Ghost Hero: A Lydia Chin/Bill Smith Novel

At the start of Edgar-winner Rozan's excellent 11th novel featuring PI partners Lydia Chin and Bill Smith (after On the Line), Jeff Dunbar, a collector of contemporary Chinese art, hires Lydia to get to the bottom of beguiling rumors that new works by the late Chau Chun (aka Ghost Hero Chau) have somehow surfaced. Chau, who died 20 years earlier during the Tiananmen Square uprising, used traditional symbols and techniques to conceal subversive political messages in brush-and-ink scrolls. The likeliest explanation for the scuttlebutt is that someone has been forging his work. Bill hooks Lydia up with a friend and colleague, Jack Lee, who reveals that he's gotten the identical assignment from a different client, NYU professor Bernard Yang. With doubts growing as to Dunbar's real agenda, Lydia and Bill start fishing to find out what's really going on. Engaging characters, crisp dialogue, intelligent storytelling, and a minimum of violence add up to another winner for Rozan. (Oct.)