When the son of NYC's first female mayor disappears, PI Bill Smith and his partner, Lydia Chin, are called in the find the missing 15-year-old but are faced with more questions than answers, they turn to the only contacts who could help: the neighborhood leaders who are the real "mayors" of NY. In January, New York City inaugurates its first female mayor. In April, her son disappears. Called in by the mayor's chief aide to find the missing fifteen-year-old,...

The death of a powerful Chinatown crime boss thrusts private eye Lydia Chin and her partner Bill Smith into a world of double-dealing, subterfuge, murder, and-because this is New York City-real estate in this new mystery by Edgar Award-winning novelist S. J. Rozan. The death of Chinatown's most powerful mogul, a powerful Chinatown crime boss, thrusts private eye Lydia Chin and her partner Bill Smith into a world of double-dealing, murder, and real...

The secrets of a group of childhood friends unravel in this haunting thriller by Edgar Award winner S. J. Rozan. Set in New York in the unforgettable aftermath of September 11, Absent Friends brilliantly captures the mood of a singular time and place, winding through the wounded streets of New York and Staten Island and into a maze of old crimes, damaged lives, and heartbreaking revelations. The result is not only an electrifying mystery and a riveting...

PI Bill Smith is sent on a high-stakes chase when an electronically modified voice on his cell phone informs him that Lydia Chin, his occasional partner, has been kidnapped. Now, if Bill wants to keep Lydia alive, he'll have to play an elaborate game of the kidnapper's devising. The first move sends him to an abandoned building, where Bill finds the corpse of a small Chinese woman dressed like Lydia and the building being rapidly surrounded by police....

Lydia Chin, a Chinese-American P.I. who lives in New York City's Chinatown, is hired for a simple job. She's to deliver the ransom for a set of stolen sketches that comprise the inaugural collection of fashion designer Genna Jing and her new label, Mandarin Plaid. But everything on this simple job goes terribly wrong. The ransom is stolen out from under Lydia, her sometimes partner, Bill Smith, is arrested, and just as she is trying to sort out exactly...

Private detective Bill Smith is hurtled headlong into the most provocative-and personal-case of his career when he receives a chilling late-night phone call from the NYPD, who is holding his fifteen-year-old nephew Gary. But Gary escapes Bill's custody and disappears into the dark, unfamiliar streets. Bill and his partner, Lydia Chin, try to find the missing teen; their search takes them to a small town in New Jersey, where they discover that one...

The newest anthology from Mystery Writers of America explores the theme of home and the crimes that endanger it, with stories by Ellen Hart, Naomi Hirahara, Walter Mosley, Sara Paretsky and more. Everyone comes from someplace. Everyone has somewhere they feel safe. Some people have found their home and are content, where they are. Others feel trapped and yearn to go somewhere else. Many are somewhere else and yearn to go back. But evenin these safest...

In 1924 London, when shy academic Lao She meets larger-than-life Judge Dee Ren Jie, these unlikely allies investigate the murders of Chinese immigrants, all stabbed to death with a butterfly sword and must connect the dots to catch a killer before they become victims themselves.

Our 97th issue is brimming with interesting items. On the mystery front, Acquiring Editor Michael Bracken has discovered a brand-new story from Dave Zeltserman for us, while Acquiring Editor Barb Goffman brings us an intriguing S.J. Rozan tale. I've also been persuading fantasist Phyllis Ann Karr to let us reprint some of her early work-and this time, we have a mystery! Who knew that she launched her writing career with a string of top-notch mystery...