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Type of bind: Mass Market Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813
EAN num: 9780312977030
ISBN number: 0312977034
Label: St. Martin's Minotaur
Manufacturer: St. Martin's Minotaur
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 336
Printing Date: January 15, 2001
Publishing house: St. Martin's Minotaur
Sale Popularity Level: 140118
Studio: St. Martin's Minotaur
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Product Description:
Bill Smith's country cabin in upstate New York is far from the city's savage streets--a retreat where a weary P.I. can play Mozart on his upright piano and let nature heal him. But when Eve Colgate, a local farmer and painter, asks him to find stolen items--six paintings which could reveal Eve's highly guarded thirty-year-old secret--he caves. When Smith's partner, Lydia Chin, comes in on the action, she brings along her cool courage and sharp mind. It's a simple case--until the runaway daughter of a hotshot politician and the murder of a local hood change the playing field. Now the stench of corruption fills this rural paradise, as Bill and Lydia scour through dangerous secrets and greedy corridors for the stone-cold truth...
Amazon.com Review:
It's Bill Smith's turn to take center stage in this sixth entry in S.J. Rozan's memorable Lydia Chin/Bill Smith series of mysteries, and the tough and taciturn private eye really comes into his own. Smith has cloistered himself in his remote cabin in upstate New York, where he escapes from his private devils by fishing, hunting, and practicing Mozart and Bach on his piano, when he is sucked into two local crime cases.
The very first involves Tony Antonelli, the brother of a young man whom Smith once helped out of trouble. Tony finds the body of a murdered local hoodlum in the cellar of his roadhouse. His brother Jimmy suspiciously goes missing and becomes the leading suspect. The second case involves a reclusive older woman (who turns out to be a world-famous painter). She asks Bill to track down some of her early works, which had been stolen from her studio. There's also a very nasty sheriff who hates Smith, a moderately tolerant state trooper who grudgingly helps, a corrupt executive of a babyfood company and his sad, dangerous teenage daughter, plus a crew of smalltime crooks who give the lie to the myth of rural safety. Lydia doesn't get called in from the Big Apple until quite late, and when she arrives she attracts stares in the local 7-Eleven 'as though she were a black-petalled orchid that had sprung up in the daisy patch. Back in the car, Lydia grinned, said, 'Not many Asians up here, huh?' 'Especially in grey leather,'' Bill answers.'
The plot might have one or two tangles too many for its own good, but as usual Rozan proves herself to be one of the best descriptive writers in the genre, bringing to indelible life everything from a modern painter's latest work, to a depressed countryside where the last stone quarry is about to close down and grind away a few more dreams.
Other books in this award-winning series: A Bitter Feast, Concourse, Mandarin Plaid, and No Colder Place. --Dick Adler
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Rated by buyers 
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You can tell that this series is written by a native New York City person (?} because she keeps comparing the area (Schoharie up near Albany) to New York. Any native of "The City" will tell you that north of NYC is "Upstate" and east is "The Island", new york city is NEW YORK. Those other places are New York STATE, which is like Vermont or New Hampshire or better yet...Montana. For all intents and purposes, it's like the area behind your backyard that is owned by some conservation group and isn't anyplace you'ld want to go except to drive through or past it. Got That!
As to the story, it's a typical 'Bill Smith', where he gets beat up more times than I can remember, but always ALWAYS gets up off the floor and gets to best the bad guys. The local cops are all hayseeds and couldn't get a job as a traffic brownie (Dept of Traffic) in NEW YORK. Bill is always ready to smoke a cigarette, drink a beer, race around like a NASCAR guy and still find time to practice a couple of Chopin etudes. Lydia is her 'gorgeous', intelligent, wise cracking inscrutable self at all times and never misses a beat.
Even with all this the stories are still welcome and readable and enjoyable...just don't expect them to be plausible.
Rated by buyers -
The more you read the more you appreciate her writing
Bill Smith is the lead in Stone Quarry. Previously I had read only novels that put Lydia Chin in this role. The accomplishment here is that Rozan does quite a remarkable job of creating a wholly new ambiance when she skips from Chin to Smith. The Chin books kind of remind me of a modern day Agatha Christy while this Smith work falls under the hard tack noir of yesteryear. Stone Quarry is a bare-knuckle brawl that comes close to greatness but falls just short. One thing that I like about Rozan is her ability to work in a very complicated plot structure that pulls together through intricate evolution. But here, parts of this plot feel unnecessary and burdensome.
All of my complaints aside, Rozan is an author that I would recommend to anyone. The closest authors that I can think of are either Dick Francis or the Kate Shugack series'. If you have read these authors and enjoyed them, I think that you will be in for a treat with Rozan
Rated by buyers 
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By reading the hype written by a lot of my favorite authors of mysteries and thriller about S.J. Rozan's latest book, "Stone Quarry, I expected a lot from it. What I found though was somewhat entertaining, not at all informative, and wholly average.
Bill Smith, private detective, and his on-again/off-again partner, Lydia Chin, are the stars of this current installment of an ongoing series. While vacationing in his deceased uncle's cabin in upstate New York, Smith becomes engaged in a what appears on the surface to be a simple burglary involving a reclusive artist who wants to remain anonymous but still recover some valuable paintings that were stolen from her. The situation devolves quickly into a fight to the death with local crooks who may-or-may-not have mob ties, along with some bought-off cops on the local force.
While Rozan does an able job with telling this story, it follows a well-trodden path and ends in a place we've all been many times before. By the end of the story, I found myself being able to skip ahead without missing anything, which to me, says a lot about a book. While it appears that Rozan may have a huge following, she didn't gain a new one with me.
Rated by buyers 
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The setting is different in this book (rural upstate New York vs NYC) but in every other way this book is very similar to Rozan's other novels, which is a good thing. As usual, this is a very well-written book; Rozan obviously puts a good deal of thought and effort into her writing; she tries hard to describe things and people in a way that is fresh and that puts vivid images of the scene into the minds of the readers. The plot is complex and satisfying, which is one of the things that Rozan always does well that most of the current mystery writers do not. This series is made up of real, quality mysteries, in the tradition of Chandler, Hammett and Ross MacDonald; these are not thrillers masquerading as mysteries. There is a good bit of action here, though, and the ending is a real barnburner. My only quibble, and it is a small one, is that Rozan needs to either have Smith and Chin get together or have them decide to be strictly friends. The quasi-relationship that they have been in for several books now is starting to wear a little thin.
Rated by buyers -
You can tell the Audiofile person wrote a review without listening to it, since the character's name is Bill Smith, not Bill Stone.
Anyway, all of the Bill Smith/ Lydia Chin books are terrific, especially since the point of view for each book switches from Lydia to Bill. Lydia's problems with being female and Chinese in a white man's world are my favorite part of the books. Poor Bill! Carrying a torch for Lydia and trying not to mess up a fine partnership. They have such a strange relationship, but it works. Get the books or tapes, curl up in a chair and enjoy.
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