Lao She leads a quiet life in his boarding house in London until he chances to become involved with the legendary Judge Dee Ren Jie. Suddenly, instead of peaceful academics and daydreams of one day telling his landlady's daughter about his admiration of her, Lao is investigating a murder. Then another, and another are committed - it seems there may not be any members left of the friends from the Chinese Labour Corps who Dee knew from World War I.
Poor Lao is often bewildered by Dee's actions and the conclusions he draws in a similar manner to Watson trying to understand what Holmes is up to. In the course of their investigation they visit opium dens and dealers in Asian antiquities, stage a jailbreak, spend time with Bertrand Russell, and find themselves in martial arts confrontations that would seem right at home in a Jackie Chan movie.
The setting of 1924 London is brought to life with the sights, sounds, and odors. The yellow daffodils in Hyde Park, the shouts of protesters, the heavy scent of the opium den, and the description of the dinner Dee prepares in Russell's home (ginger-steamed carp, jasmine rice, stuffed tofu), engage the senses in each scene. The attitudes of the English toward the Chinese are present in nearly every encounter. The landlady's daughter who is determined to convert Lao to Christianity, even though he "had been baptized in Peking." Ze Ren's widow was snubbed for marrying him because she was an Englishwoman and it was not considered proper. Judge Dee mentions how he had to intervene to get fair treatment for the men in the Labour Corps. You get the idea.
Before reading this book I had heard of Judge Dee as a fictional character, but I did not realize the character is based on the historical figure Di Renjie, a county magistrate and statesman of the Tang court. And I also learned there is a separate subgenre of Chinese crime fiction involving government magistrates who solve criminal cases - Gong'an or crime-case fiction. So this story manages to blend elements of traditional Chinese crime fiction with a semi-fictional historical character in 1920s London, giving Dee and Lao the additional challenge of being foreigners/outsiders as they struggle to find the murderer.
If you enjoy mysteries and historical fiction, this should be a captivating story to immerse yourself in. I read an advance copy provided by the publisher for review purposes.
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