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Book Summary and Reviews of The Shanghai Moon by S. J. Rozan

The Shanghai Moon by S. J. Rozan

The Shanghai Moon

A Lydia Chin/Bill Smith Novel

by S. J. Rozan

  • Critics' Consensus (2):
  • Published:
  • Feb 2009, 384 pages
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About this book

Book Summary

With The Shanghai Moon, S. J. Rozan returns to her award-winning, critically acclaimed, and much-loved characters Lydia Chin and Bill Smith in the first new novel in the series in seven years.

 Estranged for months from fellow P.I. Bill Smith, Chinese-American private investigator Lydia Chin is brought in by colleague and former mentor Joel Pilarsky to help with a case that crosses continents, cultures, and decades.   In Shanghai, excavation has unearthed a cache of European jewelry dating back to World War II, when Shanghai was an open city providing safe haven for thousands of Jewish refugees.

The jewelry, identified as having belonged to one such refugee - Rosalie Gilder - was immediately stolen by a Chinese official who fled to New York City. Hired by a lawyer specializing in the recovery of Holocaust assets, Chin and Pilarsky are to find any and all leads to the missing jewels.However, Lydia soon learns that there is much more to the story than they've been told: The Shanghai Moon, one of the world's most sought after missing jewels, reputed to be worth millions, is believed to have been part of the same stash. Before Lydia can act on this new information, Joel Pilarsky is murdered, Lydia is fired from the case, and Bill Smith finally reappears on the scene. Now Lydia and Bill must unravel the truth about the Shanghai Moon and the events that surrounded its disappearance sixty years ago during the chaos of war and revolution, if they are to stop more killings and uncover the truth of what is going on today.

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Reviews

Media Reviews

"Starred Review. Readers who have waited patiently for this one will not be disappointed. Highly recommended." - Library Journal.

"Rozan plots as expansively and ambitiously as ever, though the 1938 back story is more touching - and certainly easier to follow - than the present-day mayhem." - Kirkus Reviews.

"More surprises abound before Lydia and Bill can put the curse of the luminous Shanghai Moon to rest in Rozan's rich blend of historical mystery and contemporary suspense." - Publishers Weekly.

This information about The Shanghai Moon was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.

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Author Information

S. J. Rozan Author Biography

SJ Rozan is the author of twenty novels and over eighty short stories, and editor of three anthologies. She has won multiple awards, including the Edgar, Shamus, Anthony, Nero, Macavity; Japanese Maltese Falcon; and the Private Eye Writers of America Lifetime Achievement Award. She's served on the national boards of Mystery Writers of America and Sisters in Crime, and as president of Private Eye Writers of America. SJ has taught at such diverse places as the Art Workshop International in Assisi, Italy; Singapore Management University in Singapore; the Atlantic Center for the Arts in Florida; and the Novel-in-Progress Bookcamp in Wisconsin. She was born in the Bronx and lives in Manhattan. SJ has served on the National Boards of Mystery Writers of America and Sisters in Crime, and is ex-...

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