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276 S. J. Rozan S. J. Rozan is the author of eight novels in the Bill Smith/Lydia Chin series, two stand-alone novels, and the editor of an anthology of short fiction. A former architect in a practice that focuses on police stations, firehouses, and zoos, she is a former Mystery Writers of America National Board member, a current Sisters in Crime National Board member, and ex-president of the Private Eye Writers of America. She speaks and lectures widely and for years interviewed writers at New York’s 92nd Street Y in a series she originated, “Mysterious Conversations.” Rozan’s books have won the Edgar, Shamus, Anthony, Macavity, and Nero awards for best novels. She lives in New York City. China Trade, 1994; Concourse, 1995; Mandarin Plaid, 1996; No Colder Place, 1997; A Bitter Feast, 1998; Stone Quarry, 1999; Reflecting the Sky, 2001; Winter and Night, 2002; Absent Friends, 2004; In This Rain, 2007 Let’s start with the fundamental question, why mysteries? I was always interested in the mystery and crime form. When I was a kid, I read Nancy Drew obsessively. I couldn’t wait for the next ones to come out. There was also a science fiction series [about] Lucky Starr, Space Ranger—[Isaac Asimov] writing under the name of Paul French. It was about this kid named Lucky Starr, who was a young teenager who was a space ranger, but what he really did was go around solving crimes—about robots and aliens and evil scientists. That was one of the jobs he did for the Council of Science, the good guys who ran the world. He had good guys and bad guys to deal with. He had a sidekick who was weird and outrageous. It was this classic mystery series, except it was set in the future . But my all-time favorite was Bill Bergson Lives Dangerously, by Astrid Lindgren. It was about these three kids, Bill Bergson and his buddies. s. J. rozan 277 Somebody was doing something evil in their little town and they had to thwart him. It was all very thrilling. I checked that book out from the library over and over. That was what I wanted to do—not be him, but write those books. And when they finally let you into the adult section of the library? I was a huge Agatha Christie fan, and still am. I think she gets a bad rap for being cozy and for having cardboard characters. Her characters are archetypes; she really understood human motivation and the human heart. Some of her motives are breathtaking, specifically the motive in The Mirror Cracked. She’s also the paragon of fair play. She gives you every piece of information that her detective had, and when you don’t figure it out, it’s your fault. From Agatha Christie, I learned both how to deal with real human beings and how to be fair to the reader and hoodwink them at the same time. Did you study writing in college? I grew up thinking I was going to be a writer. Then when I got into college I got this idea that writing isn’t something you can just do. So I went to architecture school. I was always interested in how things work—what makes a building stand up, what makes a wall bulge in that place, what’s behind all that plaster. I did field work and specification writing. I had this really great job. My office was great, my bosses were great, my work was great. There was nothing about my job that wasn’t your architecture dream job—and I wasn’t happy. That was kind of lucky. If the job hadn’t been so great, I would have thought I was unhappy because I had a lousy job. But there was nothing I could ask for that I wasn’t being given. Obviously, architecture itself was the problem. As soon as I came to that conclusion, this little voice in my head said, “Weren’t we going to write a book?” And I thought, well, all right, let me try that. If that doesn’t work, I can cross that off the list. I knew the book I wanted to write was a private eye novel, so I started creating these characters—and I was never so happy in my life. I went to classes, I got some writing chops. Then I started writing the book. It took me...

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