Reflecting the Sky by S.J. Rozan
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

"Swiftly running water does not reflect the sky."
(A Chinese proverb)

S. J. Rozan's Reflecting the Sky (2001) is already my eighth novel in the Chin/Smith series and - although I quite like it - it is nowhere as good as Stone Quarry or Winter and Night , both winners of many prestigious awards.

The entire novel takes place in Hong Kong where Lydia Chin and her frequent partner Bill Smith are trying to carry out a task for "Grandfather Gao", the infinitely wise patriarch of the New York Chinese community, and a childhood friend of Lydia Chin's actual grandfather. Since another of Mr. Gao's childhood friends, a Mr. Wei, died in new York Lydia and Bill are supposed to deliver a letter and the ashes for burial to Mr. Wei's brother who lives in Hong Kong with the rest of the family. They also are carrying a keepsake for Mr. Wei's grandson, Harry.

The job seems straightforward, but Lydia and Bill face serious obstacles right from the very beginning. When they arrive in the Hong Kong apartment of the Wei family, they find the place ransacked. Harry has been kidnapped. The detectives' job becomes a monumentally difficult task and they get entangled with people involved in serious criminal activities and the Hong Kong police. They have to deal with greed, family obligations, the triads, and even the repercussions of Maoist Cultural Revolution. The plot is really complicated, but the author appears to have a tight control over it, and the complex chains of events are relatively logical and not overly implausible.

As usual for Ms. Rozan's the novel features accomplished prose. Clichés are unavoidable in a book series, but somehow in this installment they are not that conspicuous. The best thing about the novel is the splendid portrayal of Hong Kong. Reading the many descriptions of the city's landscapes and observations of the inhabitants' life I almost felt as if I were there on location. Three magnificent scenes stand out: the sea of thousands of Filipino women congregated in a small park close to the Statue Square. The text paints such vivid images that I felt the need to check the surroundings via the Street View on Google Maps. Lydia and Bill's riding the famous Hong Kong outdoor escalator provides another memorable scene. But the top honors go to the protracted scene that takes place in Mr. Lee's antique shop. Not only Mr. Lee's mysterious and somewhat sinister persona, but also the descriptions of various displayed items, particularly the burial art, will hold the reader's attention.

I suppose that a large proportion of the Chin/Smith novels' readers come back to the series because of the somewhat ambiguous, enigmatic nature of the relationship between Lydia and Bill. The readers will not be disappointed here. The novel contains quite a powerful and in my view psychologically plausible scene between the protagonists. Alas, Ms. Rozan's fixation on gun play in the denouement scenes continues unabated. I would like to understand the nature of that compulsion, particularly in this novel, where guns are not needed by the logic of the plot. So sad that a great author continually feels the need to spoil her work every time she writes a novel!

Three stars.


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