The Chinese Maze Murders

by Robert Van Gulik Book 5 in the Judge Dee Mysteries series.

First published 1951

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4.2(2,600)

Newly posted to the western district of Lan-fang, Judge Dee confronts three cases involving poisoned plums, a cryptic scroll painting and a succession dispute surrounding the former governor’s estate. Passionate letters and the design of a garden maze conceal connections between political power, inheritance and the torture and murder of women.

Dee must interpret images and family histories as carefully as physical evidence while establishing his authority in a frontier district. This was van Gulik’s first original Judge Dee novel. It first appeared in Japanese in 1951 as Meiro-no-satsujin before the English edition was published in 1956.