China Trade is set in early '90s Manhattan, mainly in Chinatown, and features Lydia Chin, a young Chinese-American detective and her partner Bill Smith, who is decidedly not Chinese. Some rare antique porcelains have been stolen from a small neighborhood museum and Lydia is called in to investigate. The theft investigation moves quickly from Chinatown to the Upper East Side and Upper West Side and back downtown again. An intricate story with great ethnic atmospheric details quickly draws the reader into the story, which comes to a satisfying conclusion and drops a few hints for what may come in future installments.
The descriptions of Chinatown and the depictions of Lydia's mother, her brother Tim, and her friends are so spot on. Whether Lydia is on Mott Street, in a neighborhood restaurant grabbing a quick bowl of noodles, or taking her shoes off at the door of the apartment where she lives with her mother, you get a persuasive depiction of the culture. It adds so much truth and immediacy to the story (even though this book is twenty-five years old) that you are eager to know more.
Perhaps a Chinese-American reader might feel differently, but I was certainly convinced that the author must be at least partly of Chinese background since the details were much what one might expect from known Chinese-American writers like Amy Tan or Lisa See. S.J. Rozan is most definitely not of Chinese heritage, and I would love to know what her research for this book entailed. After reviewing her website and reading her Wikipedia entry, that remains a mystery of its own, which just makes her writing all the more intriguing. Rozan's latest book was release in July, 2019, and her most recent blog post was just a few weeks ago, so it is great to know that she is still actively writing. More to look forward to...yay!
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