books

S.J. Rozan

Books: Fantasy | Mystery | Historical

Dee and Lao Mysteries: The Murder of Mr. Ma (2024), The Railway Conspiracy (2025)

Anthologies

Home Improvement: Undead Edition (2011)

Dee and Lao Mysteries 

The Murder of Mr. Ma (2024) with John Shen Yen Nee

The Murder of Mr. MaSet in London in 1924

Lao She is living in London, teaching English to aspiring businessmen and politicians when he is told Judge Dee was swept up during a Chinese protest and needs to get out of jail before his enemy, now an inspector a the Met, discovers him.

Both Dee and Lao were historical figures; although they lived in very different times the authors decided to place them both in London in the 1920s and allow the action to unfold.

Dee is in England to take the body of a man with whom he had fought in WWI back to China, only another murder happens and Lao She is swept up in the mystery and adventure.

The mystery was fun, but I have to admit that the fight scenes didn’t work for me, because I don’t see things in my mind, so those parts I skimmed.

“Can you fight?” Dee asked me.

“Indeed I can,” I replied. “I’m Manchu, born under the Plain Red Banner. There were plenty of knocks to be had in the Peking of my youth.”

I can see how the fight scenes would be cinematic, they just don’t work for me.

Dee had served in WWI and suffered badly from what had happened there. I don’t doubt the events as described were an amalgamation of things that happened to many in the Chinese Labour Corps (a group I knew nothing about before, but my knowledge is history is very hit or miss).

Dee stayed in the shadows of the horse stall for some minutes, until, as he told me later, the visions from the trenches had begun to fade. For this was what had driven him from our company: the sight and smell of blood, the screams of men and the concussion of bombs, the pulse of mud and metal raining down.

I had read previously about how the British has used opium to manipulate the Chinese and also read about how wide-spread opium addiction was in the late 1800s and after, so it was interesting to see those two things appear in a single story.

It was a fun action-packed mystery and I will want to read another.

Characters: Lao She, Judge Dee Ren Jie, Ma Ze Ren, Captain William Bard, Hoong Liang, Miss Mary Wendell, Mrs Wendell, Mrs. Hennessey, Bertrand Russell, Dora Russell, Ezra Pound, Li Zi Rong, Colonel Livingstone Moore, Jim Finney/Jimmy Fingers, Roger Whytecliff, Miss Clarissa Porter, Guo Song, Chin Peng Da, Mrs. Moira McCarthy, Commissioner Lin Tse Shu, Washington Jones, Reverend Robert Evans, Jiang Gwan Li, Lu Yan, Jeremiah Stone, Arthur Ward

Publisher: Soho Crime

December 2024 | Rating: 7.5/10

The Murder of Mr. Ma, Audio Book (2024) narrated by Daniel York Loh

Publisher: Recorded Books

August 2026 | Rating: 8/10

The Railway Conspiracy (2025) with John Shen Yen Nee  #2

The Railway ConspiracySet in London in 1924

Dee has returned to London and once again drawn Lao, Sergeant Hoong and Jimmy Fingers together.

He peered over his glass. “Are you quite all right, Lao? I haven’t been here seventy-two hours and already your life has been threatened, you’re bruised, your suit is covered in mud, and your best brandy is in danger of becoming extinct. I fail to see the pleasure in any of that.”

At the center of this puzzle is the new railway.

The passage here from China by fast steamship takes six weeks. Overland by rail, Peking to London can be accomplished in nine days. It nearly leaves one breathless.

Honestly, that’s one of the things I adore about historical stories–seeing the introduction technologies that are absolutely going to change the world.

“The drivers of motorcars will have to learn to share the roads with barrows and horse-drawn wagons.”
…
“Oh, I think there’ll be no sharing,” the driver said. “This beauty will be my last horse. When she’s ready for her pasture, I—or my sons—will turn to a lorry for our trade.”

And the stories also remind us how much society has change (and how much we have to lose).

“She has chosen to be addressed as ‘Madam’ because, as a woman of business, she finds herself taken more seriously if it is assumed that a man is behind her demands and decisions.”

“She doesn’t object to having to perform this subterfuge?”

“She objects strenuously.”

I think there is more humor in this book, which I quite enjoyed.

“Ah,” Hoong said when, looking over from the foot of a ladder leaning against the shelves, he saw that it was we who had set the bell above the door to tinkling. “Dee, Lao. I see my attempts to earn my humble living are about to be interrupted again.”

At Hoong’s shop, he explained his plan to the Sergeant, who sighed and turned his shop sign to “closed.”

And of course a great deal of history, much of which was ignored in my American schooling.

He’s a White Russian, one of the many who renounced Russian citizenship after the revolution and fled to Harbin.

Pointing the finger at Isaki for being a ronin was redundant and, I thought, a touch unsporting. The samurai class having been abolished by edict in Japan more than a half-century earlier, all those who continued to follow the Bushido were, by definition, ronin, masterless. Those who chose to live by the sword had no choice now but to sell its services.

The Republic had been declared in 1912. China was no longer ruled by an emperor, and the sumptuary laws reserving yellow clothing to the imperial family had long since been repealed. Chinese were free to wear what we wanted, yet centuries of tradition made it difficult for many people to feel comfortable donning clothing of the shade.

As with the previous book, the fight scenes (of which there were many) did nothing for me as I can’t visualize things in my head (even if I did know the various fighting terms) but I could get the scenes were very cinematic.

Although the main arc was concluded, there were threads left unfinished that left future story lines open.

Characters: Dee Ren Jie/Spring-heel Jack, Sergeant Hoong, Jimmy Fingers, Mr. Lao She, Gao Feng, Mei Qiang, Honorable Bertrand Russell, Dora Russell, Anthony Cartwright, Timmy McCorkle, Count Vladimir Voronoff, Isaki, Wu Ze Tian, A. G. Stephen, Yoshio Markino, Marie Markino, Ang Chun, Peng Lian Liang, Chung Kao Kun, Mr. Ted Bolton, Arthur Waley, Commissioner Lin Tse Shu, Alice Green, Constable Ritts, Constable Tucker, Constables Buck and Coyle, Larrimore, Hartford, Zhang Zuo Lin the notorious warlord

Publisher: Soho Press

September 2026 | Rating: 8/10

Home Improvement: Undead Edition (2011) edited by Charlaine Harris & Toni L.P. Kelner

As with most anthologies, there are stories here I really liked, and some that I found to be just okay. What was unusual was that there were some stories that I actually strongly disliked.

"The Path" by S J Rozan was a somewhat unusual story for the collection, in that it wasn't particularly about renovation, or even a home, but instead a ghost learning to be brave, and hoping to get an artifact returned to where it belongs. I quite enjoyed the story, and will probably look to see if I can find anything else by the author.

All in all, an okay collection, but I'm not sure why it's been so expensive for so long, and if I could have gotten the Patricia Briggs story solo (I really do enjoy her short stories), I'm not sure I'd necessarily haven bothered with it.

Published by Ace

Rating: 6/10