The Red Pavilion - (Judge Dee Mystery Series) by Robert Van Gulik (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

Three fiendish murders challenge the beloved detective Judge Dee, whom the Los Angeles Times ranked with Sherlock Holmes

A chance encounter with Autumn Moon, the most powerful courtesan on Paradise Island, leads Judge Dee to investigate three deaths. Although he finally teases the true story from a tangled history of passion and betrayal, Dee is saddened by the perversion, corruption, and waste of the world "of flowers and willows" that thrives on prostitution.

From the Back Cover

A chance encounter with Autumn Moon, the most powerful courtesan on Paradise Island, leads Judge Dee to investigate three deaths. Although he finally teases the true story from a tangled history of passion and betrayal, Dee is saddened by the perversion, corruption, and waste of the world of flowers and willows that thrives on prostitution.

Review Quotes

"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"

"Judge Dee belongs in that select group of fictional detectives headed by the renowned Sherlock Holmes. I assure you it is a compliment not given frivolously"-Robert Kirsch, Los Angeles Times
--Los Angeles Times "Robert Kirsch"

"The China of old, in Mr. van Gulik's skilled hands, comes vividly alive again."--Allen J. Hubin "New York Times Book Review"

About the Author

Robert Van Gulik (1910-67) was a Dutch diplomat and an authority on Chinese history and culture. He drew his plots from the whole body of Chinese literature, especially from the popular detective novels that first appeared in the seventeenth century.