S. J. Rozan is widely regarded as one of the finest crime writers to emerge in the past decade. Praised by critics and colleagues alike, her works have been finalists for most of the major awards and have won both the Shamus and the Anthony Awards for Best Novel. Now, with Reflecting the Sky, she has written her finest, most broad-ranging novel to date.Lydia Chin, a Chinese-American private investigator in her late twenties, is hired by Grandfather Gao, one of the most respected figures in New York City's Chinatown, for what appears to be a simple task. Lydia, along with her professional partner Bill Smith, is to fly to Hong Kong to deliver a family heirloom to the young grandson of a recently deceased colleague of Grandfather Gao. They arrive in Hong Kong safely but before they can deliver the heirloom, the grandson is kidnapped and two, separate ransom demands are made. While the family of the kidnapped boy tries to freeze them out, Lydia and Bill must quickly learn their way around a place where the rules are different, the stakes are high, and the cost of failure is too dire to imagine. Reflecting the Sky is a 2002 Edgar Award Nominee for Best Novel.< S.J. Rozan is the author of six previous novels featuring Bill Smith and Lydia Chin. She has won both the Anthony Award for Best Novel and the Shamus Award for Best Novel (the only other woman besides Sue Grafton to win the Shamus), and has been nominated for the Edgar Award. An architect, she was born, raised, and lives in New York City.< "A tremendously satisfying book."--Chicago Tribune"Proves that Rozan's Shamus (for Concourse) and Anthony (for No Colder Place) awards were no fluke. This is a beautifully written book with a sophisticated plot, rich in both action and atmosphere."--Publishers Weekly (starred review)"A fast-paced, rip-roaring ride...great characters, intricate plotting, and an exotic locale, beautifully described--who could ask for anything more? This is definitely a don't-miss book in a don't-miss series."--Booklist (starred review)< Reflecting the SkyoneDamp, soupy heat washed over me as I pushed out through the revolving door. The bright morning glare was already hazed up by the shimmering exhaust of a river of cars, buses, and trucks. I looked left, looked right, got my bearings, and headed briskly down the sidewalk."Come on!" I turned to yell to my partner, Bill Smith, who still stood, looking a little groggy, his hands in his pockets, just gazing around. "Relive your misspent youth some other time! I don't want to be late."With muttered words I was just as happy not to hear, he lurched down the sidewalk after me. Jostling, rushing pedestrians, many of them yelling into their cell phones, hurried past in both directions, making me feel like I had to work to keep my footing or I'd be tossed on their tide and swept away. Bill caught up to me as I stopped at the first corner, waiting with a crowd eight deep for the light to change."Late is extremely unlikely," he grumbled, taking advantage of the momentary halt in our forward charge to light a cigarette. "Impolitely early, maybe. We're twenty-five minutes ahead of even your obsessive-compulsive schedule. Will you slow down? And how do you know where you're going? I thought I was supposed to be your native guide.""I don't know what you're supposed to be doing," I said as the light turned green and the crowd surged forward, "but it can't be guiding me around a place you haven't been in for twenty years."A horn blasted as the last stragglers from our pedestrian stream leaped up onto the curb to avoid being mashed by a bus. The hiss and rumble of tires, the squeal of bus brakes, and the endless rattle of jackhammers from nearby construction made conversation difficult, but I was tookeyed up to talk, anyway. The wind shifted, stirring the smells of diesel fuel and salt water into the scents of softened asphalt and frying pork already thick in the air. They were exciting smells, and it was an exciting morning, all the rushing, rumbling, surging, and yelling in the brightness. Though I didn't see, really, why I should be so affected by it. I've spent my entire life negotiating traffic, noise, glare, and sidewalks. I'm Lydia Chin, born and raised in Chinatown, a genuine native New Yorker.Of course, this wasn't New York. This was Hong Kong, City of Life.Life, pork, exhaust, and pedestrians. Bill matched his pace to mine and we hurried down the sidewalk in the sticky heat. Being from Chinatown, I was better at this business of threading through dense, moving crowds of Chinese people than he was, though the streams on the sidewalks of home had never flowed this fast. We kept being separated, co Read Less