Chinese -- England -- Fiction. |
Murder -- Investigation -- Fiction. |
Detective and mystery stories |
London (England) -- Fiction |
Detective and mystery fiction. |
Crime -- Fiction |
Detective and mystery fiction |
Detective and mystery stories -- Juvenile fiction |
Detectives -- Fiction |
Detectives -- Juvenile fiction |
Mystery stories |
Available:
Library | Shelf Number | Shelf Location | Status |
---|---|---|---|
Searching... Attleboro Public Library | XX(2971435.4) | Being acquired by the library | Searching... Unknown |
Searching... Carver Public Library | M FIC ROZ | MYSTERY | Searching... Unknown |
Searching... East Bridgewater Public Library | NEE, J. 2024 | NEW FICTION | Searching... Unknown |
Searching... Lakeville Public Library | MYS NEE | NEW BOOK SHELF | Searching... Unknown |
Searching... Mansfield Public Library | FIC NEE | NEW BOOK SHELF | Searching... Unknown |
Searching... New Bedford Free Public Library | MYS NEE | NEW FICTION | Searching... Unknown |
Searching... Norfolk Public Library | F NEE, J. DEE V1 | NEW FICTION | Searching... Unknown |
Searching... Pembroke Public Library | FIC NEE, J. | NEW FICTION | Searching... Unknown |
Searching... Rehoboth - Blanding Free PL | FIC NEE, J. | NEW FICTION | Searching... Unknown |
Searching... Richards Memorial Library | NEE - (MYSTERY) | NEW MYSTERY | Searching... Unknown |
Searching... Taunton Public Library | NEE, JOHN SHEN YEN | LOBBY | Searching... Unknown |
Bound With These Titles
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Summary
Summary
For fans of Guy Ritchie's Sherlock Holmes films, this stunning, swashbuckling series opener by a powerhouse duo of authors is at once comfortingly familiar and tantalizingly new.
Two unlikely allies race through the cobbled streets of 1920s London in search of a killer targeting Chinese immigrants.
London, 1924. When shy academic Lao She meets larger-than-life Judge Dee Ren Jie, his quiet life abruptly turns from books and lectures to daring chases and narrow escapes. Dee has come to London to investigate the murder of a man he'd known during World War I when serving with the Chinese Labour Corps. No sooner has Dee interviewed the grieving widow than another dead body turns up. Then another. All stabbed to death with a butterfly sword. Will Dee and Lao be able to connect the threads of the murders--or are they next in line as victims?
Blending traditional gong'an crime fiction with the most iconic aspects of the Sherlock Holmes canon, Dee and Lao's first adventure is as thrilling and visual as an action film, as imaginative and transportive as a timeless classic.
Reviews (3)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Rozan (the Lydia Chin and Bill Smith novels) teams up with debut author Nee for a bewitching series kickoff that cleverly riffs on the Holmes/Watson dynamic with the investigative duo of novelist and lecturer Lao She and Judge Dee Ren Jie. In 1924 London, Lao (the Watson figure) is summoned by mathematician Bertrand Russell after Dee, Russell's friend, is mistakenly arrested with a group of Chinese agitators. Concerned that Metropolitan Police inspector William Bard, whom Dee angered during WWI while resolving disputes between Chinese laborers and the British soldiers who recruited them to provide support in France, will discover that Dee's been locked up, Russell convinces Lao to help him spring the judge from jail. Though their scheme goes south, Dee manages to escape, and he enlists Lao's help in probing the murder of shopkeeper Ma Za Ren, who was under Bard's command during the war. Someone fatally stabbed Ma in his store with one of the ornamental weapons he had for sale. Given Bard's harsh anti-Chinese biases, Dee doubts the official inquiry will be thorough enough to settle on anything but the most obvious explanation, and dedicates himself to getting justice for his countryman. The intricate plot, which is bolstered by vivid period detail and playfully riffs on real-life figures in Chinese history (including Lao), is enhanced by healthy doses of humor and well-orchestrated action. Readers will be clamoring for a sequel. Agent: Josh Getzler, HG Literary. (Apr.)
Kirkus Review
Nee and Rozan unfold a tale in which Mr. Ma is only the first of many casualties in 1924 London. Shortly after the philosopher Bertrand Russell introduces Judge Dee Ren Jie to University of London lecturer Lao She, who is to become the judge's Watson, Ma Ze Ren, who survived the Great War as part of the Chinese Labour Corps and then opened a London shop selling Chinese antiquities, is fatally stabbed with a butterfly sword. Judge Dee swings decorously into action, questioning first Ma's longtime customer Colonel Livingstone Moore and then American poet Ezra Pound and his equally disdainful English friend, Viscount Whytecliff, and turning young pickpocket Jim Finney, aka Jimmy Fingers, into an informant. But his investigation comes too late to save dockworker Ching Pan Lu, another veteran of the Chinese Labour Corps, who's found dead of a similar wound. Any suspicions of coincidence are laid to rest by a third murder, then a fourth. Judge Dee, though fighting his addiction to opium, manages to come up with a plausible reason why so many members of the battalion have met sudden deaths and to excel in the bouts of martial arts in which so many scenes of conflict end. Lao She, no slouch in these ritual battles, proves an able amanuensis except for the many times he apologetically interrupts himself to allow the story to shift back to Judge Dee's perspective. The effects are unsettling, but not nearly as much as all those fisticuffs among gentlemen who really ought to know better. First of a series that's acutely attuned to British racism between the two world wars. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Library Journal Review
Lydia Chin/Bill Smith series author Rozan and comics exec Nee create a distinct sense of time and place in this brisk adventure. Lao She teaches Chinese at a London university in 1924 and leads a peaceful life--until Bertrand Russell sends for him. Lao anticipates a quiet discussion about China. Instead, he's sent to jail to impersonate Judge Dee Ren Jie, who was accidentally swept up when police arrested a group of Chinese agitators. After the pair stir up trouble and cause a riot, Dee involves Lao in his plans to solve a murder. Dee served in the Chinese Labour Corps in France in the Great War. One of his former compatriots, a merchant, has been murdered. Then two more Chinese men are killed, all with a butterfly sword. Along with Lao, Dee enlists a shopkeeper, a British thief, and a group of urchins in his investigation. Lao narrates their adventures as Dee impersonates a street legend, "Springheel Jack, the Terror of London," swinging from lampposts and launching himself across rooftops in search of a killer. VERDICT Fans of the Sherlock Holmes canon will appreciate this fast-paced, exciting novel.--Lesa Holstine