Customer Reviews

On the Line: A Bill Smith/Lydia Chin Novel (Bill Smith/Lydia Chin Novels)

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S.J. Rozan's new entry in her Bill Smith/Lydia Chin series. Rozan alternates which character narrates the novel and this time it's Bill's turn. In fact, this time Bill's the whole show, though Lydia's presence is felt throughout.

Lydia Chin has been kidnapped by someone from Bill's past, an unstable man obsessed with games. He wants to punish Bill for an old defeat and to crush him in the process. He leaves a series of clues, together with a string of dead or imperiled Chinese prostitutes across New York, and gives Bill 12 hours to solve his riddles or Lydia will die.

Rozan's novels never lack for excitement, but this is the fastest paced. It's more thriller than mystery, but an intelligent thriller with moments of deep insight. It's genuinely tense, but may also be Rozan's funniest book to date. Rozan loves thwarting stereotypes and the assortment of unlikely allies Bill picks up on his quest are amazing. There's Linus, a genius computer hacker and his ultra-competent goth girlfriend, Trella, Lu the Chinatown pimp and his two gorillas (one of whom can be friended on Facebook), Mary, the dead serious and perpetually pissed off cop who is Lydia's best friend, the enigmatic crazed kidnapper, and Woof, the hero-dog.

My descriptions may make them sound trite, but they're anything but. Each of them comes to life with the kind of unexpected depth of a living, breathing human being. The story is improbable, but Rozan moves it along in such a a way that I hardly noticed. My only real gripe is that Bill seemed a little too dense when it came to the mysteries of Facebook, Twitter, and the iPhone.

This book is an interesting companion piece for Rozan's last story featuring Bill as narrator, WINTER AND NIGHT. Both are built (in different ways) around competitive sports and both explore the emotional side of the intellectual Bill Smith. I'd call W&N Rozan's darkest novel so far as it took us to some very disturbing places in Bill's psyche. This story pushes him just as far but with a very different result. I won't give away too much but, as a long time fan of the series, I really liked the way this ended and admire the long-term character growth Rozan is putting her characters through.

This continues to be my favorite mystery series and satisfies on every level!

Ms. Rozan has written a thriller for this tenth installment of the Smith/Chin P.I. series. Do you remember the chase scene in Bullitt? This book has a similar feel to it.

Bill Smith's occasional partner, Lydia Chin, has been kidnapped and he is given a deadline to find her. The clues are delivered with a sports theme, and the rules seem to change like someone has paid off the ref.

Rozan grows with each book and has here again stretched her writing. She invariably delivers a story worth spending your money on and your time reading. This one is no exception. Enjoy the ride!

S.J. Rozan's new book is a change up from her last book, THE SHANGHAI MOON. This one is Bill's book, and he's on the hunt for a kidnapped Lydia. Combining clever clues (random items disguised as garbage) and giving Bill only a 12 hour time frame to rescue Lydia, the suspense doesn't let up. What Rozan is so wonderful at is leavening her books with humor - much of it in this book is thanks to Lydia's slacker cousin, Linus, and his friend Trella. There's a bravura scene towards the end where Linus and Trella actually use facebook and twitter to track the killer, leaving Bill utterly astonished. Rozan is also wonderful at plot turns that aren't exactly twists, but they are very unexpected. She keeps you on your toes, supplying great new characters along the way. This book was a total blast to read; I couldn't put it down. The puzzles are as much fun as the suspense.

This is my first Lydia Chin/Bill Smith novel and I have to say I will be going back for more. I expected the usual crime novel scenario, but Rozen gives her story an extra twist, propelling PI Bill Smith and his partner into a chaotic game of cat and mouse. Lydia has been kidnapped and Bill has twelve hours to find her. An assortment of jumbled clues leads him from one location to another, each rigged with a deadly surprise. Thus begins a series of rendezvous, Bill never prepared for the life-and-death nightmares at the end of each phase of the "game". The first destination yields a dead body, but before Bill can assimilate the information- and register that it isn't Lydia-cops converge on the scene with sirens screaming. On the run, Bill is a prime suspect as he staggers from one deadly situation to another.

The stars of the piece are Lydia's hacker cousin, Linus Wong, and his punk friend, Trella, children of the new millennium. While Bill flounders, relying on old methods to race from one destination to another, Linus and Trella ride the waves of technology, texting and Twittering, saving precious time. Bill navigates an increasingly treacherous journey through the streets of New York, from Chinatown to Manhattan, as Rozen captures society's changing demographic, tech-savvy kids whose community ties yield unexpected support, Bill in awe of their skills and courage, an assortment of New York denizens and a relentlessly ticking clock. The action jumps from threatening stand-offs to digital mastery, a blend of snappy dialog and frantic pace of car chases, exploding bombs, Chinese gangsters, police pursuits and the distorted voice of the lunatic making impossible demands on the emotionally ragged PI.

Tapping into the helplessness and frustration of a man at odds with a maniacal protagonist, Rozen's tale parallels a world in technological revolution, humanity struggling to keep up with the accelerated demands of daily life. In spite of escalating violence and the distinct possibility that Lydia may not survive Bill's bumbling attempts to rescue her before it is too late, a raucous blend of good guys and bad add an element of absurdity as thugs, kids, cops, a PI and a lunatic play a deadly game. As Linus would say, "Dude, I'm there." Luan Gaines/2010.

Next in the Bill Smith/Lydia Chin series by Rozan is "On The Line." This is very much a Bill Smith book - but one with a different tone than the earlier mysteries. Bill's voice is the one we hear - angry, tormented and loud. He is forced to play a game, with the prize being Lydia's life. Assisted by two new, young and hip characters, Linus and Trella, Bill has to solve some nasty little puzzles to find the kidnapped Lydia. With interesting glimpses of various New York neighborhoods and quirky underworld characters, this book moves fast.

Rozan has always had a light touch with her characters. In this book, with Bill Smith beside himself with anger and fear, Linus and Trella add much needed humor. It works.

This is a book for us Bill and Lydia fans, a big, Christmas-wrapped present for the thousands and thousands of us who want to know what happens next. If you need lots of background, I suppose ON THE LINE is not for first-timers to the marvelous series, but who cares? I got my present -- an absolute shirt-grabbing tale from the opening paragraphs, a story I couldn't stop reading until it was over. How could I? Lydia has been kidnapped by a creepy, perverted murderer, and Bill has to find her. Yeah, I know, there had to be a happy ending, right? You won't believe it can happen, right up to the last scene. Though mainly Bill's story, told in the first person, Lydia's bravery, intelligence, and street-smarts will be much needed to save herself. The twists never stopped. Wow, what fun. How can Ms. SJ keep topping herself? She is as fine a craftsman as Elmore Leonard. I never skipped a word.

It's great. The action starts immediately, there are many twists and turns, delightful (and some not so delightful) new characters appear and deep psychological motivations are revealed. It all takes place in NYC.

There is tension, but it is not the usual tension between Bill Smith and Lydia Chin. Throughout the preceding series of novels and short stories these private investigators with very different personalities work on cases together and their relationship with each other. In this case, Lydia has been kidnapped and Bill, given strange clues by the kidnapper, must find her in a short time or she dies. As usual, SJ Rozan's writing, descriptions and attention to detail are excellent.

I'm a fan of Rozan's Chin/Smith novels, but some of the more recent ones have seemed as if the characters are just going through the motions. This one does not -- from the first to the last page, this one rides at the top of the tension level. It starts with Bill receiving a phone call from Lydia, who is being held prisoner by a lunatic who says that Bill has 12 hours to solve a series of four sets of clues, else Lydia will die. In the process of desperately seeking to solve the clues, which arrive in an orange trash bag, Bill is helped by Lydia's techno-genius cousin, Linus, and his friend, Trella. And by Mary Kee, Lydia's best friend and a member of the NYPD. Linus and Trella are such great creations that I hope to see them in future novels.

The one thing I wish had been better in this book was the clues: they seemed very similar for all four "parts" of the game. Oddly, there seemed to be little emphasis on how to figure out the clues. Still, a great read. Once you start, you won't want to put the book down.

What, exactly is "on the line" in this newest novel from S. J. Rozan is nothing more than the life of Lydia Chin. For the uninitiated, Lydia, a young ABC [American-Born Chinese, and described as `Chinatown's only PI, with a non-Chinese partner her mom doesn't like'], is the sometime partner of Bill Smith, a chain-smoking middle-aged white guy. And no one writes protagonists of a different gender and ethnicity better than this master-craftsman [excuse me, make that `craftsperson'].

As the novel opens, early one morning late in the Fall in NYC Bill receives a call made from Lydia's phone. The caller, who doesn't identify himself and whose voice is electronically altered, says that he has Lydia, and for Bill to get her back he will have to play a `game' whose rules are laid out: Bill will have to follow a series of clues that will be doled out to him in an unspecified manner, but he has only twelve hours to find her. Of course, the game rules keep changing, and Bill has no idea who the kidnapper is. He seeks help from Linus Wong, Lydia's young cousin and a talented hacker, and Linus' assistant, a teenage Goth girl named Trella. The `game' becomes much more complicated when Bill discovers the dead body of a young Chinese woman he thinks at first might be Lydia, but turns out to be that of a hooker. Immediately after this discovery the cops turn up, and Bill soon finds himself hunted by the cops as well as by the girl's pimp and his two very scary associates. The game soon threatens the lives of several more young girls, with Lydia the prize for whoever wins.

The tension never lets up, with Bill desperately trying to obtain and then figure out the clues left for him in varying places all around the city, as well as identifying the man who hates him this much, because it is soon apparent that this is very, very personal. The novel is exquisitely plotted, all leading up to a breathtaking denouement. More than highly recommended, this one is a Must Read.

When the ring chime on New York PI Bill Smith's cell phone announces the call is from his partner, Lydia Chin, he expects to hear her on the line. Instead a robotic male voice informs him that Lydia has been kidnapped and that Bill has 12 hours to follow the clues he is about to receive to find her before she is killed. If he calls the police, she will die instantly. When Lydia is put on the phone, Bill realizes this is no joke and springs into action. The unhinged kidnapper declares that he has a personal score to settle with Bill, but Bill has no idea who he is or what caused him to take this diabolical action. He realizes that he has no choice but to play along with his sadistic game.

Bill immediately contacts Lydia's young computer hacker cousin, Linus, who brings along his goth girlfriend, Trella, to help. The two teenagers prove invaluable as they help Bill piece together the obscure and baffling string of leads left in plastic trash bags around the city to figure out the next move of this bizarre race for Lydia's life. The first location leads them to an empty house that contains the body of a young Chinese woman who unsettlingly resembles Lydia. When the NYPD rolls up, lights flashing and sirens wailing against strict instructions of the kidnapper, Bill, Linus and Trella make a narrow escape from the murder scene. Bill receives a call from Lydia's cop friend, Mary, to see what's going on when she sees his name listed as a suspect. He has a hard time convincing her that he's innocent, but they conclude that the evidence pointing to him as the killer was planted on the body to make the game more difficult. Bill, Linus and Trella are now refugees on the run in an exciting and surprisingly funny race through the boroughs of New York in this laugh-out-loud thriller.

When they track down the second clue, they find another young Chinese girl near death but manage to get her to an emergency room. That's when they learn through Mary that both girls were hookers working for a big-time pimp named Lu. Continuing phone calls from the kidnapper indicate his mental stability is deteriorating, placing Lydia's life in more peril than ever. By now, Lu and his entourage are also after Bill, along with the NYPD.

Bill finally figures out who it is who is out to get him and why, which helps him decipher the increasingly puzzling and obscure hints as Lu reluctantly joins the team to try to rescue his prostitutes and Bill strives to save Lydia from a madman.

S.J. Rozan regularly rotates her Bill Smith and Lydia Chin mysteries, with each of the detectives taking turns as protagonists and the other in a secondary role. In ON THE LINE, we hear Lydia's voice solely through Bill's cell phone, but her presence is on every page. Followers of the series (this is #10) will know that a lopsided romance has slowly evolved between fair-skinned, blue-eyed Bill and Lydia, the daughter of a traditional Chinese mother who dominates her private life. He would marry her in a New York minute, but Lydia has so far applied the brakes on that side of their relationship in order to appease her mother.

With the clock ticking and a seemingly impenetrable cell surrounding Lydia, will the strangest group of heroes ever assembled --- Bill and his two friends, three Chinese underworld figures and half of the NYPD, plus the bomb squad --- be able to get to Lydia in time? ON THE LINE is just too much fun to perpetrate the crime of spoiler, so we'll leave those questions unanswered.

--- Reviewed by Roz Shea