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Inspector Shan #6
The Lord of Death
Shan Tao Yun is an exiled Chinese national and a former Beijing investigator on parole from the Tibetan gulag to which he had been consigned as punishment. He is ferrying a corpse on muleback over the slopes of Chomolungma (”Everest”) at the request of a local wisewoman who says the gods have appointed this task to him, when he encounters what looks like a traffic accident. A government bus filled with imprisoned illegal monks has overturned. Then Shan hears gunfire. Two women in an approaching sedan have been killed. One is the Chinese minister of tourism; the other, a blond Westerner, organizes climbing expeditions. Though she dies in his arms, Shan is later met with denials that this foreigner is dead.
Shan must find the murderer, for his recompense will be the life and sanity of his son, Ko, imprisoned in a Chinese “yeti factory” where men are routinely driven mad.
Shan must find the murderer, for his recompense will be the life and sanity of his son, Ko, imprisoned in a Chinese “yeti factory” where men are routinely driven mad.
314 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2009
49 people are currently reading
388 people want to read
About the author
Eliot Pattison
35 books352 followersEdgar Award winning Eliot Pattison has been described as a "writer of faraway mysteries," a label which is particularly apt for someone whose travel and interests span a million miles of global trekking, visiting every continent but Antarctica.
An international lawyer by training, Pattison first combined his deep concerns for the people of Tibet with his interest in fiction writing in The Skull Mantra, which launched the popular Inspector Shan series.
The series has been translated into over twenty languages around the world. Both The Skull Mantra and Water Touching Stone were selected by Amazon.com for its annual list of ten best new mysteries. Water Touching Stone was selected by Booksense as the number one mystery of all time for readers' groups. The newest installment, Soul of Fire, was included in Publisher's Weekly's list of "Best Book of 2014".
Pattison's fascination with the 18th century American wilderness and its woodland Indians led to the launch of his second critically acclaimed Bone Rattler series.
His dystopian novel, Ashes of The Earth, marks the first installment in his third book series, set in post-apocalyptic America.
A former resident of Boston and Washington, Pattison resides on an 18th century farm in Pennsylvania with his wife, three children, and an ever-expanding menagerie of animals.
An international lawyer by training, Pattison first combined his deep concerns for the people of Tibet with his interest in fiction writing in The Skull Mantra, which launched the popular Inspector Shan series.
The series has been translated into over twenty languages around the world. Both The Skull Mantra and Water Touching Stone were selected by Amazon.com for its annual list of ten best new mysteries. Water Touching Stone was selected by Booksense as the number one mystery of all time for readers' groups. The newest installment, Soul of Fire, was included in Publisher's Weekly's list of "Best Book of 2014".
Pattison's fascination with the 18th century American wilderness and its woodland Indians led to the launch of his second critically acclaimed Bone Rattler series.
His dystopian novel, Ashes of The Earth, marks the first installment in his third book series, set in post-apocalyptic America.
A former resident of Boston and Washington, Pattison resides on an 18th century farm in Pennsylvania with his wife, three children, and an ever-expanding menagerie of animals.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 68 reviews
June 17, 2009
Eliot Pattison really hit his stride in this latest entry in his Inspector Shan series. Some of his previous books have gotten a little overly political, bogging down the story. Not so this time around. Don't get me wrong - the relationship between the Chinese regime and the Tibetan citizens is still a vital part of the novel, but it's so tightly interwoven that it doesn't overwhelm the plot. The book has everything I look for in a mystery - great characterization, solid investigation, a complex plot, and a conclusion where all the pieces fit together. On top of that, it educates, allowing readers to learn just a little more about Tibet and its people. This is a great book, and one I'll definitely be recommending to my friends.
January 10, 2010
Eliot Pattison writes mysteries set in modern Tibet. His protagonist is a Han Chinese sentenced to imprisonment in Tibet after he investigated corruption in the highest levels of government instead of pretending the blindness that was expected of him. He sympathizes greatly with the Tibetan people whose culture has been almost but obliterated by the Chinese.
These books are dense with information and emotion. Its impossible not to feel some of the enormous loss that Tibet has suffered. All the characters are engaging even the most corrupt official. The spiritualism of the Tibetan monks is so appealing and frustrating at the same time as they endure the loss of their culture as part of a greater pattern rather than resist it. Yet this same endurance allows them to disconnect from the physical brutality of their captors.
These books are dense with information and emotion. Its impossible not to feel some of the enormous loss that Tibet has suffered. All the characters are engaging even the most corrupt official. The spiritualism of the Tibetan monks is so appealing and frustrating at the same time as they endure the loss of their culture as part of a greater pattern rather than resist it. Yet this same endurance allows them to disconnect from the physical brutality of their captors.
July 30, 2012
Excellent, engaging mystery set in contemporary Tibet which is 6th in the series about a former Chinese police inspector, Shan, and his volunteer work on cases that pit him against the oppressive Chinese regime.
In this one (my first read in the series), Shan is serving the Buddhist community by transporting the bodies of sherpas who have died on climbing expeditions in the Himalayas while he struggles to gain some leverage that can save his son, who is being tortured in a local prison/mental hospital as a subversive. He comes across the aftermath of two disasters, one a violent liberation of Buddhist monks being bused to jail and another the highway murder of the Chinese Minister of Tourism and an unknown Western female passenger. His capture at the scene of the latter, up the mountain road from the first, puts him on a long dangerous path of placating the Chinese authorities by solving the crimes while continuing to protect the Buddhist community from escalation of their oppression.
In his portrayal of Shan's efforts, Pattison does much to elucidate the relationship of the international climbing community, the Chinese and local business interests in the revenue generated from tourism, and the spiritual motivations of regional residents to assure that the gods of the mountains are respected and that traditional values protected from the cultural decimation by both the Chinese and Western invasion. The plot felt overly complex, yet the narrative was satisfying in character development, its progressive unfolding of mysteries, and its surprise ending.
In this one (my first read in the series), Shan is serving the Buddhist community by transporting the bodies of sherpas who have died on climbing expeditions in the Himalayas while he struggles to gain some leverage that can save his son, who is being tortured in a local prison/mental hospital as a subversive. He comes across the aftermath of two disasters, one a violent liberation of Buddhist monks being bused to jail and another the highway murder of the Chinese Minister of Tourism and an unknown Western female passenger. His capture at the scene of the latter, up the mountain road from the first, puts him on a long dangerous path of placating the Chinese authorities by solving the crimes while continuing to protect the Buddhist community from escalation of their oppression.
In his portrayal of Shan's efforts, Pattison does much to elucidate the relationship of the international climbing community, the Chinese and local business interests in the revenue generated from tourism, and the spiritual motivations of regional residents to assure that the gods of the mountains are respected and that traditional values protected from the cultural decimation by both the Chinese and Western invasion. The plot felt overly complex, yet the narrative was satisfying in character development, its progressive unfolding of mysteries, and its surprise ending.
April 12, 2010
I thought the Shan mystery series was getting a little formuliac before this book. I was getting a little overwhelmed by convenient hidden temples, hidden tibetan treasures, and underground passages in the middle of nowhere and fugitive tibetan buddhist monks saving things at the last minute in overly convenient (and overly frequent) ways. This mystery takes place on the slopes of Mt. Everest on the Chinese side and the mountain plays a big role in the mystery. It hangs together well and the characters seem more believable and a bit less one-dimensional than some of the past novels. There are fugitive Tibetan monks but they are not the focus of the story and there's only one (and 1/2) hidden temples/passages. As is true of the best of Pattison's Shan series, I learned something new about Tibetan history too by reading this book.
July 27, 2020
Another solid outing for Pattison and Inspector Shan. I can't ever recall coming across another author with so high a cultural IQ. I'd love to know how it is that he is so well-versed in Tibetan culture.
I will say that I think it's time for Pattison to do a little more with this character. I don't think Shan can spend all his time as the knight-errant of Tibet; he needs a story arc and growth (beyond the 'merely' spiritual).
I will say that I think it's time for Pattison to do a little more with this character. I don't think Shan can spend all his time as the knight-errant of Tibet; he needs a story arc and growth (beyond the 'merely' spiritual).
September 29, 2024
The setting is 80% of the reason to read this series, and this volume is set at the base of Chomolungma, or Mount Everest, on the Chinese side. Shan has been living freer than in previous volumes, and when Sherpas die while helping the climbers, he has the side job of bringing their bodies down for proper disposal.
While he is doing that, one day, he walks right into the middle of a disaster. There's been a bus crash, arrested monks have escaped, police and military are all over the mountain, and he stumbles into a murder scene, a westerner dying in his arms.
Pattison's method is not to "play fair" by giving you all the clues and letting you try to figure it out. Instead, he overwhelms the reader with inexplicable complications, and then observes Shan use what he has figured out to try to reveal the truth while protecting those he can. Shan will see something, that something will trigger understanding, but the reader doesn't get to see the something for themselves until later.
I'll admit that this method is not my favorite. Especially having grown used to it in this series, I read the facts in disengaged fashion, knowing that the key bits are being withheld. It's the danger that the reader gets to see, and the repeated bravery of folks who realize they have nothing to lose.
Shan does have something to lose in this case. He has discovered that his son has been imprisoned in an experimental hospital, and he hopes to get him out.
There's an interesting bit of history from the post-WWII era at the center of this tale, and that is unexpected and intriguing.
Pattison's sharply down on his use of the word "grimace" in this volume, with only three; and he missuses "careen" at least once, but probably twice, if I remember correctly. And once again the Inspector Shan Dilemma raises its head: he has characters crossing a high pass, with no oxygen, suffering extremely, and we are told they are really past their capacity, on the verge of death -- and then they turn around and retrace their route with no further mention of difficulty.
Pattison keeps forgetting his own premise, is the problem.
Excellent setting, excellent writing for the most part, problematical storytelling. Hmmm.
While he is doing that, one day, he walks right into the middle of a disaster. There's been a bus crash, arrested monks have escaped, police and military are all over the mountain, and he stumbles into a murder scene, a westerner dying in his arms.
Pattison's method is not to "play fair" by giving you all the clues and letting you try to figure it out. Instead, he overwhelms the reader with inexplicable complications, and then observes Shan use what he has figured out to try to reveal the truth while protecting those he can. Shan will see something, that something will trigger understanding, but the reader doesn't get to see the something for themselves until later.
I'll admit that this method is not my favorite. Especially having grown used to it in this series, I read the facts in disengaged fashion, knowing that the key bits are being withheld. It's the danger that the reader gets to see, and the repeated bravery of folks who realize they have nothing to lose.
Shan does have something to lose in this case. He has discovered that his son has been imprisoned in an experimental hospital, and he hopes to get him out.
There's an interesting bit of history from the post-WWII era at the center of this tale, and that is unexpected and intriguing.
Pattison's sharply down on his use of the word "grimace" in this volume, with only three; and he missuses "careen" at least once, but probably twice, if I remember correctly. And once again the Inspector Shan Dilemma raises its head: he has characters crossing a high pass, with no oxygen, suffering extremely, and we are told they are really past their capacity, on the verge of death -- and then they turn around and retrace their route with no further mention of difficulty.
Pattison keeps forgetting his own premise, is the problem.
Excellent setting, excellent writing for the most part, problematical storytelling. Hmmm.
July 28, 2021
I'm still slowly making my way through the Shan novels, again, before I let myself read the final one. This one is intricate, and our favorite monks Lokesh and Gendun aren't in this one - it's all Shan, here, and seeing how he does on his own in Tibet without his friends to vouch for him. I love these novels for their plots and for their portrayal of life in Tibet and China. This time around I perceive the religious observances of the Tibetans as more age-old superstition, rather than the magic truth, but Pattison has certainly created a desire in me to learn more about Tibetan Buddhism. I can see how these books can be confusing, though, because names are often similar and it can be difficult to keep track of who is who, and where they are...but I love having a story that isn't too easy to read. It's very rewarding.
August 16, 2018
Many years ago I read the first in the Inspector Shan series, The Skull Mantra, and liked it so much that I kept the book. These many years later I happened upon book 6 in my public library and was entranced again.
The Inspector is Chinese and has been banished to Tibet due to having pissed off some higher-ups. He has learned Tibetan and the tenets of Buddhism, and is now working for a Tibetan company that provides materials and support for those climbing Mt. Everest. Of course there are murders and the Inspector must solved the mysteries, because his son's life depends on it.
The Inspector Shan series is steeped in local lore, mysticism and culture, and has a number of twists and turns. I highly recommend it!
The Inspector is Chinese and has been banished to Tibet due to having pissed off some higher-ups. He has learned Tibetan and the tenets of Buddhism, and is now working for a Tibetan company that provides materials and support for those climbing Mt. Everest. Of course there are murders and the Inspector must solved the mysteries, because his son's life depends on it.
The Inspector Shan series is steeped in local lore, mysticism and culture, and has a number of twists and turns. I highly recommend it!
March 12, 2019
In this new adventure, Inspector Shan (former Beijing police investigator, but now undocumented gulag survivor in Tibet) must discover who murdered Wu, the Chinese Minister of Tourism, and Megan Ross, an American mountaineer who died in Shan’s arms on the lower slopes of Chomolungma (Mt Everest), but whom no one believes is dead, and prove that the hated Colonel Tan is innocent of these murders. Why? Because Tan, who is in charge of Ladrung prison, is the only person who can help Shan rescue his son Ko, who is being held in a “special medical unit”. And time is running out: Ko is scheduled to undergo experimental brain surgery within 48 hours to “eliminate antisocial tendencies”. Add to this mix a dead Nepalese sherpa, a reincarnated mule, a busload of escaped monks, a fortuneteller, a drunken former monk, two bounty-seeking thugs, and an expert American mountaineer intent on discovering the truth about his father, and you have the ingredients for an elaborate thriller that is, like all Pattison’s books, impressively researched, both politically and historically.
February 16, 2023
This book was exhausting. Lots and lots of names, instant changes from one place to another, leaving reader wondering what he just read and how it relates to the happenings in the book. Though with some effort I finished it because I have been to Tibet and was interested in how the author writes about the people, their way of life, their religion. Though the story happens when China took control of Tibet, meaning past history, it was interesting to read about the development of the country after the departure of Dalai Lama. As for reading the series, not very sure, I have to rest a while even trying to open a new book by this author. I recommend it for the interested but advise that, in my opinion, a good portion of patience is necessary.
February 16, 2020
Hard to find the earlier books in the series although I have read at least one other, maybe more not recorded. This one was published in 2009, the year after the Beijing Olympics, so written within the political landscape of that time, although perhaps little has changed since then. Observations about the challenges & effects of the global "trade" in Mt Everest tourism, as well as the historical and current political/religious & economic situations, may be challenging to some readers. It was interesting to find out about an American CIA initiative in the 50's & 60's to train Tibetan "resistance fighters" in the Rockies, & how that was interwoven into the plot.
September 30, 2021
I have really missed reading the Inspector Shan stories. I first picked up a copy of the first novel at a school book fair here in Beijing and was not only engrossed in his fabulous storytelling and writing, but impressed with his knowledge of Chinese culture and Tibet. I finally broke down and got a Kindle and am now able to get books that I just couldn't get the physical copies of here in China. This book was compelling reading and beautifully crafted.
August 12, 2017
Amazing series of mystery in Tibet that holds true to the horrific situation the Tibetans endure at the hands of the Chinese government. Tibet is like no place on earth and the author captures its essence brilliantly. The entire series should be read in order to enjoy an excellent mystery and also to honor those Tibetans who strive to endure.
May 31, 2017
Again the reader is taken to the faraway land and placed there as if watching the story unfold right before their eyes!
October 17, 2018
Eliot Pattison continues to add to his series about Inspector Shan and Tibet and what the China are doing to destroy a country. Exciting, tragic, page-turning.
October 28, 2018
My kind of mystery. Read on the train on my phone. Exotic locale , interesting hero, political values implicit.
September 10, 2019
it was good, very interesting, aside from the murder mystery was the big story about what happened and is happening in Tibet....
March 29, 2020
I read these less about the mystery and more about Tibet and it's oppressor China. This one includes the history of America's military assisting Tibet's rebels up until 1971.
April 20, 2022
I'm enjoying these mysteries but the plots are a bit confusing. There is nothing confusing about the author's reverence for the Tibetan monks who are essential to the story.
July 21, 2022
Very interesting setting and characters. I should have started at the beginning and some things would make more sense, as i missed some of the back story
August 9, 2023
Every few months I pick up another in this series and absorb the story woven through the reality .
January 10, 2024
very good
Well worth reading. Very difficult to put down. Another mystery that touches on US involvement in Tibet in the late 1940s and early 1950s. I highly recommend.
Well worth reading. Very difficult to put down. Another mystery that touches on US involvement in Tibet in the late 1940s and early 1950s. I highly recommend.
September 20, 2024
2.5 🌟
good book but I wasn't really invested
good book but I wasn't really invested
March 2, 2017
I love this series. The character of Tan Yao Shun is so well-developed and full of depth that his journey becomes your own, his ever-growing wisdom and compassion becoming much like a philosophical discussion with a Tibetan lama. It is not light reading and can often be heartbreaking, but it's also memorable and will become a part of you.
February 3, 2014
I attended a lecture on Chod meditation from the Bon Tibetan tradition (very interesting). When I came home I had the urge to read another of Eliot Pattison's books, all set in Tibet. I usually stay behind at least one book because I enjoy the series so much. In THE LORD OF DEATH, Shan (an exiled Chinese national and former Beijing Investigator) has been requested by a local wisewoman to lead a mule bearing a corpse over the slopes of Chomolungma (Everest). She tells him the gods have assigned him this task. He comes upon a traffic accident. A government bus has overturned and monks who were being transported to prison are escaping. But that's not all that's happening. Shan hears gunfire. Two women have been shot and killed. One is the Chinese Minister of Tourism and the other is a blond Westerner, an organizer of climbing expeditions.
As always these books are a fascinating look at Tibet. In THE LORD OF DEATH, Pattison we read about the American connection to the Tibetan resistance -- Tibetan trainees at Camp Hale in the Colorado Rockies. The Everest region was one of several areas of operation and Pattison weaves the past with the present. Then there is just the drama of the amazing Everest region -- a story all its own. Then add the Tibetan people, the Buddhist monks -- and it's a story worth reading.
As always these books are a fascinating look at Tibet. In THE LORD OF DEATH, Pattison we read about the American connection to the Tibetan resistance -- Tibetan trainees at Camp Hale in the Colorado Rockies. The Everest region was one of several areas of operation and Pattison weaves the past with the present. Then there is just the drama of the amazing Everest region -- a story all its own. Then add the Tibetan people, the Buddhist monks -- and it's a story worth reading.
October 18, 2014
Pattison's Inspector Shan series is one of my favorites, and I can come back to one after an extended absence and still fall right into the grooves and furrows of Pattison's writing.
Learning Buddhist teachings from fellow gulag inmates - incarcerated monks, guilty of not being Communist - Inspector Shan has learned to hone his detective skillset with meditation, and it is his immersion onto Buddhism that is most often able to help him see how the pieces of the crime puzzle fit together.
Always a great read, Pattison's Inspector Shan has mystery and mysticism, politics and torture, and Shan's particular wit and cagey cat-and-mouse political word play with the bureaucrats he is forced to deal with just to stay alive.
The biggest horror of this series, is that it is built upon actual events unfolding on the other side of the world, even now. The story of a man who found himself on the wrong side in a political reform, outcast to the hinterlands, and who now, despite being an outsider - and looking, physically, a great deal like the Big Bully - uses his skills as detective, and his willingness to be open to all possibilities, to defend the people and the culture of his exile.
Learning Buddhist teachings from fellow gulag inmates - incarcerated monks, guilty of not being Communist - Inspector Shan has learned to hone his detective skillset with meditation, and it is his immersion onto Buddhism that is most often able to help him see how the pieces of the crime puzzle fit together.
Always a great read, Pattison's Inspector Shan has mystery and mysticism, politics and torture, and Shan's particular wit and cagey cat-and-mouse political word play with the bureaucrats he is forced to deal with just to stay alive.
The biggest horror of this series, is that it is built upon actual events unfolding on the other side of the world, even now. The story of a man who found himself on the wrong side in a political reform, outcast to the hinterlands, and who now, despite being an outsider - and looking, physically, a great deal like the Big Bully - uses his skills as detective, and his willingness to be open to all possibilities, to defend the people and the culture of his exile.
November 17, 2013
I DON'T HIDE OR PROMOTE MY REVIEWS.
This may be my favorite Inspector Shan book to date.
Like most of Pattison's Shan stories, this one includes subtle resolutions. Bad guys often partially get off; innocent people frequently get metaphorically skewered. But Shan always surmounts his obstacles -- and emerges humble and practical as ever.
I savor Pattison's descriptions of the stark mountain environment of Tibet. But this volume is short on that, compared to some of the other Shan stories.
In fact, a fair amount of attention goes to explaining how the high-altitude trek business to allow Westerners to ascend Mount Everest is despoiling Mother Nature, shifting the economy and culture among the formerly remote sherpa villages.
What particularly drew me in this time is that Shan is struggling not only to solve a murder or two, he is also trying to save his estranged son's life.
Because I check books out of the library, I can't always read a series in sequence. Last I'd read, Shan's son was doing wall back in mainstream China. Obviously a lot has changed since my last read. Just gotta hunt down those interim volumes!!
This may be my favorite Inspector Shan book to date.
Like most of Pattison's Shan stories, this one includes subtle resolutions. Bad guys often partially get off; innocent people frequently get metaphorically skewered. But Shan always surmounts his obstacles -- and emerges humble and practical as ever.
I savor Pattison's descriptions of the stark mountain environment of Tibet. But this volume is short on that, compared to some of the other Shan stories.
In fact, a fair amount of attention goes to explaining how the high-altitude trek business to allow Westerners to ascend Mount Everest is despoiling Mother Nature, shifting the economy and culture among the formerly remote sherpa villages.
What particularly drew me in this time is that Shan is struggling not only to solve a murder or two, he is also trying to save his estranged son's life.
Because I check books out of the library, I can't always read a series in sequence. Last I'd read, Shan's son was doing wall back in mainstream China. Obviously a lot has changed since my last read. Just gotta hunt down those interim volumes!!
April 7, 2011
I didn't like this one quite as much as the other books in this series, but it was still excellent.
In order to save his son, Shan has to find out the truth behind the murder of two women. I don't know if it was the lack of Lokesh and Gendun or the fact that this book was the shortest of the lot, but this book was much more focused on the crime plot than the others were. It was an interesting case, but I admit I am always a lot more interested in everything else - the people Shan meets and how they are living. So there wasn't enough of that for my liking, but there were quite a few very powerful moments that moved me deeply.
Interestingly enough I was thinking that there was something different about this book, and about halfway through I checked if it was the same translator, and it turned out it wasn't. The new one wasn't bad, either, but the difference was noticeable anyway. I'm planning to reread them in English, so I'm curious about how that will feel like.
In order to save his son, Shan has to find out the truth behind the murder of two women. I don't know if it was the lack of Lokesh and Gendun or the fact that this book was the shortest of the lot, but this book was much more focused on the crime plot than the others were. It was an interesting case, but I admit I am always a lot more interested in everything else - the people Shan meets and how they are living. So there wasn't enough of that for my liking, but there were quite a few very powerful moments that moved me deeply.
Interestingly enough I was thinking that there was something different about this book, and about halfway through I checked if it was the same translator, and it turned out it wasn't. The new one wasn't bad, either, but the difference was noticeable anyway. I'm planning to reread them in English, so I'm curious about how that will feel like.
March 31, 2015
I like the way that Pattison manages to interweave the plot and the characters of his novel with the history
and, especially, the landscape of Tibet without diverging too sharply into the didactic. The novel's main weakness is that a number of the characters are hard to distinguish one from another; Pattison does not do enough to separate their personalities, and it doesn't help that his main character persists in threatening one person after another in the same way: Beijing will realize how you've made a mess of things and you'll lose
everything that separates us. As an American with an interest in both China and Tibet, I think that Pattison's
decision to make his main character a Chinese person sympathetic to Tibetans and forced to live in Tibet in a manner not much elevated above the Tibetans yields some really interesting perspectives, though I am sure that both Tibetans and Chinese might construct things differently.
and, especially, the landscape of Tibet without diverging too sharply into the didactic. The novel's main weakness is that a number of the characters are hard to distinguish one from another; Pattison does not do enough to separate their personalities, and it doesn't help that his main character persists in threatening one person after another in the same way: Beijing will realize how you've made a mess of things and you'll lose
everything that separates us. As an American with an interest in both China and Tibet, I think that Pattison's
decision to make his main character a Chinese person sympathetic to Tibetans and forced to live in Tibet in a manner not much elevated above the Tibetans yields some really interesting perspectives, though I am sure that both Tibetans and Chinese might construct things differently.
November 11, 2015
Inspector Shan is an exiled Chinese national, who used to work as an investigator in Beijing, until he was thrown into a Tibetan gulag as punishment for some transgression. Yet, he continues to prove useful; often he's the only one who can connect the dots and figure out who committed the crimes and why. So Beijing puts up with him, reluctantly, constantly reminding him they can throw him back into a prison camp.
In the Lord of Death, he's been given a task by a native Tibetan fortuneteller as transporter of dead bodies. He happens upon an accident, which as he discovers, is really a murder scene.
As a story of the clash between China and Tibet and between China and the many monasteries, as well as of the clash between China and trying to find out the real truth, these Inspector Shan stories are fascinating, page-turning tales. Highly recommended.
In the Lord of Death, he's been given a task by a native Tibetan fortuneteller as transporter of dead bodies. He happens upon an accident, which as he discovers, is really a murder scene.
As a story of the clash between China and Tibet and between China and the many monasteries, as well as of the clash between China and trying to find out the real truth, these Inspector Shan stories are fascinating, page-turning tales. Highly recommended.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 68 reviews