S.J. Rozan books in order

The secrets of a group of childhood friends will unfold.

Characteristically set in New York, Absent Friends is another gripping thriller by the award winning S. J. Rozan.

The book is set in the gloomy aftermath of the September 11 terrorist attack, accurately capturing the state of the damaged streets of New York and Staten Island.

A whirlwind of corruption inside Manhattan’s booming construction industry was exposed by the death of one child three years ago—resulting in the imprisonment of an innocent man, Joe Cole.

Joe, an ex-investigator in the city, has never been the same again. He lives a shattered life, unable to see is wife and daughter, and cut off from the city that was a large part of his life.

Everything nonetheless changes when the murder of a woman, and a teenager’s rooftop freefall, opens up painful memories.

Quick to discover the lies, Joe’s former partner Ann Montgomery drives Joe out of his self-inflicted life of seclusion to help uncover the deception and secret ties that ensure those in positions of power conceal their crimes.

Ann and Joe think they’ve nailed it when they uncover secrets about the borough president, the charming community activist and the mayor, but the most powerful revelations are still to come.

From the smells to the sounds, from the dimly lit shops to the close-knit families; Chinatown is a city within a city.

Private Investigator Lydia Chin leads an interesting life. She is always looking for trouble, has a very critical Chinese mother, and partner, Bill Smith, who has been living above a bar for a whopping sixteen years.

When she is hired to reclaim some stolen precious porcelain, her clues will lead her into a world of Chinese gangs.

Lydia is further thrown a curve when she not only has to deal with a missing precious item, but also a killer on the loose.

An old friend of Bill Smith has tasked with the responsibility of undertaking investigations on the cruel killing of a youthful security guard on the Bronx Home grounds.

Incalculably delving into the undercover world, Smith finds himself in an ocean of barbarity and deceit. But when a second body is discovered, the Private Investigator is convinced that the killer is on a mission.

Smith, along with Chinese-American investigator Lydia Chin, embarks on a mission to get to the bottom of a thread of corruption that is taking sprout in the Bronx—and also figure out who is next on the kill list!

New York City can best be described as a collision of worlds; a place where Private Investigator, Lydia Chin, can freely associate with both the affluent and the indigent.

The stunning and stylishly graceful Genna Jing is convinced that her most recent designs will earn a fortune; so much that she is willing to cough up the fifty thousand dollars being demanded by the individual who stole her design book.

Everything however goes south when Lydia Chin and Bill Smith step in; one that leads them from Chinatown to Park Avenue.

What was initially a straightforward case of high-end fashion extortion soon translates from a murder to now demanding a staggering one million dollars in exchange for a man's life.

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.

Bill Smith buries himself into a pile of bribery, blackmail and blood as he seeks to uncover the truth behind how a well planned riot led to the “accidental” death” of a foreman.

Alongside Lydia Chin, Bill follows clues of greed, compromised loyalty and well organized criminal activities.

It’s a tale of murder with no probable end in sight.

Lydia Chin has been hired by the union lawyer to carry out investigations into the disappearance of four restaurant workers, including a union organizer.

When a bomb however goes off at the headquarters of the Chinese Restaurant Workers’ Union—resulting in the fatality of one of the missing men while injuring the lawyer—Lydia is given an offer by the main suspect who so happens to be one of the most powerful men in Chinatown.
The task entails continuing with the search, albeit on his payroll.

Determined to end the mystery of the missing waiters, Lydia goes undercover as a dim sum waitress, although not without the help of his partner, Bill Smith.

Racing against time, she has to find them before someone serves them their last meal.

For Bill Smith, his cabin located the woods in a small upstate New York town is a place of escape. In fact, for the twelve years that he has owned it, he has neither allowed his city life nor his work to interfere.

This is however compromised when a local farmer, Eva Colgate, wants Bill to discreetly recover some recently stolen paintings; possessions which if known, will expose the secret that she has been desperately hiding for the last three decades.

Partnering up with Lydia Chin, Bill launches his search for the stolen items.

With it, the once quiet town turns into a hub of activity characterized with murder, in an absorbing tale of power, corruption and dirty secrets.

Private Investigator Lydia Chin is hired by Grandfather Gao to deliver a family heirloom to the young grandson of his recently deceased business partner; something that should be a relatively simple assignment.

Upon their arrival in Hong Kong, and just before they get the chance to deliver the heirloom, the grandson is kidnapped—with two different ransoms being demanded by the abductors.

Evidently being excluded from the case by the dejected family of the missing boy, Lydia Chin and Bill Smith must navigate their way across a very different environment where the rules are different, and the cost of failure is beyond dire.

Private Investigator Bill Smith is woken up in the dead of night by a call from the New York City Police Department, reporting that a fifteen-year-old boy named Gary—one who Bill knows—is in their custody.

But before Bill can get the boy’s version of the story, Gary flees into the dark shadows of the unfamiliar streets. Along with his partner in crime, Lydia Chin, Gary resolves to find out what could have prompted the kid to run so far away from home.

His investigation leads him to an isolated town in New Jersey; a place where both his longstanding secrets and those of the town will threaten to ruin the present.

Private Investigator Lydia Chin, who has been distanced from her partner and colleague Bill Smith for months, is called upon by former mentor Joel Pilarsky to assist in what could quite possibly be her most complex assignment yet.

European jewelry dating back to World War II has been discovered from an excavation in Shanghai. But the jewelry, belonging to one Rosalie Gilder, has been stolen by a Chinese official who flees to New York City. Lydia’s task; follow the leads and recover the Holocaust assets.

The case however becomes weightier when the Shanghai Moon—one of the most coveted missing jewels—is said to be among the stolen possessions.
But two murders follow and Lydia is fired from the case.

The mission is however back on track when Bill Smith shows up right in the nick of time.

Private Investigator Bill Smith finds himself on a delicate mission of rescuing his partner, Lydia Chin, who has been abducted. He comes to know about the kidnapping through an electronically manipulated voice call.

Desperate to rescue his partner, Bill—against his own wishes—decides to play along with the kidnapper’s demands.

This however leads him to an abandoned building where he discovers the dead body of a small Chinese woman dressed like Lydia; a trap by all accounts as he is immediately surrounded by the police.

Now Bill not only has to run away from the police but also identify the kidnapper and rescue Lydia.

Time is however not on his side.

Private Investigator Lydia Chin is hired by Jeff Dunbar, an art world insider, to get to the bottom of a rumor that Chau Chun’s new paintings are in the market.

Contemporary Chinese painting is undoubtedly the biggest trend on the art scene and no painter is as sought after as the legendary Chau Chun—otherwise known as the Ghost Hero.

The only problem is that Chau died twenty years ago; killed during the Tianamen Square uprising in 1989.

When it turns out that Lydia’s client hasn’t been entirely honest with her and that Jack Lee—a Private Investigator and art connoisseur—has also been placed on the case, the private eyes will end up putting everything on the line to get to the bottom of the case.