Jaded, morally challenged adults can make formidable adversaries, but then so can run-of-the-mill teenagers. The pool of potential baddies is doubly deep in S.J. Rozan's The Mayors of New York, another brisk, droll, and diverting title in the Lydia Chin/Bill Smith mystery series.
Private investigator Bill Smith narrates Rozan's follow-up to Family Business: he's been approached by Bree Hamilton, top aide to the mayor of New York, who also happens to be Bill's ex-girlfriend. (She figures she can trust him.) Bree wants Bill to find Mark McCann, the mayor's missing 15-year-old son. Bree is certain that Mark wasn't kidnapped: not only does he have a history of running away, but it's clear that he disarmed and reactivated the family's alarm system before he left home two nights earlier. The mayor can't go to the police, of course, because then, says Bree, "her political capital takes a hit because she looks like a bad mother."
Lydia Chin, Bill's partner in both senses, also works the case, which becomes more complicated when Lydia realizes that a suspicious suicide she was asked to look into concerns one of Mark's friends. Inevitably, The Mayors of New York has its share of Gotham-style politics and, as ever, the series offers a sightseeing tour of the Big Apple. This time around, Bill touches down in four out of five boroughs, but the most New-Yorky scene has got to be--in a dazzling display of local color--a brawl featuring Superman, Elmo, and other costumed characters of Times Square. --Nell Beram, author and freelance writer