I’ve got a new favourite Lydia Chin book though No Colder Place, narrated by Bill Smith, is still my favourite book in this series. I also think I can’t hold on a year to read the next installment and might have to move Rozan onto my “must buy in hardback” list.

I’ve always liked the setting of New York’s Chinatown and setting a book in Hong Kong means that the author can expand the descriptions and make everything so much bigger. The descriptive parts are very well woven into the narrative, it’s not like you get pages of scenery in between the action scenes. You really get drawn into the skyscrapers, the alley ways, the apartment blocks, the harbours, the markets and the temples. Hong Kong is a place I’d love to visit.

I’m still thinking about the plot. It all makes sense to me except for quite why Lydia and Bill ended up in Hong Kong to start with. I haven’t quite got why their services were chosen sussed yet. One of the things I like about Rozan is that she doesn’t go in for the big good versus evil battle. Most of her baddies are acting in the interests of the good. Her characters are mainly trying to help out their families, keep bad news from their friends, that kind of thing, when they get drawn in by currents too strong to escape. The multilayered plots all stand up to analysis and aren’t merely puzzles arranged about a central focus of evil.

I really enjoyed the ending of this book. The will they/won’t they relationship between Lydia and Bill could become wearing after so many episodes but Rozan is subtly developing her main characters without ruining the series. I’m looking forward to the next book, Winter and Night.