Reading Robert van Gulik’s Necklace and kalabash.
About the plot (taken from wiki): Judge Dee is a magistrate in the fictional Poo-yang district, a wealthy area through which the Grand Canal of China runs (part of modern-day Jiangsu province). The Emperor’s daughter lives in the district at the Water Palace, which falls under a special administration run by the military commander. Judge Dee goes to the area for a few days of relaxing fishing but soon meets with a strange Taoist hermit; next a body is found in the river. Then the Emperor’s daughter appeals to Judge Dee for aid. The mysteries keep building up, and Judge Dee has to tread very carefully to avoid serious political fallout from his investigations.
In another post/thread I already mentioned Robert van Gulik.
Van Gulik claims that the Chinese detective stories predated the works of Edgar Allan Poe and Arthur Conan Doyle by more than a handful centuries.
Recently I wrote a little article about this for the Dutch Go Bulletins and there is so much more to tell about this. Maybe some other time.
Reading the Dutch translation.
