Interview by Jana Hoops. Special to the Clarion-Ledger Sunday print edition (July 14)

Author SJ Rozan’s familiar detective duo of New Yorkers Lydia Chin and Bill Smith find themselves in a place “more foreign . . . than any (they’d) ever seen”–the Mississippi Delta–when they tackle yet another mystery in her newest tale, Paper Son.

Multi-award-winning crime writer Rozan, herself a native and current resident of New York City, was intrigued when she first heard about the Delta’s long-established Chinese community, and proved that this “Most Southern Place on Earth” was also the best setting yet for another whodunit. And this time, it‘s personal: Lydia’s cousin–whom she never knew existed–has been accused of murdering his father.

To her writing credit of 16 novels and more than 70 short stories, Rozan adds Paper Son, the 12th in her popular Lydia and Bill series. Her work has been the recipient of the Edgar, Shamus, Anthony, Nero, Macavity, and Japanese Maltese Falcon awards, and she recently captured the Life Achievement Award from the Private Eye Writers of America.

Rozan will appear as an official panelist at the Mississippi Book Festival on the lawn of the Mississippi Capital on August 17.

How did you decide to set your latest novel in the Mississippi Delta – the “most Southern place on earth”? Do you have friends/family/ties to Mississippi? Did you visit the Delta in person to research the land, people and culture of the area?

S.J. Rozan

I first went to the Delta to visit my friend Eric Stone, who had moved to Clarksdale. Eric introduced me to the story of the Delta’s Chinese grocers. I’d never heard this fascinating bit of American history. I’d been writing about Chinese-American private eye Lydia Chin for years, and this seemed like a situation made for her. I researched the history of the grocers and the Delta itself when I was back in NYC, then made two more trips to the Delta to interview, see people and places, and get a feel for the sights, sounds, and smells.

Paper Son places private investigator Lydia Chin and her partner Bill Smith in the heart of the Mississippi Delta, with a plan to defend a cousin in what appears to be an open-and-shut murder case. As an American-born native of Chinatown in New York City, Chin, and fellow New Yorker Smith, face the Delta with the uncertainties of “strangers in a strange land.” They are soon sorting through the tangled “facts,” amid nuances of the Delta’s past. What role does the setting of this story play, and what would you say this case tells us about the secrets of the Delta–past and present?

The setting in some ways IS the story. This is true in all my books, with Paper Son as my 12th Lydia and Bill book, and my 16th overall. Things happen in some places–in this instance, the complicated family history of Lydia’s Delta cousins–that wouldn’t happen in others. What the case tells us about the secrets of the Delta, I think, are universal truths: everything is complex and nuanced; we rarely get any whole story unless we dig for it; and the motivations for people’s actions are often different from what we think they are.

After working in a number of career roles, how did you know that writing was what you were meant to do, and what was it that made you gravitate specifically toward writing crime novels (or is the term “mysteries” more accurate)?

I like the term “crime novels;” it’s broader and gives me more leeway as a writer. I always wanted to write, but in college I got sidetracked by the thought that a person had a responsibility to do something useful in the world. I became an architect. The firm I was with did sustainable buildings and historic preservation. They were great people and I enjoyed the work, but I wasn’t happy. As soon as I admitted that to myself, I realized I wanted to go back to my original love, which was writing. Crime novels attract me because they’re about two main issues: a moment when someone feels intense pressure to respond to a situation, and the aftereffects of that response.

Have you already begun to write the next adventure for Lydia and Bill–or perhaps other characters–and why do you think Lydia and Bill have become endeared to so many readers?

The way my series works, Lydia and Bill alternate as narrators from book to book, with the other character as sidekick. Paper Son is Lydia’s book, and I’ve started the next one, which will be Bill’s. It’s set in the New York art world, an endless source of intrigue. What readers tell me they like about Lydia and Bill is the way they’re obviously fond of each other, or maybe even more than that, and they can depend on one another absolutely, but neither of them will take any baloney–from the other, or from anyone else. Also, Lydia, a strong independent Asian woman with, nevertheless, a huge family she takes seriously, is an unusual character in crime fiction.

Please tell me about your participation in the upcoming Mississippi Book Festival on Aug. 17 in Jackson. On which panel will you be a participant, and what will be the topic of discussion? Is this your first appearance at this event?

This will be the first time I’ve been part of the Mississippi Book Festival and I’m very much looking forward to it. I haven’t gotten my panel assignment yet, but whatever it is I’m sure it’ll be interesting and fun. ‘See you there!

S.J. Rozan will appear at the Mississippi Book Festival August 17 as a participant in the “The Thrill of Mystery” panel at 1:30 p.m. in State Capitol Room 113.