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This page lists novels that feature the private investigators Lydia Chin and Bill Smith.

China Trade

S.J. Rozan

1994

A Lydia Chin / Bill Smith novel

"Asian-American private investigator Lydia Chin knows New York City's Chinatown, its people, and its ways as no outsider ever could. So when the Chinatown Museum is robbed of a set of rare export porcelains, Lydia is hired to recover them quietly - a task that quickly proves more difficult than it at first appears. Maneuvering gently around the local gangs who control the streets of Chinatown, Lydia tackles an investigation that takes her - and her sometimes partner Bill Smith - far beyond the borders of Chinatown into the equally cryptic world of art and collecting, and upstart outer-borough gangs trying to gain a toe hold in the closed world of Chinatown."

Concourse

S.J. Rozan

1995

A Lydia Chin / Bill Smith novel

"At the end of the avenue called the Grand Concourse is the place people go to die, the Bronx Home for the Aged. The only trouble is the people dying there are going before their time. Bill Smith has been hired by an old friend to investigate the brutal killing of a young security guard on the Bronx Home grounds. Going undercover, Smith wades out into a sea of violence and lies washing up against the old brick building. When a second murder is committed, Smith knows that there’s a method to the madness. With the help of bright, young Chinese-American investigator Lydia Chin, Smith uncovers a web of corruption that’s found a home in the Bronx. Now he has to figure out who will die next."

Mandarin Plaid

S.J. Rozan

1996

A Lydia Chin / Bill Smith novel

"It’s a long way from the cramped, dreary sweatshops where Lydia Chin’s mother once sewed for the heady world of fashion. But in New York City, worlds collide. And a petite, Chinese-American P.I. can still rub shoulders with the rich, the poor, the beautiful, and the depraved. Elegant, porcelain-skinned Genna Jing is sure her latest designs are worth a fortune. That’s why she is willing to pay the fifty grand being demanded by the person who stole her design book. But when Lydia–backed by her partner Bill Smith–makes the drop, everything goes wrong. Soon a simple case of high-fashion extortion leads Lydia and Bill from Chinatown to Park Avenue, and from murder to more money: a million dollars in exchange for a missing man’s life."

No Colder Place

S.J. Rozan

1997

A Lydia Chin / Bill Smith novel

"Bill Smith is going undercover again as a favor to an old friend who wants him to investigate thievery on the 40-story Manhattan site of Crowell Construction’s latest project. His bricklaying is a little rusty, but passable as he checks out the foreman who’s under suspicion. A crane operator has disappeared–along with some heavy machinery. But when a well-orchestrated riot causes the foreman’s “accidental” death, Smith plunges into a morass of bribery, blackmail and blood looking for answers. With the help of his Chinese-American partner Lydia Chin, he follows a trail of twisted loyalties, old-fashioned greed and organized crime to its heart-stopping conclusion."

A Bitter Feast

S.J. Rozan

1998

A Lydia Chin / Bill Smith novel

"It's Lydia Chin's turn to go underground as the Chinese-American P.I. investigates a case that strikes at the heart of Chinatown's dangerously shifting power structure. Four restaurant workers, including a union organizer, have disappeared, and the union's lawyer hires Lydia to find them. But when a bomb shatters the Chinese Restaurant Workers' Union headquarters, killing one of the missing men and injuring the lawyer, Lydia is summoned by the prime suspect, one of Chinatown's most powerful men, to continue the search--on his payroll. With backup from her partner Bill Smith, Lydia goes undercover as a dim sum waitress, slinging steamed dumplings while dodging a lethal conflict between the old and the new orders, and searching for the missing waiters and their deadly secret--before someone serves them their last supper."

Stone Quarry

S.J. Rozan

1999

A Lydia Chin / Bill Smith novel

"Bill Smith's country cabin in upstate New York is far from the city's savage streets--a retreat where a weary P.I. can play Mozart on his upright piano and let nature heal him. But when Eve Colgate, a local farmer and painter, asks him to find stolen items--six paintings which could reveal Eve's highly guarded thirty-year-old secret--he caves. When Smith's partner, Lydia Chin, comes in on the action, she brings along her cool courage and sharp mind. It's a simple case--until the runaway daughter of a hotshot politician and the murder of a local hood change the playing field. Now the stench of corruption fills this rural paradise, as Bill and Lydia scour through dangerous secrets and greedy corridors for the stone-cold truth."

Reflecting the Sky

S.J. Rozan

2001

A Lydia Chin / Bill Smith novel

"Lydia Chin, a Chinese-American private investigator in her late twenties, is hired by Grandfather Gao, one of the most respected figures in New York City's 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. They arrive in Hong Kong safely but before they can deliver the heirloom, the grandson is kidnapped and two, separate ransom demands are made. While the family of the kidnapped boy tries to freeze them out, Lydia and Bill must quickly learn their way around a place where the rules are different, the stakes are high, and the cost of failure is too dire to imagine."

Winter and Night

S.J. Rozan

2002

A Lydia Chin / Bill Smith novel

"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."

The Shanghai Moon

S.J. Rozan

2009

A Lydia Chin / Bill Smith novel

"In Shanghai, excavation has unearthed a cache of European jewelry dating back to World War II, when Shanghai was an open city providing safe haven for thousands of Jewish refugees. The jewelry, identifed as having belonged to one such refugee - Rosalie Gilder - 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. However, Lydia soon learns that there is much more to the story than they've been told: The Shanghai Moon, one of the world's most sought after missing jewels, reputed to be worth millions, is believed to have been part of the same stash. Before Lydia can act on this new information, Joel Pilarsky is murdered, Lydia is fired from the case, and Bill Smith finally reappears on the scene. Now Lydia and Bill must unravel the truth about the Shanghai Moon and the events that surrounded its disappearance sixty years ago during the chaos of war and revolution, if they are to stop more killings and uncover the truth of what is going on today."

On the Line

S.J. Rozan

2010

A Lydia Chin / Bill Smith novel

"P.I. 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 wherein Bill finds the corpse of a small Chinese woman dressed like Lydia and discovers that the building is being rapidly surrounded by police. Now Bill is on the run from the cops and in the worst trouble of his very troubled life. With the help of Lydia's hacker cousin Linus, and Linus's cohort Trella, Bill has to not only stay one step ahead of the cops, he has to uncover the secret behind the kidnapper's identity and the reason he's come after Bill, if he's to reach Lydia before it's too late."

Ghost Hero

S.J. Rozan

2011

A Lydia Chin / Bill Smith novel

"Chau Chun is a renowned artist and controversial painter. And rumours of new work by him has the media in a frenzy – and sees Lydia Chin and Bill Smith hired to follow the whispers to their source. They soon discover that Chau has been officially dead for over twenty years, killed in the Tianamen Square uprising. Are Lydia and Bill really chasing a ghost?"