Penzler Pick, January 2002: S.J. Rozan is an author whose reputation and prowess have been growing in tandem. A strong writer in the "newcomers to watch" category back when she published China Trade, her first novel featuring New York sleuths Bill Smith and Lydia Chin, she is now a real player on the scene, poised for bestsellerdom.

The story she tells here takes us out of the gritty five boroughs and onto the New Jersey Turnpike, where Smith's sister Helen lives, in a place called Warrenstown. But did we know Bill even had a sister? Over the course of seven books and several short stories, even Lydia Chin, his partner and best friend, hasn't known this. So what gives?

We learn about Helen Smith Russell through a totally unexpected phone call from a Midtown South police detective, answered by Bill in his Tribeca loft. It seems the cops have his nephew in custody, a 15-year-old runaway who is the son of the sister with whom Bill has not been in touch for 25 years.

Two mysteries are being set up here, but before Rozan is finished, more than even these two will have been followed to their tragic conclusions. Each of the sinister puzzles seems to circle back around to Gary, the frightened nephew, and also to that seemingly straight-arrow suburbia he's fleeing.

Warrenstown, New Jersey, is also where Scott, Gary's dad, grew up. The trouble is that Helen's husband is part of the problem, not the solution. And while Bill, Lydia, and young Gary are trying to expose to fresh air the secrets from the past that keep festering (and killing), the villains (those with a deep interest in preserving reputations, as well as the legendary local football team, at all costs) want nothing more than to stop them.

It may be unusual territory, but S.J. Rozan can now be listed alongside Harlan Coben and Janet Evanovich as writers helping to give New Jersey the right kind of bad name. --Otto Penzler


From Publishers Weekly
Despite the hype, this eighth novel featuring New York PIs Lydia Chin and Bill Smith from Shamus- and Anthony-award winner Rozan isn't quite up to her usual high standard. After 2001's Reflecting the Sky (which Chin narrated), it's Smith's turn to tell the story, which here concerns his teenage nephew, Gary Russell, the athlete son of his estranged sister Helen. When Gary is arrested for pick-pocketing in Manhattan, the boy asks for his uncle's help. Gary denies running away from his Warrenstown, N.J., home he was doing something important. Then the boy vanishes, drawing Smith and Chin into a nightmarish case in which a small town's obsession with its high school football team overwhelms standards of justice and morality. When a teenage girl who dated Gary and was selling drugs to her classmates dies mysteriously, the police suspect Gary. He's disappeared during Warrenstown's most important week, when the football team trains at an intensive sports camp culminating in a game that attracts college scouts. Then another teenager, a despised nonathlete, disappears. Two computer whizzes join the detectives in finding the answers to present crimes by solving an old murder. This disturbing, suspenseful, but often shrill and repetitive novel allows the author to reveal Smith's troubled childhood as he, with Chin's encouragement, begins to understand it. In showing how we set priorities that can create monsters, Rozan also points to deep flaws in our society. Agent, Steve Axelrod. (Feb. 25)Forecast: With a national author tour, an excerpt in the paperback edition of Reflecting the Sky (Jan.) and supportive blurbs from the likes of Robert Crais, Dennis Lehane, Linda Fairstein and Greg Rucka, this title should keep Rozan's momentum going.Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.


From Booklist
*Starred Review* Lydia Chin and Bill Smith remain one of the very best private-eye duos in the genre, and this installment of Rozan's highly readable and most entertaining series lives up to the superlatives we have heaped upon its predecessors. When Bill receives a call from the New York City police telling him that his teenage nephew, Gary, is in jail and has asked for him, Bill is certainly surprised, especially because he has had no contact with his sister, Gary's mother, in some time. When he manages to get Gary released into his custody, the boy will not say why he has come to New York, only that he has something important to do. Bill insists that Gary must call his mother, but Gary, a football player, smashes out a window, drops two stories into the alley, and runs away again. Thus begins a truly tangled tale that leads Bill and Lydia into the world of Gary's hometown, a New Jersey suburb, where high-school football rules the community--and may have led to the murder of a young girl by a team member who just might be Gary. The course of events also forces Bill to reveal to Lydia the truth about his own troubled past and why he so desperately needs to find and help Gary. As before, Rozan delivers strong characters, deft plotting, and a hard-driving narrative. We'll say it again: don't miss this one. Stuart Miller
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved


Book Description
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...



Inside Flap Copy
"To read S.J. Rozan is to experience the kind of pure pleasure only a master can deliver."
--Dennis Lehane

EDGAR AWARD-WINNING AUTHOR

S.J. ROZAN

WINTER AND NIGHT

"S.J. ROZAN IS ONE OF THE FINEST WRITERS TODAY."
--Linda A. Fairstein, author of The Deadhouse

"A POWERFULL MOVING TALE."
--L A Times

"VERY WELL WRITTEN...COMPLEX, HARROWING."
--Boston Globe

"A TENSE THRILLER."
--Washington Post

"COMPELLING."
--Library Journal

"A SOPHISTICATED STORY THAT WILL STAY WITH YOU LONG AFTER THE BOOK HAS ENDED."
--South Florida Sun-Sentinel




WINTER AND NIGHT
BACK COVER

"TERRIFIC."
--Washington Post
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...

"WONDERFUL."
--Robert Crais, author of Hostage
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...

"CHILLING."
--Linda A. Fairstein, author of The Deadhouse
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...

"Rozan delivers strong characters, deft plotting, and a hard-driving narrative. Don't miss this one."
--Booklist



Back Cover Copy
"TERRIFIC." --Washington Post

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...

"WONDERFUL." --Robert Crais, author of Hostage

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...

"CHILLING." --Linda A. Fairstein, author of The Deadhouse

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...

"Rozan delivers strong characters, deft plotting, and a hard-driving narrative. Don't miss this one." --Booklist



About the Author
S. J. Rozan is the author of seven previous novels, most recently Reflecting the Sky. She has won both the Shamus Award for Best Novel (for Concourse) and the Anthony Award for Best Novel (for No Colder Place) and was an Edgar Award finalist. Rozan is an architect, born and currently living in New York City.

ANNOTATION

Winner of the 2003 Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best Novel.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

In the middle of the night, private investigator Bill Smith is awakened by a call from the NYPD. They're holding a fifteen-year-old kid named Gary - a kid Bill knows. But before he can find out what's going on, Gary escapes Bill's custody and disappears into the dark night and unfamiliar streets. Bill, with the help of his partner, Lydia Chin, tries to find the missing teen and uncover what it is that has led him so far from home. Tracking Gary's family to a small town in New Jersey, Bill finds himself in a community where nothing matters but high school football, and where the secrets of the past - both the town's and Bill's own - threaten to destroy the present. If Bill is to have any chance of saving Gary and preventing a tragedy, he has to both unravel a long-buried crime and confront the darkness of his own past.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

Despite the hype, this eighth novel featuring New York PIs Lydia Chin and Bill Smith from Shamus- and Anthony-award winner Rozan isn't quite up to her usual high standard. After 2001's Reflecting the Sky (which Chin narrated), it's Smith's turn to tell the story, which here concerns his teenage nephew, Gary Russell, the athlete son of his estranged sister Helen. When Gary is arrested for pick-pocketing in Manhattan, the boy asks for his uncle's help. Gary denies running away from his Warrenstown, N.J., home he was doing something important. Then the boy vanishes, drawing Smith and Chin into a nightmarish case in which a small town's obsession with its high school football team overwhelms standards of justice and morality. When a teenage girl who dated Gary and was selling drugs to her classmates dies mysteriously, the police suspect Gary. He's disappeared during Warrenstown's most important week, when the football team trains at an intensive sports camp culminating in a game that attracts college scouts. Then another teenager, a despised nonathlete, disappears. Two computer whizzes join the detectives in finding the answers to present crimes by solving an old murder. This disturbing, suspenseful, but often shrill and repetitive novel allows the author to reveal Smith's troubled childhood as he, with Chin's encouragement, begins to understand it. In showing how we set priorities that can create monsters, Rozan also points to deep flaws in our society. Agent, Steve Axelrod. (Feb. 25) Forecast: With a national author tour, an excerpt in the paperback edition of Reflecting the Sky (Jan.) and supportive blurbs from the likes of Robert Crais, Dennis Lehane, Linda Fairstein and Greg Rucka, this title should keep Rozan's momentum going. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews