CHINESE NAIL MURDERS: A JUDGE DEE DETECTIVE STORY
TOP PICK- THE CHINESE NAIL MURDERS, by Robert Van Gulik, is the 4th installment in the Judge Dee series of Ancient Chinese historical mysteries. Dee has just been installed as the magistrate of Pei-chow, a frigid town on the Northern border along the lands of the Tartars. He has to take up the cases of a young wife found beheaded in her home, a martial arts master poisoned in a public bath and the case of a supposedly respectable widow whom Judge Dee believes murdered her husband, although the doctor in attendance ruled it a natural death. He orders an exhumation, but the coroner concurs with the doctor. This leaves Judge Dee in a terrible dilemma, since the penalty for unjustifiably unearthing a grave in ancestor-worshipping Ancient China…is death! This is highly recommended for fans of historical mysteries, as one of the crown jewels of the genre.