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.
No excerpt available.
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