An eerie tale, combining investigation, horror and surprise, Robert van Gulik's latest Chinese detective story is set in a remote western border province of the mighty Tang empire.



There, in the district of Lan-fang, separated from the vast Tartar steppes of Central Asia by only a boundary river, Judge Dee faces and solves one of the most frightening cases of his long career.



Outside the east city gate, on a wooded hill, stood a centuries-old Buddhist temple. It was there that the phantom stalked; and there also a series of brutal murders were committed. Judge Dee's inquiry into them is complicated by a mysterious dying message from a young girl and by the theft of a large sum in gold from an imperial treasurer.



Judge Dee presided over his imperial Chinese court with a unique brand of Confucian justice. A near mythic figure in China, he distinguished himself as a tribunal magistrate, inquisitor, and public avenger. Long after his death, accounts of his exploits were celebrated in Chinese folklore, and later immortalized by Robert van Gulik in his electrifying mysteries.



'Judge Dee belongs in that select group of fictional detectives headed by the renowned Sherlock Holmes. I assure you it is a compliment not given frivolously.'

—Robert Kirsch, Los Angeles Times



This audiobook is expertly read by Peter Kim, with audio engineering by Sam Platt. It was produced and published by Echo Point Books & Media, an independent bookseller in Brattleboro, Vermont.