Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 140, No. 6. Whole No. 856, December 2012

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S.J. Rozan has won nearly all of crime fiction’s notable awards, including the Edgar, Shamus, Anthony, and Macavity. She’s best known for her Lydia Chin/Bill Smith private eye novels, the most recent of which, Ghost Hero (2011), won the Dilys Award, made the best-of-the-year lists for NPR and the Sun-Sentinal, and was called “another coup” by Marilyn Stasio of the New York Times. The New York author returns to EQMM with a story full of twists, set in Western China.

“Ah, my friend.” Mustafa Sadiq smiled beneath his thick moustache as the shop door opened and then closed on the midday brightness. He reached to switch on the electric kettle, watching the disheveled lump of a man the door had admitted peer into the dimness, carefully choose his route, and lumber through the cool shadows between the spice boxes.

“Quiet, your neighbors will hear you,” Lo Pen-wei grunted, reaching the rear of the shop where Sadiq sat. A small wooden chair creaked in complaint as Lo dropped his bulk on it. He drew out his handkerchief to mop the sweat from his brow, his face, his neck, and the backs of his hands. Holding the cloth at arm’s length, he creased his round face in disgust. “Where can I wring this out?”

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