery from S. J. Rozan, Bill Smith and Lydia Chin must track down a serial killer stalking women in New York's contemporary art scene. Former client Sam Tabor, just out of Greenhaven after a five-year homicide stint, comes to Bill Smith with a strange request. A colossally talented painter whose parole was orchestrated by art world movers and shakers, Sam's convinced that since he's been out he's killed two women. He doesn't remember the killings but he wants Smith, one of the few people he trusts, to investigate and prove him either innocent or guilty. NYPD detective Angela Grimaldi thinks Sam's "a weirdo." Smith has no argument with that: diagnosed with a number of mental disorders over the years, Sam self-medicates with alcohol, loses focus (except when he's painting), and has few friends. But Smith doesn't think that adds up to serial killer. He enlists Lydia Chin to help prove it. Smith and Chin delve into the world surrounding Sam Tabor, including his brother, two NYPD detectives, and various other artists, dealers, collectors, curators, and art connoisseurs. No answers appear. Evidence is found and lost again. And more bodies turn up. Sam Tabor might be just a crazy artist. But someone is killing people in his orbit. If not Sam, who? Why? And who will be next?

The death of a powerful Chinatown crime boss thrusts (beloved) private eye Lydia Chin and her partner Bill Smith into a storm of double-dealing, subterfuge, murder, and New York City real estate scandal in this new mystery by multiple award–winning novelist S. J. Rozan. Choi has left the Tong headquarters building to his niece, who hires Lydia and her partner, Bill Smith, to accompany her to inspect it. The building is at the center of a tug-of-war between Chinatown preservation interests-including Lydia's brother Tim-and a real estate developer who's desperate to get his hands on it. When Lydia, Bill, and Choi's niece go to the building, they discover the Tong members are equally divided on the question of whether the niece should hold onto the building, or sell it-and make them rich. Entering Choi's private living quarters, they find the murdered body of Choi's chief lieutenant. The battle for the building has begun. Can Lydia and Bill escape being caught in the crossfire? "Superb…Rozan evokes the milieu perfectly, while smoothly integrating current debates over neighborhood development into an intricate plot. This is another triumph for this talented author."

In the latest novel in S. J. Rozan's groundbreaking mystery series, Lydia Chin and Bill Smith face a dangerous task: they must unlock a hospital's many secrets in order to save an innocent man. With River Valley Hospital in the midst of negotiations to avert a nurses' strike, a wealthy benefactor is set to give a large donation to honor of the Chief of Emergency Medicine: Dr. Elliott Chin, the brother of private investigator Lydia Chin. Before the donation can be finalized, a member of the nurses' negotiating committee is found murdered. A morgue assistant is arrested and although he denies even knowing the victim his father and brother, both doctors at the hospital, are quick to urge him to take a plea. Another negotiating committee member abruptly resigns and a senior biomedical technician disappears. An officially off-limits section of the hospital basement turns out to be a hotbed of unauthorized-and in some cases criminal-activity. Hired by the arrested man's lawyer, Lydia Chin and her partner Bill Smith start to dig into the events and personnel at the hospital. Among the union disputes, blackmail, thefts, lies, and a detective who really, really doesn't like them, one thing becomes clear: the dictum to "First Do No Harm" is not in effect at River Valley. As time runs short, Lydia and Bill face a complicated and dangerous task: they must unlock the hospital's secrets to save an innocent man.

The new crime novel from the award-winning S. J. Rozan, where private investigators Lydia Chin and Bill Smith find themselves thrust into the mystery behind the disappearance of the teenage son of the mayor of New York. In January, New York City inaugurates its first female mayor. In April, her son disappears. Called in by the mayor's chief aide, a former girlfriend of private investigator Bill Smith's, to find the missing fifteen-year-old, Bill and his partner, Lydia Chin, are told the boy has run away. Neither the press nor the NYPD know that he's missing, and the mayor wants him back before a headstrong child turns into a political catastrophe. But as Bill and Lydia investigate, they turn up more questions than answers. Why did the boy leave? Who else is searching for him, and why? What is his twin sister hiding? Then a teen is found dead and another is hit by gunfire. Are these tragedies related to each other, and to the mayor's missing son? In a desperate attempt to find the answer to the boy's disappearance before it's too late, Bill and Lydia turn to the only contacts they think will be able to help: the neighborhood leaders who are the real 'mayors' of New York.