Li Du comes to Dayan days before the Emperor is due to
arrive. The magistrate is busy with preparations for the
festival honoring the Emperor and the eclipse that has
been predicted.
Li Du is a disgraced librarian who travels around China
earning just enough to allow him to continue his travels.
The magistrate must approve his travel through the
province and also happens to be a relative. Tulishen
invites Li Du to stay in a guesthouse and to have dinner
with his household that night.
When a Jesuit monk dies shortly after the dinner,
Tulishen, convinced that the death was due to natural
causes, hurries the burial so as not to interfere with the
festival. Li Du departs Dayan but some anomalies cause
him to return to Dayan to investigate the death.
As he investigates with the aid of a storyteller, Li Du
faces an attempt on his life and exposes a plot to kill
the Emperor.
Ms. Hart's first book, JADE DRAGON MOUNTAIN, is placed
in 18th century China, a country that had resisted
efforts by European countries to gain a foothold in the
prosperous trade of the time. The story focuses on the
culture of China and moves at a somewhat leisurely place.
Her extensive research brings China to life. The mystery
seems unsolvable as the reader navigates the culture of
18th century China and the political tensions of the
time.
An innovative story which will drop the reader into
another century and culture, JADE DRAGON MOUNTAIN is
fascinating both for the backdrop of the story and the
mystery itself. Historical mystery fans should seek out
this book.
On the mountainous border of China and Tibet in 1708, a
detective must learn what a killer already knows: that
empires rise and fall on the strength of the stories they tell.
Li Du was an imperial librarian. Now he is an exile.
Arriving in Dayan, the last Chinese town before the Tibetan
border, he is surprised to find it teeming with travelers,
soldiers, and merchants. All have come for a spectacle
unprecedented in this remote province: an eclipse of the sun
commanded by the Emperor himself.
When a Jesuit astronomer is found murdered in the home of
the local magistrate, blame is hastily placed on Tibetan
bandits. But Li Du suspects this was no random killing.
Everyone has secrets: the ambitious magistrate, the powerful
consort, the bitter servant, the irreproachable secretary,
the East India Company merchant, the nervous missionary, and
the traveling storyteller who can't keep his own story straight.
Beyond the sloping roofs and festival banners, Li Du can see
the mountain pass that will take him out of China forever.
He must choose whether to leave, and embrace his exile, or
to stay, and investigate a murder that the town of Dayan
seems all too willing to forget.
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