Celebrated Cases of Judge Dee: An Authentic Eighteenth-Century Chinese Detective Novel

"Dee Goong An is artfully narrated by Mark Bramhall...He pronounces the Chinese names with assurance. His full-voiced reading is especially good with querulous old men and the stern Judge Dee. Highly recommended."

"Offers a glimpse of ancient Chinese society, illustrating the importance of rank and authority. Mark Bramhall reads with an appropriately formal air but relaxes when he portrays roadside ruffians and guilty widows."

Long before Western writers had even conceived the idea of writing detective stories, the Chinese had developed a long tradition of literary works that chronicled the cases of important district magistrates. One of the most celebrated of these was Judge Dee, who lived in the seventh century AD.

This book, written anonymously in the eighteenth century, interweaves three of Judge Dee's most baffling cases: a double murder among traveling merchants, the fatal poisoning of a bride on her wedding night, and the suspicious death of a shop keeper with a beautiful wife. The crimes take him up and down the great silk routes, into ancient graveyards where he consults the spirits of the dead, and through all levels of society, leading him to some brilliant detective work.