by S.J. Rozan Book list 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 From Booklist, Copyright © American Library Association. Used with permission. 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. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. |
|
|||
