Mixing up the past and present this thriller sees PI Lydia Chin involved in a crime that takes her from 1930’s Shanghai to modern day New York. Is this a straight forward crime of theft or are their darker undertones that run much deeper and into the past of the Nazi war crimes. An interesting and different twist on the run of the mill crime novel.
A lethal inheritance...China, 1938. Eighteen-year-old Rosalie Gilder flees Nazi-occupied Austria with her younger brother. Hidden among their belongings are a few precious family heirlooms, their only protection against the hard times that await them as they join Shanghai's growing population of Jewish refugees. New York, present day. Chinese-American detective Lydia Chin is hired by an old friend to investigate the recent theft of a cache of holocaust assets, thought to once belong to the Gilders. However, before she makes much headway, her friend is shot dead. Neither Lydia nor her partner, Bill, believe the NYPD's theory that his death was a robbery gone bad. Both fear they are no longer looking for a thief, but a ruthless killer who will stop at nothing to reclaim the past...
S. J. Rozan, a native New Yorker, is the author of eleven novels. Her work has won the Edgar, Shamus, Anthony, Nero, and Macavity awards for Best Novel and the Edgar for Best Short Story. BRONX NOIR, a short story collection SJ edited, was given the NAIBA "Notable Book of the Year" award. She's served on the National Boards of Mystery Writers of America and Sisters in Crime, and is ex-President of the Private Eye Writers of America. In January 2003 she was an invited speaker at the Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. The 2005 Left Coast Crime convention in El Paso, Texas made her its Guest of Honor. A former architect in a practice that focussed on police stations, firehouses, and zoos, SJ Rozan lives in lower Manhattan.