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Type of bind: Mass Market Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN num: 9780312959449
ISBN number: 0312959443
Label: St. Martin's Paperbacks
Manufacturer: St. Martin's Paperbacks
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 291
Printing Date: September 15, 1996
Publishing house: St. Martin's Paperbacks
Sale Popularity Level: 606700
Studio: St. Martin's Paperbacks
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Product 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.
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Rated by buyers 
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Unlike her very first book, "China Trade", this edition of the series deals with Bill Smith (with Lydia playing a supporting role). He is both the narrator and the protagonist in this well build and well thought out mystery. Each occurance in the book, whether a murder or someone following him on the streets, leads to another revelation that takes us deeper into the story and helps to explain prior occurances.
The story begins with Bill getting a call from the man who trained him to be a PI. One of his workers (a nephew) has been murdered while doing security work at a nursing home in the Bronx. He wants Bill to go undercover to find out what happened and who is the murderer. As Bill digs deeper into the people who work at the Home and the gang that controls the area around it, he peels away layer-like problems that can't survive the light of day.
In the end, we are left with a mystery of our own to ponder:
Does the ability to do good, outway our knowledge of bad things that are happening because or parallel to what we are doing? Talk among yourselves.
Rated by buyers -
At first, I had my doubts about the mundane setting of a Bronx nursing home, but S.J. Rozan surprised me in the end. His old mentor has asked Bill Smith for a favor--to look into the murder of a security guard at the home. After including his partner, Lydia Chin, and some poking around, another murder occurs, much like the very first one, with the victim being beaten to death. The characters that Bill Smith meets in his investigation of two murders are well-written and play an instrumental role in the solution of the case. The plot is well honed, and Rozan's dialogue is equally compelling. But it is the ending of this mystery where Rozan shines. She not only neatly wraps up the case but also the fragments of Bill Smith's life that have unraveled since the start of the investigation.
Rated by buyers -
If you are an avid mystery/thriller reader like myself, you probably have one or two series' that stand out above the rest. A series in which every book adds to a whole. I would say that Rozan's Bill Smith/Lydia Chin is one of those and if you have not read any of them before, you are in for several great reads in the near future.
One aspect of this series that I really like a lot is that it switches from one book to the subsequent in its characater point of view. By that I mean, one book will have Lydia as the main character and another will have Bill Smith. Both are very fleshed out and engaging characters. What is really charming is that when you are reading a Smith book you will feel like you are in a 50's MGM noir classic film. It's usually hard boiled and dark. On the other hand, when you are reading a Chin book, I feel like this is more like reading a classic Agatha Christie with a modern twist. You can definitly feel the male/female differences between the two and it really adds to the over all ambiance of the series.
OK, with all of that glowing aside, every single one of Rozan's books that I have thus far read falls a little below the "5 star" whole that I would give this series as a whole. Each one has some quirky aside that takes away a little from perfection. Concourse is one of her better books in the series, but it lacks a sweeping drive that will keep you turning the pages. The end is really worth getting to here because it will unfold in an amazingly broad scope. Some of the periphreal characters are not very well fleshed out, and the banter between Chin and Smith is as thin as it gets between the two in comparison to other books.
What I would like to say is that I started out with 'Reflecting Sky' and thought that it was pretty good but no great shakes. And in retrospect, it probably is equal to 'Concourse' in its over all depth. But once again, it is the series here that is just knock down great. You can take a single one of Patricia Cornwell's earlier books and say that it is better than any one of Rozan's and I will agree with you. But where Cornwell keeps repeating herself and gets mired in the tediousness of her characters and refuses to let them grow, Rozan is not afraid to do so. I would compare this series to the very first ten or so Lawrence Block titles of his seminol series featuring Matt Scudder. And in my book their is no higher praise than that.
Rated by buyers 
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Several months ago I read "China Trade" and enjoyed it immensely. Lydia Chin, Chinese-American Manhattanite, was a fun new slueth. Her partner, Bill Smith, had a small role in the book which was filled with Chinese-American culture.
Concourse is an entirely different sort of book. It's narrated by Bill Smith and is almost entirely his adventure. Maybe it was the monotoned narrator on the Chivers audiotape but I found myself vacillating between neutral and negative when it came to Bill. He smokes way too much and just seemed pretty whiney. Lydia drops by once in awhile but there's hardly any of her charm or the interesting cultural aspects of the very first book.
The mystery itself starts with the death of guard at a nursing home in the Bronx. Bill goes undercover as a guard and quickly finds lots of unanswered questions. The prime suspect in the crime, a gang leader named Snake, convinces Bill that someone else did the crime. Then there are more deaths and strange happenings around the nursing home. The solution is nicely complicated without being totally beyond belief.
According to my notes this book won a Shamus award and was chosen by the Independent Mystery Booksellers as one of the 100 best mysteries of the 20th Century. It didn't do all that much for me but it might be better reading in print (and for someone is isn't as opposed to smoking).
Rated by buyers -
I thought this was a well plotted and hard hitting PI novel. It is a fast paced, well-written page-turner with a dramatic and satisfying conclusion. Smith and Chin are interesting and likeable characters, but possibly a bit underdeveloped. (But I'll attribute this minor complaint to the fact that I did not read the very first Rozan book.) The Smith/Chin relationship seems a little familiar, and the relationship with the burned out detective also seems overdone, but overall, Rozan creates a believable and original story that blends big-city corruption and inner city violence.
The minor complaints mentioned above notwithstanding, I give this a strong recommendation and I am looking forward to the subsequent installment.
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