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Inspector Zhang #8
Inspector Zhang and the Island of the Dead: a short story
Inspector Zhang is called in to investigate a murder where a doctor is knifed in a locked room. But nothing is as it first appears.
The story is about 10,000 words, about thirty pages, perfect if you have half an hour to spare.
Stephen Leather is one of the UK's most successful thriller writers, an ebook and Sunday Times bestseller and author of the critically acclaimed Dan “Spider’ Shepherd series and the Jack Nightingale supernatural detective novels. Before becoming a novelist he was a journalist for more than ten years on newspapers such as The Times, the Daily Mirror, the Glasgow Herald, the Daily Mail and the South China Morning Post in Hong Kong. He is one of the country’s most successful ebook authors and his ebooks have topped the Amazon Kindle charts in the UK and the US. In 2011 alone he sold more than 500,000 eBooks and was voted by The Bookseller magazine as one of the 100 most influential people in the UK publishing world. Born in Manchester, he began writing full time in 1992. His bestsellers have been translated into fifteen languages. He has also written for television shows such as London's Burning, The Knock and the BBC's Murder in Mind series and two of his books, The Stretch and The Bombmaker, were filmed for TV.
The story is about 10,000 words, about thirty pages, perfect if you have half an hour to spare.
Stephen Leather is one of the UK's most successful thriller writers, an ebook and Sunday Times bestseller and author of the critically acclaimed Dan “Spider’ Shepherd series and the Jack Nightingale supernatural detective novels. Before becoming a novelist he was a journalist for more than ten years on newspapers such as The Times, the Daily Mirror, the Glasgow Herald, the Daily Mail and the South China Morning Post in Hong Kong. He is one of the country’s most successful ebook authors and his ebooks have topped the Amazon Kindle charts in the UK and the US. In 2011 alone he sold more than 500,000 eBooks and was voted by The Bookseller magazine as one of the 100 most influential people in the UK publishing world. Born in Manchester, he began writing full time in 1992. His bestsellers have been translated into fifteen languages. He has also written for television shows such as London's Burning, The Knock and the BBC's Murder in Mind series and two of his books, The Stretch and The Bombmaker, were filmed for TV.
33 pages, Kindle Edition
First published November 26, 2013
2 people are currently reading
47 people want to read
About the author
Stephen Leather
236 books1,522 followersStephen Leather was a journalist for more than ten years on newspapers such as The Times, the Daily Mail and the South China Morning Post in Hong Kong. His bestsellers have been translated into more than ten languages. He has also written for television shows such as London's Burning, The Knock and the BBC's Murder in Mind series. For much of 2011 his self-published eBooks - including The Bestseller, The Basement, Once Bitten and Dreamer's Cat - dominated the UK eBook bestseller lists and sold more than half a million copies. The Basement topped the Kindle charts in the UK and the US, and in total he has sold more than two million eBooks. His bestselling book The Chinaman was filmed as The Foreigner, starring Jackie Chan and Pierce Brosnan and grossing more than $100 million.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
March 3, 2020
Another locked room mystery as each of these Inspector Zhang short stories have been. There is no mention here of his passion for historical literary detectives. This appears a simple murder investigation he solves methodically and with his usual flair.
This DS remains in awe of him and his approach to a murder case.
A rich area of Singapore has been beset by a series of break-ins. However, for some reason the thief went too far and panicked in the act and stabbed the owner of the house. Inspector Zhang feels this explanation does not fit the evidence. While no attempt is made to conceal the murderer the beauty of this crime is in the detail.
This turns an average who done it into a clever how was it done mystery. And a 2 star review into a 3 star one.
This is the eighth title in this series; perhaps the author was running out of ideas or just losing interest. It is my least favourite outing of these characters. They may have run their course but a little something remains like an itch saying if you write another one I’ll scratch it for fun and read it with pleasure.
This DS remains in awe of him and his approach to a murder case.
A rich area of Singapore has been beset by a series of break-ins. However, for some reason the thief went too far and panicked in the act and stabbed the owner of the house. Inspector Zhang feels this explanation does not fit the evidence. While no attempt is made to conceal the murderer the beauty of this crime is in the detail.
This turns an average who done it into a clever how was it done mystery. And a 2 star review into a 3 star one.
This is the eighth title in this series; perhaps the author was running out of ideas or just losing interest. It is my least favourite outing of these characters. They may have run their course but a little something remains like an itch saying if you write another one I’ll scratch it for fun and read it with pleasure.
March 15, 2018
Another locked room murder for Inspector Zhang, this time in an upmarket residential area on Sentosa
March 22, 2015
Your actual dead body in a library mystery: with a wealthy man murdered behind a locked door while three women occupy themselves in other parts of the house.
If you’re reading this story then you probably have an appreciation of how the locked room mystery works, and if you have that appreciation then you’re probably going to guess the who and how of the murder quite quickly. Still Inspector Zhang remains charming, even if this isn’t the daunting and tricky puzzle-box it should be.
If you’re reading this story then you probably have an appreciation of how the locked room mystery works, and if you have that appreciation then you’re probably going to guess the who and how of the murder quite quickly. Still Inspector Zhang remains charming, even if this isn’t the daunting and tricky puzzle-box it should be.
October 11, 2021
Inspector Zhang is one of those characters some people will get & love but others may find to be pretty meh, thankfully for me I have found this to be a character I really enjoy reading about and I hope Stephen Leather brings many more entries to this series.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews