Love judge deed, unlike a lot of historical detective story writers, van gulik didn't saddle his characters with anachronistic , political lay correct mindsets. Gives them a touch of authenticity ( )

Two books in one of my favorite mystery series, the Judge Dee novels, about a 7th-century Chinese magistrate. Robert van Gulik evokes the setting well. Even though he knew much more about ancient China than the reader, he never pulls a bad sci-fi move such as having the characters tell each other the social context they should already know. Van Gulik was also great at physical settings (here, a 200-year-old monastery during a summer thunderstorm and Lan-fang, a town on the northwest border that the trade route has passed by.) ( )

See the Celebrated Cases of Judge Dee by Van Gulik ( )