ABOUT THIS BOOK

A double murder confounds everyone in this mystery--but not the beloved detective Judge Dee, whom the Los Angeles Times ranked with Sherlock Holmes

Judge Dee, the master detective of seventh-century China, sets out to solve a puzzling double murder and discovers complex passions lurking beneath the placid surface of academic life. A mild-mannered student is rumored to have been slain by a fox-demon, while a young dancer meets her death as she dresses to perform for the magistrate's illustrious dinner guests—an obese Zen monk revered for his calligraphy, a beautiful poetess accused of murder, and the past president of the imperial academy. To connect the present crimes with betrayals and adulteries from decades past, the clever judge must visit a high-class brothel and the haunted shrine of the Black Fox. From the moment the young scholar is found dead on the eve of the Autumn Festival, the pace never lets up.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Robert van Gulik (1910-67), a Dutch diplomat and an authority on Chinese history and culture, drew his plots and literary conventions from the popular detective novels that appeared in seventeenth-century China.

REVIEWS

“If you have not yet discovered Judge Dee and his faithful Sgt. Hoong, I envy you that initial pleasure which comes from the discovery of a great detective story. For the magistrate of Poo-yang belongs in that select group of fictional detectives headed by the renowned Sherlock Holmes.”

— Robert Kirsch, Los Angeles Times

“The China of old, in Mr. van Gulik’s skilled hands, comes vividly alive again.”

— Allen. J. Hubin, New York Times Book Review

“Entertaining, instructive and oddly impressive. Judge Dee, the officers of his tribunal and the people with whom he and they are concerned are interesting folk, and the world of crime, mystery, violence, lust, corruption and ceremony in which they move is formidably picturesque.”

— Times Literary Supplement

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Illustrations
Counsellor Kao visits the sexton
A merchant welcomes two magistrates
Judge Dee visits the Academician
A flute-player quarrels with a dancer
Judge Dee in the Shrine of the Black Fox
The banquet in the residence
Judge Dee consults the archive
The poetess inscribes a pillar

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