Author S.J. Rozan talks to Club Calvi about new Lydia Chin/Bill Smith mystery book
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Club Calvi talked to award-winning author S.J. Rozan about her new book in her popular Lydia Chin/Bill Smith mystery series set in New York City. "First Do No Harm" is the 16th book featuring the private detectives.
"I knew I wanted to write a series"
Rozan published "China Trade," the first book in the series, in 1994. She told Mary Calvi that she never expected to be talking about a 16th book featuring her detective duo.
"I knew I wanted to write a series," Rozan said. "And that implies a number of books. But 16, never did I think I would keep going this long."
"First Do No Harm" involves a murder, a hospital, and a looming nurses strike. A recent strike in New York City was the inspiration for the book.
"I knew a member of the nurses' negotiating committee and that's how I got involved in hospital politics and hospital economics," Rozan said.
"The city constantly gives story, plot, place, idea, food"
Rozan was born and raised in The Bronx. She now lives in Lower Manhattan. She says New York City is a central character in the series.
Lydia Chin is anchored in Chinatown and in her family, while Bill Smith has no family and is a more traditional private detective.
"They move through all parts of the city," Rozan said. "The city constantly gives story, plot, place, idea, food."
"First Do No Harm" is set on an imagined campus of a major hospital on the Upper East Side.
So does Rozan go to restaurants and sample their food with the idea of adding them to her books?
"Lydia Chin and Bill Smith meet the detective for the first time at a Latino restaurant in East Harlem because I had just been there," Rozan explained. "It has some of the best roast pork in the city. So I thought I would just give them a plug."
Naturally, Mary asked Rozan for her favorite place to eat in the city.
"Because I'm such a huge Chinese food fan, there's a great restaurant on 39th street, Szechuan Gourmet 39. It's marvelous."
You can read an excerpt of "First Do No Harm" and get the book below.
The CBS New York Book Club focuses on books connected to the Tri-State Area in their plots and/or authors. The books may contain adult themes.
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"First Do No Harm" by S.J. Rozan
From the publisher: With River Valley Hospital in the midst of negotiations to avert a nurses' strike, a wealthy benefactor is set to give a large donation to honor of the Chief of Emergency Medicine: Dr. Elliott Chin, the brother of private investigator Lydia Chin.
Before the donation can be finalized, a member of the nurses' negotiating committee is found murdered. A morgue assistant is arrested and although he denies even knowing the victim his father and brother, both doctors at the hospital, are quick to urge him to take a plea. Another negotiating committee member abruptly resigns and a senior biomedical technician disappears. An officially off-limits section of the hospital basement turns out to be a hotbed of unauthorized—and in some cases criminal—activity.
Hired by the arrested man's lawyer, Lydia Chin and her partner Bill Smith start to dig into the events and personnel at the hospital. Among the union disputes, blackmail, thefts, lies, and a detective who really, really doesn't like them, one thing becomes clear: the dictum to "First Do No Harm" is not in effect at River Valley. As time runs short, Lydia and Bill face a complicated and dangerous task: they must unlock the hospital's secrets to save an innocent man.
S.J. Rozan lives in New York City.
"First Do No Harm" by S.J. Rozan Hardcover (ThriftBooks) $22
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Excerpt: "First Do No Harm" by S.J. Rozan
I've had the dream for as long as I can remember. I'm perched on a dizzying edge, staring at the ground far below. It's twilight: not quite dark, but nothing is distinct. I have to jump because it's the only way to get where I'm going and I absolutely have to get there. But when I step off, into the empty air, will I be able to control the fall? My heart pounds. A flash of ice races up my spine.
I step.
And that weightless second after I do, that moment when the question's still unanswered-that's why I do it, every time. Yes, I need to get there, wherever there is. But I know as I'm doing it that need is not the reason.
That dream's not, and never has been, a nightmare.
***
It was the same now. That moment on the edge. But not quite the same: I was awake and could've backed out of this one. There was another way to get down. Like in the dreams, I couldn't make out what was below, but not because it was dark. The July morning was bright, the sky was a glorious blue, and the ground was far, far away, at the bottom of two and a half miles of empty air. And there wasn't any where I needed to get to. I could've chosen not to step out of the open airplane door.
Except my brother pushed me.
Technically, he didn't push. We were attached, me in front, sitting with our legs dangling out of the plane, and he jumped. But just before he did, I was about to. He pushed but I'd have pulled. I wanted that moment. And I got it.
Weightless, wind rushing, blue around, sun flashing, green below, that giddy moment lasting and lasting and stretching on, way longer than the dream, until a sudden tug and then silence, no rushing, just floating, down, sideways, sailing along above an abstract of greens and browns that slowly resolved into buildings, roads, fields. A truck, some cars, a Quonset hut. A dust cloud above a dirt strip.
"Now," I heard in my ear. Laughing, I tucked up my knees.
Elliott stuck the landing.
He was the skydiver, after all.
***
Back in the hut I was still laughing as I asked, "Can we go again?"
"Not today." Elliott grinned as he slipped his glasses back on. "I knew you'd love it."
"Don't tell Ma you took me."
"She'll know anyhow." He folded and tagged the parachute, the harnesses. He was right. My brothers and I have spent a lot of time over our lives trying to hide things from our mother. It rarely works.
Elliott passed the gear across the counter to a bearded, muscled guy who, I imagined, was just waiting for his shift to end so he could go jump.
"So when can-" I stopped as Elliott's phone played "Confusionality" by Doctor Django and his Nurses. He checked the screen and answered, stepping away. I strolled around the room, looking over the photos of shrieking free-fallers, floating formations, and a set of flyers in wingsuits. How had I waited this long to take Elliott up on his offer to join in?
My brother slipped his phone back into his cargo shorts and turned. I was about to repeat my half-asked question when he cut me off with one of his own.
"You know a good criminal lawyer?"
Excerpted from FIRST DO NO HARM by S.J. Rozan. Copyright 2026 by S.J. Rozan. Reprinted with permission from Pegasus Crime. All rights reserved.