Pen-Lai District, North East China, AD 663. Newly arrived from the Imperial Capital to take up his first post as Magistrate, Judge Dee is at once confronted with three eerie and baffling mysteries which test his analytical and deductive powers to the limit, drawing him along a trail of blood leading to a criminal of boundless ambition -- and to a plot which will rock the vast bureaucracy of the ..

At a lakeside town near the Imperial capital T'ang, China's master detective, Judge Dee finds his astounding powers of deduction put to their greatest challenge yet as he battles murder and high treason against the Imperial throne.

An antique screen of haunting beauty, a family curse, vile crimes committed in high circles and low in China's great T'ang empire and Judge Dee is on the trail of embezzlement and murder.

Seven foul crimes; seven cunning murderers brought to justice by the master-detective of China's glorious T'ang Empire. (And one innocent person exonerated). 'A rich new vein of detective fiction is worked by Mr van Gulik . . . Entertaining, instructive and impressive'.