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Type of bind: Mass Market Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813
EAN num: 9780312986681
ISBN number: 0312986688
Label: St. Martin's Minotaur
Manufacturer: St. Martin's Minotaur
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 400
Printing Date: April 14, 2003
Publishing house: St. Martin's Minotaur
Sale Popularity Level: 131600
Studio: St. Martin's Minotaur
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Editor's Notes and Comments:
Product 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...
Amazon.com Review:
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 very 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
User popularity level:
Rated by buyers -
Warrenstown,N.J. seems to be dominated by The Jocks. They can do virtually no wrong. Football is everything. The geeks and freaks suffer such humiliations as being pushed into school lockers, physical beatings,and social rejection. The football players are big and strong. They bulk up thru the use of steroids. A girl dies at a wild party. One of the teenagers disappears and is found trying to rob a drunk. He is apprehended by the police and subsequently calls his uncle, private investigator Bill Smith, for help. This is my very first read of the Smith series and I didn't find him to be a particularly likeable character. He suffered thru a difficult childhood and lives in downtown Manhattan. I enjoyed the character of his Chinese partner and significant other Lydia Chin much more. In any event, it turns out that the case of the girl who died at the party was similar in many ways to an event that occurred twenty three years ago in the same town. Involved in that coverup were several former athletes who currently are quite influential in the community. One of the current geeks is planning to get revenge in a most dramatic way. By the end, thru many packs of cigarettes and cups of coffee the story ends. Not a totally happy ending. But, all in all, a decent read.
Rated by buyers -
Once again Rozan presents an interesting mystery for Smith and Chin. Smith's nephew (he has a sister?) calls him from a NY Police Station. He's been arrested for rolling a drunk. Smith is given some slack by his friends on the NYPD, and they release the kid. After getting him to his home, the kid escapes through a third story window. But why was the kid in New York?
What follows is a diatribe against small towns, small minds and high school football. The complaints about small towns (where football is king and the coach a saint) is not untrue but you don't need to be hit over the head with a hammer to make your point. Is high school football winning way to important in this country, uh of course not. We only get crazy when the Chess Team loses.
Do people forgive high school football heroes for the rest of their lives? Does the Pope celebrate Mass? How many guys have it made for the rest of their lives because of something they did in high school? There are plenty of them out there selling life insurance, new and used cars or fronting someones sports bar. Bruce Springstein said when he said, "talking 'bout glory days". People don't want to forget or even to see anything that might taint their memories.
But the story is well done with a couple of interesting quirks thrown in including his relationship with his sister and brother-in-law. His relationship with Lydia is getting to be 'to weird', either fish or cut bait but this situation is abnormal. Why would Lydia keep hanging around with this guy if she is only interested in him professionally? Let's find a guy for Lydia and a gal for Smith. Hopefully in the subsequent book.
Zeb Kantrowitz
Rated by buyers 
-
I listened to this book all the way to the end, just because I couldn't believe an author could keep up the pace for 400 pages. She did it. Page after page after page of descriptions of the wind and strip malls and streets and neighborhoods, and not one original description.
But event worse is the hero narrator, the antithesis of Sam Spade. Bill Smith lives inside his head, psycho-babble that has nothing to do with the case at hand, another boring angry man.
Please don't buy this. It just encourages the publishers to produce more such trash.
Rated by buyers 
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I picked this one up because I have seen Rozan's blog and have heard good things about her. I'm glad I did. This book is excellent mystery fiction, with strong characters, an intriguing plot and a terrific voice. It was hard to put down. S.J. Rozan has a great feel for dialogue and for exposition. I'll be looking to get the rest of the series, based on my experience with this book.
Rated by buyers -
I did not know that Rozan was a woman until I was almost done with the book and it helped to make sense of some utter nonsense in the book about men and football players. Every male character acts like a caveman, including the main character Bill Smith (sweet name). He listens to classical music and has the ability to comment on its quality while also using the ultra-manly term "throw pillow." But any time he is in a disagreement he must resort to punching and swearing or bashing someone over the head with his club. Pretty much every male character in the book is completely irrational and swears constantly unless he is taking a breath to try and punch someone.
The football players are all evil brainwashed Nazis, who all care more about a football game then they would a classmate being raped and likely murdered. I have not heard too much about the mecca of high school football in New Jersey but I don't think a whole town would be completely silent and content with their football team raping and killing their classmates. Leading these immoral neanderthals is a completely stereotypical tyrant of a coach as dumb and violent as all men in New Jersey apparently must be to S.J. Rozan.
The characters are irrational and unrealistic, the plot is dull and unlikely, the writing is average and typically filled with annoying dialogue (who talks like they do in investigative novels? NO ONE), and the ending resolves very little.
I have never heard of the Edgar award before but it must not take much to recieve one, being this book was given an Edgar.
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