attytheresa's review
4.0
The news swept back and forth through Chinatown all afternoon: Big Brother Choi was dead.
Thus opens a detective story set in the world of NYC real estate development around 2020, specifically in the heart of Chinatown. Big Brother Choi was the last holdout in the parcel acquisition by a developer determined to build a glass tower smack in the heart of Chinatown and forever changing the area. Real estate developers vs. preservationists is key to the story and the motivations of many of the characters. But from the minute you learn that Big Brother Choi was head of one of the most powerful tongs (gangs) and the building was the tong's NYC headquarters, 'the Family', you know there is more. Much more. Then the murder happens, guns come our, rocks are thrown, tong warfare breaks out .... and deep dark family secrets come to light within the tong and ties upper echelons.
This is the 14th In the Lydia and Bill PI series by Rozan, but read just fine as a standalone. How have I never read this author? I have other of the series in my TBR Towers though. I so enjoyed this: Lydia her badass self, the dialogue, the relationships with family and Bill, the tea consumption and tour of Chinatown's bakeries and restaurants (all existing IRL), all the secondary characters. Rozan not only did her research, she integrated seamlessly and accurately.
I did put together a lot of the pieces but barely sooner than Lydia and Bill.
Why did I not read this series years, a decade ago? Time to make a pot of green tea - properly, just bringing the water to hot, not boiling.
Thus opens a detective story set in the world of NYC real estate development around 2020, specifically in the heart of Chinatown. Big Brother Choi was the last holdout in the parcel acquisition by a developer determined to build a glass tower smack in the heart of Chinatown and forever changing the area. Real estate developers vs. preservationists is key to the story and the motivations of many of the characters. But from the minute you learn that Big Brother Choi was head of one of the most powerful tongs (gangs) and the building was the tong's NYC headquarters, 'the Family', you know there is more. Much more. Then the murder happens, guns come our, rocks are thrown, tong warfare breaks out .... and deep dark family secrets come to light within the tong and ties upper echelons.
This is the 14th In the Lydia and Bill PI series by Rozan, but read just fine as a standalone. How have I never read this author? I have other of the series in my TBR Towers though. I so enjoyed this: Lydia her badass self, the dialogue, the relationships with family and Bill, the tea consumption and tour of Chinatown's bakeries and restaurants (all existing IRL), all the secondary characters. Rozan not only did her research, she integrated seamlessly and accurately.
I did put together a lot of the pieces but barely sooner than Lydia and Bill.
Why did I not read this series years, a decade ago? Time to make a pot of green tea - properly, just bringing the water to hot, not boiling.
rosecityreader's review
4.0
Family Business is the latest mystery novel in Rozan's long-running series featuring New York private eye Lydia Chin and her fellow P.I. boyfriend Bill Smith. Here, Lydia and Bill get pulled in to solve the mystery of a murdered Tong leader found dead in a Chinatown building at the center of a real estate development battle. There’s plenty of action, some light humor, and enough complexity to keep your attention right to the end.
danakate's review against another edition
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.0
theirresponsiblereader's review
adventurous
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
4.0
“Big Brother Choi died.”
“Wow. What happened?”
“Massive heart attack. Not to worry, there.”
I hadn’t really been worried. It wasn’t likely Big Brother Choi had been rubbed out by a rival tong leader and a Chinatown tong war was about to start. Those ham-handed days were largely gone.
But Mary’s “there” implied something else, and I knew what it was, the reason Chris Chiang had called. A seismic shudder was about to move through the streets we’d grown up on.
Our high school physics prof had told us that nature abhors a vacuum.
So does power.
What’s Family Business About?
The core of this novel is focused on what’s going to happen to a real estate development in Chinatown. Which really doesn’t sound that exciting—but Rozan’s able to make you care. Also, this is not a run-of-the-mill real estate problem.
There’s a large-scale development headed towards Lydia’s neighborhood, whether anyone wants it or not. The only thing stopping it is that the owner of one building in the middle of the projected development refuses to sell. That owner is—er, was—Big Brother Choi, the head of a tong, who uses that building as his tong’s HQ.
So, yeah, a criminal enterprise is all that stands between a (seemingly) legal and successful businessman and the destruction of a neighborhood/way of life. And then the head of the tong dies (of natural causes), and everything could change.
Choi’s niece—the executor of his will—comes to Lydia and Bill to provide some security for her as she tries to exert her position vis-à-vis the building. A lot is riding on this one building, and everyone has an opinion: there are two factions within the tong vying to determine the future of the building (and, with it, the tong); the developer; and the neighborhood’s historical society–and it’s all up to her to decide. People on all sides of the issue are trying to pressure her into making a decision they’d prefer about the building–and some of the pressure could be pretty intimidating.
Especially when ranking members of the tong start dying—without natural causes like those that took out Choi. And then people start shooting at people tangentially connected to the niece and threatening them.
Lydia and Bill now have to keep the niece alive and unscathed while trying to discover who’s behind the shooting and the dead tong members.
The Lydia and Bill Relationship
There are several reasons that Lydia and Bill’s romantic relationship is one of my favorites in fiction, and I’m not going to try to enumerate them all. But probably my favorite part is that when they shifted from close friends/business associates to romantic partners the rest stayed pretty much the same. They deepened what was there, but didn’t radically change it.
Their flirting is a little more obvious—and Lydia’s less likely to cut it off. But they still have each other’s back, the mutual support and trust are still there. When they’re on the job, they’re on the job, not making goo-goo eyes at each other. Bill knows that Lydia is going to be reckless—and he doesn’t try to stop her any more than he did before, but he sure worries about her. Would that everyone in fiction who made that transition did so as well.
So, what did I think about Family Business?
As I’ve mentioned before (likely too often), while I think most of the Bill-narrated novels are technically superior, the Lydia-narrated novels are consistently the more entertaining. So I went into this with high expectations—and they were pretty much met.
I could go on about the flirting between Lydia and Bill, or talk about Lydia’s wit and narration, or how nice it was to see a minor character from several books ago show up. But that’s probably enough to indicate where I’m leaning with this post. There are a couple of points that I want to talk about a little, however.
I loved the way Lydia’s mom inserted herself into the investigation. I’ve said enough about the slow-burn in getting the romance to advance, but getting Lydia’s mother to stop actively disapproving of Lydia’s career and now getting involved?? I dare you to go back 13 books and try to predict that.
Like most people who read Detective Fiction, one of my great joys is being one or three steps ahead of the protagonist in putting the clues together. THere’s something so satisfying about being more clever than they are—and in getting your guess endorsed by the protagonist. But what’s better? Having the protagonist put all the pieces together in a way you didn’t see coming—and instantly realizing there was no other way to interpret the evidence. That mix of “X was really clever there” and “ugh, I’m such a dunce for not seeing that” is somehow gratifying. For me, at least, the solution
Still, I’m not sure the people that Lydia initially revealed the solution to were the best to hear that. I’m even less sure of her timing on the revelation. But it did lead to some of the more exciting parts of the book—so as a reader, I liked that. I just wish that Lydia would be more judicious at times.
This was my first novel of the year—it’s a pretty good way to start 2022, something as entertaining as this was can make a guy optimistic about the next twelve months. That’s probably a silly way to think about things, but I’m running with it.
Family Business is not only another strong entry in the series that will please fans, it like almost all those before) would be a good entry point for someone curious about the series. So really, there’s no excuse to not pick it up. Go do so.
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