Review – The Chinese Maze Murders

The Chinese Maze Murdersby Robert van GulikGenres: Crime, Historical Fiction, Mystery Pages: 336 Series: Judge Dee Mysteries #1 Rating: Synopsis: Poisoned plums, a cryptic scroll picture, passionate love letters, and a hidden murderer with a penchant for torturing and killing women lead Judge Dee to the heart of the Governor’s garden maze and the answers to three interwoven mysteries. The Chinese Maze Murders represents Robert van Gulik’s first venture into writing suspense novels after the success of Dee Gong An, his translation of an anonymous Chinese detective novel from the sixteenth century. I was very curious about Robert van Gulik’s The Chinese Maze Murders after reading a little bit about how they came to be: after translating Dee Goong An, van Gulik was very interested in bringing classic Chinese detective stories to a modern audience, but found the stories (according to his preface to this volume) lacking in interest for a modern audience, either Chinese or Western. As a…