To be reviewed over at Fresh Fiction! ( )

I received a copy of this book from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Although this is my first time with this author I can see that this novel is quite a few installments into a regular series. I can say that I enjoyed the novel as a stand-alone and would not warn the reader about reading the series out of order. I didn’t notice any spoilers or any plot lines that were carry overs from prior installments.

The Paper Son is well written, the characters interesting and likeable, and the plot is well crafted. The reason that I only give this mystery 3 stars has more to do with my taste than the book itself. I prefer mysteries that are edgier and my taste runs more to dark fiction and noir. Even though the book deals with a murder and, therefore, murderous characters, there just wasn’t any menace. As I was reading Paper Son I felt the lack of any hard edge or danger, which I fully expected given the plot of an Asian detective coming to the deep south to investigate a murder allegedly committed by a relative of hers. Any racial tensions were minimal and even the worst racists were quite polite about it. I was expecting something like Mississippi Burning and I got Driving Miss Daisy.

The historical angle to the story—the concept of the “paper son”—a manufactured relative to allow immigration to the US from Asia, was interesting as was the prevalence of Asian grocers and merchants in the deep South. I felt the depth of the research and I also enjoyed the Asian point of view and mindset of Lydia Chin, an American born Asian private investigator of Chinese origin. The yankee/southerner aspect was entertaining if not overly stereotypical and whitewashed into blandness.

As with most readers, I have quite a few reader friends and they are all over the map as to taste. I can easily think of several friends that would enjoy this book and others that would most likely feel the same way that I did. Because tastes vary, this novel, which I stress is well written, is most likely to other’s tastes if not for mine.

3 Stars ( )

First of all, I have to admit that when I started Paper Son, I didn't realize it was number twelve in a detective series. The NetGalley blurb didn't mention this, and when I got the book, I didn't spend enough time looking at the cover to notice A Lydia Chin/Bill Smith Novel under the title. I picked it for the Chinese and mystery themes, and the book stands alone, but I'm sure there's plenty that I missed without reading the others.

Lydia Chin's mother asks (ok, tells) her to take a case helping out a never-before-mentioned cousin in Mississippi, who is accused of murder. When Lydia asks about this new relative, especially why they don't share a surname, she discovers some of her relatives are descendants of a paper son, and hold his "adopted" father's name. I knew about this practice (Laila Ibrahim's Paper Wife is another good story that hinges on this system) but not about the rest of the life of Chinese immigrants in Mississippi.

Bill Smith, Lydia's work partner and also secretly her romantic partner, comes with her to investigate the murder, and the suspect's escape from custody. In Mississippi, Bill's southern roots come out, and I just loved this part. My husband is a southerner who reverts to his drawl when we cross the Mason-Dixon line for a visit. (Or when he gets off the phone with his very southern mother.)

Their mystery has many twists, including meth dealing, Fine Upstanding Southerners, gambling, family secrets, and a certain interracial couple, no, not Bill and Lydia, another couple who may be keeping their relationship secret from unaccepting relatives. This is much more an exploration of the cultures in the south than a police procedural. There's almost no gore or violence, thankfully, even though the original murder that brought Lydia down south was a a stabbing.

Anyway, I'm so delighted that I didn't realize I was walking into the middle of series, and gave this mystery a try.

The New York private investigator team of Lydia Chin and Bill Smith head to the Mississippi Delta to investigate a murder. It was Lydia’s mother who asked them to go, because both the victim, Leland Tam, and the person accused of murdering him, his son Jefferson, are distant cousins of the Chins. Lydia didn’t even know she had cousins in Mississippi. In the course of the investigation she learns why there were a number of Chinese in the South.

The Chinese came after the Civil War. The planters lost their slaves, and were looking for other sources of cheap labor to pick cotton. The Chinese didn’t like the work, but they liked the climate. Therefore many of them left the jobs after a short time but stayed in the area. The Chinese saw a need for grocery stores that would serve newly freed African Americans, who were not welcome in white establishments. As Captain Pete Tam, uncle of the accused explained to Lydia and Bill:

“So all over the Delta, Chinese opened groceries in black towns, or in black neighborhoods in mixed towns.”

After the stores got established, the owners brought over their families from China. Because of the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, most Chinese weren’t welcome. If, however, you were in the immediate family of a Chinese person who was an American citizen, you were allowed into the country: “Thus was created the paper son.” Young men in China paid U.S. citizens to sponsor them as “sons.” Lydia found out that her great-grandfather’s brother was one of them, and her family in the Mississippi Delta were descendants of that paper son.

Meanwhile, Lydia and Bill’s investigation is much more complicated than they anticipated. First of all, the accused, her cousin Jefferson, escaped from jail. Lydia and Bill think this makes Jefferson look guilty, but no one else does. There does not seem to be a lot of faith that innocence will necessarily help you in the Mississippi justice system, which is - in real life - notoriously unjust.

Moreover, no one who knows Jefferson believes he would have killed his father. In any event, there are plenty of theories for what might have happened to Leland. Did it have to do with his status as being the family of a “paper son”? Did racism play a role? Jefferson had been seen in Burcell, a nearby town dedicated to meth production; was the local drug cartel involved? What about all the information relating to sports fantasy team gambling found on Jefferson’s computer? Then there is the Tam cousin in the Delta who was running for political office - might politics be involved because of a desire to hide the Tams illegitimate origins?

Lydia and Bill methodically and intrepidly plod through the possibilities, showing once again why they operated as a team. As Lydia said to herself later:

“This was how we worked, not reading each other’s minds but trusting each other’s instincts, having each other’s backs, whatever happened. This, I suddenly realized, was something my mother knew full well, though she’s never admitted it. This was why she’d sent him with me.”

Evaluation: This is an entertaining story with unique complications and a fair bit of humor as Lydia confronts her own preconceptions about the South. The relationship between Lydia and Bill is an interesting one. Followers of the series will not be disappointed, nor will readers who like to learn a bit of history and sociology as part of the mysteries they read. ( )

The lead character in this novel is an American-born Chinese private detective from New York City investigating a problem for family in the Mississippi Delta. The story line is a little thin, but you've probably never read a story with this setting and characters. The Chinese-American history is interesting and the writing is good. The author defaults to typical southern stereotypes, but, while exaggerated are not false. ( )