From Publishers Weekly
Rozan nails down the promise of China Trade, her debut and the introduction of memorable New York City PIs Bill Smith and Lydia Chin. Here, Smith goes undercover for his mentor Bobby Moran, who now runs a security firm. One of Moran's young employees has been brutally murdered-kicked to death by an expert in martial arts-while on the job at the Bronx Home for the Aged in an elegant old building on the no longer elegant Grand Concourse. Although the murder carries trademarks of the work of the Cobras, a powerful gang, Smith, posing as a Moran employee, investigates the premises and staff of the Home. Quickly, another member of the security staff is similarly killed; later, a member of the Home's staff is fatally shot in someone else's tossed apartment. Smith runs afoul of the Cobras while defending another Home employee, but his probings suggest that even more powerful villains are at work in philanthropic and political circles of the Bronx. Rozan's dense, credible plot cuts through all circles of its urban hell and is resolved with drama and realistic ambiguity. Her major characters-the classical piano-playing Smith who's in love with the independent, Asian-American Chin-and the minor cast, from dimensionally portrayed gang members to delicately drawn Home residents, leave a lasting impression. Rozan brings a distinctive, commanding voice to the genre. Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From AudioFile
When Private Investigator Bill Smith is hired to investigate a murder at an old-age home in the Bronx, he asks fellow Private Investigator Lydia Chin to help out. Murders and other violence follow; we are soon enmeshed in the nefarious doings of a neighborhood gang, Bronx politicos and the agency that runs the home. It's drama that doesn't translate in this audio version. Reader Sky Vogel's young voice sounds too perky to be a 40-something, frequently beat-up private investigator. He gives the gang members identically singsong falsettos. And on occasion, there is something vaguely Asian in the whispery Lydia Chin; more often, there is not. R.E.K. (c) AudioFile, Portland, Maine


Book Description
It flows through the Bronx like a river between banks of faded elegance. And 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.

ANNOTATION

In this absorbing sequel to China Trade, Bill Smith is hired by an old friend to investigate the brutal killing of a young security guard on the Bronx Home for the Aged grounds. Going undercover, Smith wades out into a sea of violence and lies washing up against the old brick building. With the help of Chinese-American investigator Lydia Chin, Smith uncovers a web of corruption that's found a home in the Bronx. Martin's Press.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

On the grounds of the Bronx Home for the Aged, along the Grand Concourse, security guard Mike Downey is beaten to death. The police consider the murder to be a random act of violence - probably the work of the local street gang - and don't expect to solve the case. P.I. Bill Smith is hired by his former mentor, Bobby Moran, uncle of the murdered guard, to do what the police either cannot or will not do: find the killer. To try and uncover the truth about what happened to Downey, Smith takes on the dead man's job. Going undercover as a security guard at the Bronx Home, he brings in his sometime partner, Chinese-American P.I. Lydia Chin, to work the case with him. Smith and Chin discover that Downey's murder was not an isolated incident. A series of crimes and shady operations revolving around the Bronx Home begin to reveal themselves. As people fight to keep their secrets from being found out, another guard is murdered.

FROM THE CRITICS

AudioFile - Robert E. Krug