The Skull Mantra - Tapa blanda

"Vivid, absorbing, intriguing" (Sunday Telegraph)

"A cocktail of action adventure...a great read" (Guardian)

"Complex, crammed with Tibetan and Buddhist lore and legend, and utterly fascinating" (Daily Telegraph)

'Summoning is a dangerous thing. To the old Buddhists, words were the most dangerous weapon of all.'

Shan Tao Yun is a former investigator for the chinese government who once got a little too close to the truth. Now he breaks rocks in a Tibetan prison camp high in the Himalayas. Only the remarkable courage of the Buddhist monks who are his fellow prisoners give him the will to survive.

But when a smartly dressed headless corpse is discovered on the bleak moutainside, Shan is forced to become a detective once more. And as he uncovers a web of intrigue involving a beautiful American mining engineer, Tibetan sorcerers, corrupt Chinese officials and the Buddhist Resistance, he begins to realise that far more than his own survival is at stake.