Where Judge Dee Solves the Maze

The Chinese Maze Murders by Robert van Gulik
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is another entertaining mystery in a successful series.

Just like other titles in the series, the magistrate Judge Dee is faced with three separate mysteries, all coming in at about the same time, and so he is working on them all at once. It's also typical (though not universal) that he's arriving at a new posting, discovering a bunch of messed up stuff left by the previous magistrate. Here, it's a crime syndicate oppressing the people like a land baron in some westerns. Without troops or a regular police force to back him up, Judge Dee has to use some clever trickery to hold off the powerful criminal organization before he can even start to unwind all the knots in the mysteries.

It's interesting to see in this novel that Judge Dee is wondering if he should keep working in his profession, which takes a toll both because of the unending nature of the work as well as the ugliness of it, tracking down murderers and the like. He's considering giving it up, going back where he came from to farm a small plot of land. I wouldn't blame him at all. Because he has to oversee both the questioning, which at that time included whipping and torture, as well as the sentencing, which could be brutal, the reader might wonder if he's brutal himself. It appears not. He does his job, but he doesn't enjoy the cruelty.

His insightful methods are a lot of fun, but his assistants are perhaps even more entertaining. They're kinda rough guys (reformed highwaymen and conmen) who are fiercely loyal to the judge. They risk a lot and show a ton of ingenuity on their own to track down clues and people. Between them, we get the whole Sherlock experience: amazing deductions, clever disguises, danger, and some self-defense with martial arts. Lots of fun, but there could be a bit that triggers people; like many of his books, the crimes here are not just murder but also include elements of SA. FYI.

(That's what mysteries are about, right? Bad guys doing bad stuff, then getting caught by good guys. But such stories are not for everyone, of course.)

As always, good if not great, which is just about as much as you can hope for when you open a book. So far I've enjoyed them all and look forward to reading the stack I just bought.

Recommended for historical mystery fans.

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Where Judge Dee Makes Quick Work of Many Mysteries

Judge Dee at Work: Eight Chinese Detective Stories by Robert van Gulik
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is a collection of short stories, each one a quick mystery solved by Judge Dee. Most of the Judge Dee books are regular novels, and very engaging, but I enjoyed this collection at least as much as those.

Sometimes you just want a 20-page short story to read, you know?

I like that the MC is very insightful and a little bit of a jerk. He's good at what he does, but he's kinda short with others, and he doesn't mind giving a whole bunch of people their worst day ever while finding the truth. He's no saint. Nor is he infallible. As a result, he feels pretty round, like a regular person who happens to also have a particular set of skills, so when he cuts through the nonsense and solves a tough crime, it doesn't give you any Mary Sue vibes.

Crusty old Judge Dee catches the bad guys and helps the downtrodden, the wrongly accused, and the kinda lost get a second chance, sometimes, (though it might come with a bit of a sermon--LOL) which is all you want from a collection like this. And just a touch of the risqué, actually, though it's not terribly shocking stuff. It is 60+ years old, after all.

Good fun. Recommended for mystery readers.

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Where Judge Dee Gets Stuck in a Monastery

The Haunted Monastery by Robert van Gulik
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Another entertaining book in a pretty fun series.

This one has the best setting--a long night at a rambling old Taoist monastery in the mountains, wagon wheel broken, rained in, trapped with a variety of guests to the place, with a lots of strange things happening. It was more of a cozy mystery than other titles I've read so far, though there was real danger, lots of hidden rooms, and plenty of action.

And there are some salacious bits. I'm not sure why I find that surprising. They're fine, though, nothing extraordinary, and all makes sense with the plot.

I also appreciate that it's a shorter novel, as so many used to be. Probably 60K-65K words total. Enough to finish in a few days reading at bedtime. (I still manage to get two or three characters mixed up.)

The original reason I ever looked up these books was the movies I saw on cable. There are some high budget Judge Dee movies (out of Hong Kong, I think) and they made me wonder. The movies are probably more fun than the books, with lots of supernatural stuff, but these are good, too.

Recommended for historical mystery buffs.

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Where Judge Dee Faces the White Lotus Society

The Chinese Lake Murders by Robert van Gulik
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is a very clever murder mystery, and I enjoyed it. Judge Dee is a great character: hardworking, a bit crusty, severe at times, demanding, and occasionally anxious, but fair, compassionate, brilliant, and deeply insightful. It's easy to root for him. His assistants, including two who had once been bandits in the woods, are also likable and composed of positive and negative traits. In this story, the judge takes on a new servant, Tao Gan, a conman that he saves from a bad beating but finds full of useful qualities. It's fun to watch these varied personalities work through an investigation at all different levels, from documents and witness interviews to stake-outs and fights.

Most of this story relates to the investigation into the murder of a young woman, an entertainer, who is killed while onboard a "flower boat," something like a floating brothel which featured dancers and catering. But the mystery is expanded because, just before her murder, she tries to communicate a warning to Judge Dee. Something big is being plotted in the city where he was so recently posted. Another murder and a missing body become connected, and the clues pile up in a confusing way. (Not just for me--Judge Dee was kinda stumped, even.)

I coulda used a little support to keep characters straight. By the end, I was mixing up three or four of them who were all introduced at the initial party on the boat, though that's probably not really the author's fault. The names might contribute to that confusion a little, but I often have the same problem when I read Agatha Christie or others, so... that's just me. I guess I need to make drawings or a spreadsheet or something. :)

Also, I've got to doublecheck the actual order of these stories. I got bad intel on that somehow. This is book 5, and I thought it was book 2. But, it doesn't matter much. This is lots of fun.

Secret rooms. Secret societies. Good action. A bit of sexiness (and even a little sordid, in spots). A tad violent. And still cerebral in many ways. 4/5 stars.

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Where the Bad Guys Don't Have a Chance

The Chinese Bell Murders by Robert van Gulik
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The author wrote this based on a character in Chinese literature (who was based on a real person) incorporating elements of plots from other Ming-era novels. That's already a bit unusual, but it's also a 20th century version of popular 17th century Ming Dynasty fiction set in 7th century Tang Dynasty--with all the anachronisms that the Ming novels were filled with. It all sounds unwieldy, but it works, and is very entertaining.

Judge Dee is a new magistrate in a busy town in Tang China. He arrives with his own team, which includes an elderly sergeant and several younger men with different skills. Sometimes he relies on them to collect evidence and talk to witnesses; sometimes he dons a disguise and goes out in search of clues himself. The story is made up of three different mysteries that he needs to work on at the same time, which apparently was the tradition in the old novels. There is the case of a woman raped and murdered, the cold case of a family wiped out in a feud, and the case of a Buddhist monastery where women hoping to become pregnant are being assaulted during their visit (but remain silent because of the stigma).

Some of the elements in these mysteries feel modern; others are peculiar to this blended Ming/Tang version of China. It's a fun mix, actually, though the punishments given out at the end are pretty severe and a bit off-putting...

Overall, I found this clever, fast-paced, and entertaining, enough fun to continue with other novels in the series.

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Where I Accidentally Read This a Second Time

Celebrated Cases Of Judge Dee by Robert van Gulik
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Did you ever get well into a book and think "This is more than a little familiar..."

Funny story.

I don't think I ever did that before this, but it's crazy that I did it with this book. It's super unique, an actual Chinese detective novel from the 1700s translated into English, and I liked it at the time. Somehow I forgot entirely. I still wasn't sure until I checked my goodreads history to see.

I think I read it more carefully this time, kept more of the minor characters straight in my head. It's surprising to me how modern this book feels, how familiar, even to a western reader like me.

So now I have read it twice, although I seldom reread books. And I liked it both times. Judge Dee is a cool character--despite his use of torture, which was expected at the time--and is very Sherlockian in his detective work. And there's a bit of wuxia in the action scenes featuring his investigators. It's no wonder they made movies and tv shows with him as a character.

If you have an interest in the history of detective stories or want to look at Chinese history from a different angle, you might enjoy this. I did.

Here's my original two sentence review from 8 years ago:

This is a very accessible novel, with useful notes and preface by the translator. It's a pleasure to read on its own, as a mystery novel with intertwined stories, but even more interesting when read with an eye toward Chinese manners and history.

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