Concourse

S.J. Rozan

2/10/2004

Bill Smith is attending the funeral of a friend, a young husband and father. Mike Downey had been killed while working in security for another friend, Bobby Moran. Bobby had been one of Bill's mentors. Supposedly Mike was killed by a random beating in a bad neighborhood. But Bobby wants to have the situation checked out. So he asks Bill to take on the empty security position at the nursing home in a rough Bronx neighborhood. Bill accepts the job. He also gets his private investigator friend, Lydia Shin, to start background checks on the neighborhood and the people involved.

On his first day, Bill makes enemies with the gang that runs the neighborhood. He rescues a man they are beating. But he makes a friend of the beaten man, Martin Carter. He discovers Martin is a single father of two small children, living with his mother while he supports them. Martin also works at the nursing home.

That night the night security supervisor is killed in the same method as Mike Downey. So things get worse, and Moran's agency is fired from the nursing home. Now Bill is determined to discover what is really happening in the neighborhood. The two men both appear to have been killed by the local gang. But they were paid the "protection" money they had demanded beforehand, and they claim they didn't do it.

Concourse is an interesting, enjoyable mystery. Rozan has taken this second book in the series and written it first person from Bill Smith's view rather than Lydia's as in the first novel. The book talks about the bad neighborhood that is the centerpiece of the story. The people reflect that but the descriptions of the area are lacking. I got a feel for Martin Carter, Snake, and Ida Goldstein. Goldstein is a feisty elder who reminds us of the problems of the senior citizens in the United States.

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China Trade
Concourse
Mandarin Plaid
No Colder Place
A Bitter Feast
Stone Quarry
Reflecting the Sky
Winter and Night