From Publishers Weekly

With this story of a tragic romance, as told by a father to his comatose teenage daughter, Italian actress and novelist Mazzantini plays with the choices people make as they construct narratives, especially what they remember and tell in times of crisis. The decision to frame the narrative as a father's confession makes for an odd conceit, considering the lurid details the protagonist shares about his sex life with both his wife and lover. Timoteo is a successful surgeon with a distant relationship with his beautiful wife and a sexually obsessive relationship with his mistress, Italia. He is selfish and capricious (he meets with Italia just hours after his daughter Angela's birth), but he also exhibits flashes of lucidity that make him an engaging if maddening narrator. "You've learned more about me from my absences, my books, my raincoat in the hall, than you have from my flesh-and-blood self," he tells his unconscious daughter, Angela. Mazzantini keeps the plot moving, shifting quickly between Timoteo's memories and his agonizing wait during Angela's surgery. Too often, though, her prose is overwrought and clumsy: Timoteo relates that his lover's tears "burned [him] like lava," and describes himself waiting in the hospital after Angela's birth like "a moth that's been trapped in a room too long... its wings as heavy as cork." Timoteo's honesty offsets the turgid writing in this enjoyable if somewhat awkward novel, as he traces the trajectory of the sordid relationship that still haunts him, from the "viscid pleasure" in its illicit sex to its predictable aftermath.
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Review

"Beautiful. . . . The splintered, humanizing observations that constantly animate this novel . . . are exhilarating" --The New York Times Book Review"Gripping. . . . It unfolds with the whispered, urgent secrecy of the confessional. The writing is terse, taut and very graphic--like a succession of crystal-clear stills from a dramatic film." --The Daily Telegraph"Irresistible. Reading Don't Move is like opening the hospital room door to find a tiger pacing in the corridor: there's no looking away, no turning back; nothing is more important than what happens next." --Valerie Martin, author of Property

Amazon.com Review

S.J. Rozan's reputation grows with every new installment in her lively series starring the redoubtable Lydia Chin, a twentysomething New York PI and her partner Bill Smith. Here Lydia's venerable family friend Grandfather Gao dispatches the twosome to Hong Kong to deliver a jade amulet to the grandson of Wei Yao-Shi, whose American family knew nothing of the son and heir he left in Asia. A simple assignment quickly turns into a kidnapping, as Chin and Smith make their way through the complex world of triad politics, Asian intrigue, and the smuggling of Chinese antiquities. Along the way, Rozan treats us to an insider's view of Hong Kong; if someone you know is headed in that direction, this would be a great guidebook as well as a diverting plane read.

The relationship between the two protagonists has a nice subtext; there's sufficient sexual tension to spice up the narrative, but not enough to slow down the action. Rozan excels at pacing, and her characters are complex enough to linger in the reader's mind after the last page is turned. This is a standout performance from a writer who ought to break out in the bestseller ranks with this eighth in a series that keeps getting better. --Jane Adams

From Publishers Weekly

The seventh Bill Smith/Lydia Chin novel proves that Rozan's Shamus (for Concourse) and Anthony (for No Colder Place) awards were no fluke. This is a beautifully written book with a sophisticated plot, rich in both action and atmosphere. After 1999's Stone Quarry, told from Smith's point of view, this outing belongs to Chin. At 28, Lydia is a product of New York's Chinatown, where Grandfather Gao, a community elder, has watched over her family all her life. So it's a great honor when he asks her to travel--with professional partner Smith--to Hong Kong to deliver three precious items: the ashes of an old friend for burial, a note from that friend to his brother and a valuable jade to the friend's seven-year-old grandson. The job seems too easy to require two licensed PI's, but there are complications: the friend had two wives and two sons--one family in Hong Kong, one in the U.S. Neither son knew about the other until the will was read. Chin and Smith arrive at the Hong Kong son's apartment to find it ransacked and the grandson kidnapped. Lydia and Bill are both suspects and searchers, in a chase that pits them against a criminal triad and subjects them to the torrid heat and rushing crowds of Hong Kong. Rozan is an architect, and the structure of this book sets a high standard. Every twist of the plot rises from a foundation of truthful emotions and motives solidly rooted in the characters' cultures. Every bit of humor and evocative description serves the action; there's not a smidgen of clunky exposition as the Chin-Smith relationship continues to grow and fascinate. Agent, Steve Axelrod. (Feb. 6)Forecast: With an author tour and major promotion from the publisher, plus enthusiastic blurbs from some big mystery stars--Dennis Lehane, George Pelecanos and Michael Connelly--this could well be Rozan's break-out book.

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