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, identifed 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.

From Publishers Weekly

The hunt for a valuable brooch propels Edgar-winner Rozan's ninth Lydia Chin and Bill Smith nail-biter (after 2002's Winter and Night). In 1938, Rosalie Gilder, an 18-year-old Jewish refugee, left Nazi-annexed Austria for Japanese-occupied Shanghai, where she married the aristocratic Chen Kai-Rong. Chen had a jeweler create the Shanghai Moon, a brooch combining Rosalie's mother's diamonds with his ancestors' rare jade. Its disappearance during WWII interests treasure hunters in the present day. When Wong Pan, a corrupt Chinese official, steals Rosalie's jewelry box, recently unearthed in Shanghai, a Swiss asset-recovery specialist hires Joel Pilarsky, Lydia's friend and associate, to recover it in New York City, where Wong has fled in hopes of selling Rosalie's jewels on the black market. After Joel's murdered, Lydia and Bill follow a trail to Manhattan's Chinatown, where they encounter Rosalie's son and other relatives eager to recover the brooch. 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. Author tour. (Feb.)
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From Booklist

When sleuthing gets stressful, private investigator Lydia Chin downs savory plates of noodles and pungent cups of tea. In this new entry in Rozan’s critically acclaimed series (after Winter and Night, 2002), Chin has plenty of cause to consume carbs. Not long after a fellow investigator enlists her assistance, he is shot dead in his office. The two were just starting to make headway on a case, which involved recovery of stolen jewels once belonging to Holocaust survivors. Lydia stays on the case, enlisting her former partner, Bill Smith, even though the two have been on the outs for some time. Lydia soon delves into the diaries of Rosalie Gilder, an Austrian Jew who was sent to Shanghai at a young age to avoid Hitler’s death camps. Gilder later married a Chinese man, and a stunning necklace became the symbol of their union. Pursuit of that long-lost bejeweled creation nearly gets Lydia and Bill killed. Rozan’s engaging plots and compelling characters have earned her every major mystery award, but this lukewarm offering isn’t up to the author’s usual level of suspense. --Allison Block