Thanks to all who joined us in celebrating the 20th anniversary of our Dilys Award, given each year to the mystery we most enjoyed hand-selling.
This year our award went to S.J. Rozan's Ghost Hero, so we invited mystery lovers everywhere to share their thoughts about this powerful, witty, and informative book. We started things off with our KillerBooks review.
S.J. Rozan read them all and posted her replies below.
S.J. Rozan read them all and posted her replies below.
Review by Robin Agnew, Aunt Agatha’s, Ann Arbor, MI, www.auntagathas.com:
ReplyDeleteS.J. Rozan, now 11 books in to her series alternating between the voices of Lydia Chin and Bill Smith, gives us a Lydia entry, a fast paced novel set in the high stakes Manhattan art scene. With a Rozan novel, you always learn a bit along with a great story. In this one, you get to learn a bit about Chinese art and Chinese dissidents. The "Ghost Hero" of the title refers to an artist who died in the Tieneman Square uprising, and what’s got the art world all abuzz is the idea that the ghost hero, Chau, is still alive and creating new work. Someone has hired Lydia and Bill to look into it, and, it turns out, someone else has hired another investigator, Jack Lee, for the same purpose.
Rozan is a past master at taking an incredibly complicated plot but making it seem – to the reader – not complicated, thanks to her clear and concise style of writing. She is able to convey both emotion and humor in a very compact manner, a manner that feels like a particularly American style of writing. As the plot develops, Lydia and Bill join forces with Jack Lee, even to the point of meeting his client (who had demanded absolute confidentiality). Jack’s client is annoyed and goes so far as to fire Jack, but as he’s been shot at in the line of duty, he sticks with the case, and Lydia sticks with her own mystery client and his much smaller retainer.
As the story proceeds Rozan sketches in the details of the Manhattan gallery world with memorable aplomb, and there are certain characters that are difficult to forget. The most memorable, though, might be Bill’s impression of a wealthy Russian collector with lots of "bling." Lydia literally has to look away.
With alternating scenes of humor and action Rozan advances her story, and as a reader you become more and more invested in wanting to find out exactly what happened to Ghost hero Chau. She’s such a good writer she keeps you guessing, and like only the very best writers, the true story isn’t revealed until the very last paragraph. It was an unexpected development, but not one she hadn’t laid the groundwork for.
The complicated plot threads are neatly tied up as are the emotional ones – though the relationship between Lydia and Bill, never absolutely defined, still remains somewhat up in the air. This is another bravura effort from a supremely talented writer
Q's for SJ-- I understand that at one time you were a sucessful architect working on some major projects in NYC. What motivated you to change careers..was there one shining moment that pushed you towards writing mysteries full time? Why did you choose the mystery genre as opposed to general fiction writing? Finally,is there one bit of motivational advice that you could give to an aspiring mystery author seeking to enter the profession?
ReplyDeleteFrom the top:
DeleteOne: I always wanted to be a writer. For complicated reasons I didn't pursue that. Far from having a single, shining moment, though, what happened was that, after I'd been through four years of school and been working about eight years, I realized that as much as I liked my job, I wasn't really happy. Then a little voice in my head said, "Weren't we going to write a book?"
Two: That world-weary, voice-over private eye -- that's been the voice in my head since I can't remember when. That (Bill Smith, it turned out) was the voice I wanted to write in first. Other voices came later, but I love crime fiction.
Three: Write. Write write write write write. If you can't sell your first book, write your second. And read. Read at all times. Don't read crap even if your friends wrote it. It'll ruin your ear. Read writers who are better than you are, and try to figure out how they do it.
On Ghost Hero..I throughly enjoyed the Manhattan art gallery discussions-adds a fascinating dimension to your story. Did you do on-site research into various galleries or are you friends with art dealers who filled you in on the inner workings of art galleries? Did you intend to interwine the NYC art scene into this mystery novel from the onset of your plotting or did it evolve from your interest in Chinese art?
ReplyDeleteThanks! I spend a lot of time in galleries, and I know both dealers and artists. I've heard stories like these, from both sides. As soon as I decided to write about Chinese art I wanted to write about galleries, not museums, and contemporary art involving living artists. The gallery scene is too rich a source of material to pass up, really.
DeleteQ for SJ-- If your high school english teacher could describe you as a student what would she(or he) say?
ReplyDeleteOne of them actually did say I was a wiseacre, which was high-school-teacher-speak for "wiseass." That was because I was able to explicate a poem he said no one had ever understood. (The grammar and syntax were very complicated, admittedly, but it wasn't incomprehensible. He just wasn't looking at it in the right way.) I was probably overeager and full of myself. I was editor of the Lit Mag, on the newspaper editorial board, etc.
DeleteQ for SJ Rozan- When you are in a writing mode, what does your typical day look like? What do you do when you get "stuck" writing to "un-stuck" yourself?
ReplyDeleteI write in the mornings, after a cup of tea by the river. (I live two blocks from the Hudson, and I like to go for a walk outdoors before I settle down to the desk.) I write all morning, for 3-4 hours, so my ending time depends on my starting time. Then I go to the gym, and then spend the rest of the afternoon rewriting, or working on something else, like an essay I've promised a magazine, etc.
DeleteI generally don't get stuck. (I'm knocking on wood as I say this.) If I do, it's always about plot. Since I write without an outline, the question keeps coming up: what happens now? If I need to answer that, I usually move away from the desk -- outdoors, or to the sofa -- and go at it left-brain style, with a yellow pad and a pen. I write down ideas. "The client calls," or "a stranger walks in who seems to know all about the case," things like that. Then I ask, "why does he call? Is his real reason the same as the reason he gives? If not, why is he lying?" Something always presents itself as the next route to take. All this is predicated on my firm belief that the ideas that are coming when I do this are being tossed up by my subconscious, which already has a sense of where the book needs to go.
Q for SJ Rozan-What mystery author(s) work influenced you the most in your formative years as a writer? What did you like about that writers' style?
ReplyDeleteOh, so many. I think pride of place, though, goes to Raymond Chandler. He proved to me that beautiful sentences and complex emotions have a place in crime novels, and are worth striving for.
DeleteQ for SJ-What have you found to be the most productive way(s) to market your books? Do you get much help in this regard from your publisher?
ReplyDeleteHonestly, I have no idea. Partly that's because there's no "control" for this experiment, meaning, I don't know how a book would've sold if I'd done other things. I know a lot of writers spend a lot of time on Facebook and Twitter, on the Amazon boards; some do a lot of traveling... I'm really not the person to ask about this. I'm sorry.
DeleteIn Ghost Hero S.J. Rozan once again weaves a grabbing mystery. When Lydia is the main narrator New York City's Chinatown usually figures in as a character of its own. This time, though, it is the art world and Chinese history that shape the novel. Although I heard about the demonstrations and shooting at Tiananmen Square, I was busy with my own life and small children. I know I've read at least one novel that the event was part of the journalist's trips. But it took reading about it in Ghost Hero for me to learn about the real injustice of that night.
ReplyDeleteGhost Hero winds around on itself. The build up of Ghost Hero is well down. The art work solution falls a bit flat because it's obvious to someone who reads this sort of mysteries. The final come uppance for the art dealer is fitting and unexpected. It's fun.
When Rozan writes a novel, I look forward to reading it. She doesn't disappoint.
Well, thanks! Glad the history gave you something, too.
DeleteQ for SJ Rozan-
ReplyDeleteDo you outline when you write? Or do you set out with a general thought and let the "writing muse" guide you, Lydia and Bill in creating the story?
I don't outline. I start with a world I want to set the book in (the art world, the construction industry, etc.) and think for awhile about why I want to use that world, what I want to say. That gives the book a "theme." In GHOST HERO, for example, the theme was art and artifice. Just as the political messages in Chinese art masquerade as something else, many of the characters in the book are masquerading as someone else. I knew that when I started. I also knew that formally, I wanted the book to be a sting, just as I knew I wanted ON THE LINE to be a thriller. I like to challenge myself one way or another with each book. Those things were all I knew; then I just started, trusting my subconscious to keep guiding me back to the art/artifice theme is I started to stray.
DeleteQ for SJ-
ReplyDeleteWhat do you think of the e-book revolution? Since a cold steely e-reader can never replace the smell, feel and warmth associated with a real printed book do you think that publishers will eventually stop traditional printing in favor of delivering mystery titles through solely electronic media?
Very loaded question, loaded with your own answer! "Cold, steely e-book... warmth associated with a real printed book..." Doesn't leave me much room!
DeleteMe, I see the e-reader, the printed book, or the parchment scroll as the package. The story is what's inside the package. I make the story. If the e-reader is bringing more readers to my stories, as it appears to be doing, that's fine with me.
How writers are going to make a living in the face of e-books is another question, but it's not the same issue and it's one very much still in flux. I think it'll be awhile, though, before paper books stop altogether.
Q for SJ Rozan-
ReplyDeleteWhat's the best part about being a mystery writer?
Two best parts: getting to tell stories; and getting to hang around with other crime writers and readers, the coolest people ever.
DeleteQ for SJ Rozan-
ReplyDeleteSeems to me that you are definitely "a NY kind of writer" but I wonder if your Bill and Lydia series would do just as well if the NY setting were changed to San Francisco or downtown Philadelphia? Care to comment on this?
I can't really know, but I'd hope that if I were a SF or Philly native and loved my city as much as I love NYC, that would come through in my writing.
DeleteQ for SJ Rozan-
ReplyDeleteHow did you come up with the character Lydia Chin? Would the series be the same in your mind if she was of Italian descent and Bill was Chinese-American?
Bill was my first character -- that world-weary PI, the iconic American character. Lydia was developed to be everything he wasn't, so neither of them could ever say for certain "THIS is the way things are." It wouldn't be the same if Bill were Chinese. The thing about the iconic PI character is, he's someone who by accident of birth -- he's white, male, straight, healthy, and relatively young -- could rule the world. He could be part of the power structure, if he were just willing to give up his soul. The heroic gesture is, he won't do that. He steps outside and spends his life rescuing people being dragged under by that power structure. He wouldn't be a hero if he never had that chance in the first place, if he hadn't turned and walked away, and in the US in the 21st C, women, gays, people of color aren't automatically handed that chance. They have to fight for it. Their heroism -- Lydia's, for example -- consists of fighting for the right to be who they are in the face of societal expectations.
DeleteQ for SJ-
ReplyDeleteWhen you are not writing what are some of the things that you do in your free time or put another way how do you recharge your writing "batteries"
I either play basketball or go to the gym every day. I try to spend as much time as possible in museums -- a museum/gallery day is my (geeky!) idea of a good time. I go to concerts, and I explore corners of NYC I don't know very well. And those I think I do, because I'm usually wrong.
DeleteQ for SJ Rozan-
ReplyDeleteWho are some of the mystery writers you enjoy reading--those still with us or those departed? What creates the joy for you?
I hate to answer this question because someone always gets mad when they're left out, and there are so many...
DeleteThe joy for me comes from great characters, a real-seeming setting, good writing. Plot matters but it's secondary.
That said, here's the beginnings of my list:
Raymond Chandler
Ross Macdonald
Margaret Atwood
John leCarre
Val Macdermid
Laurie King
Reed Farrel Coleman
Jonathan Santlofer
Nury Vittachi
Qiu Xiaolong
Laura Lippman
and if I had another hour...