Judge Dee at Work: Eight Chinese Detective Stories
by Robert Van Gulik
Judge Dee: Publication order (short stories 14), Judge Dee: Chronological order (Short story collection)
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The eight short stories in Judge Dee at Work cover a decade during which the judge served in four different provinces of the T'ang Empire. From the suspected treason of a general in the Chinese army to the murder of a lonely poet in his garden pavilion, the cases here are among the most memorable in the Judge Dee series.Tags
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Member Reviews
Eh. Mildly interesting mysteries, a lot of information about early Chinese culture (if it's accurate) but I'm not much interested in the subject, and a know-it-all detective. van Gulik is pretty good at seeding the information - there were only a couple stories where the answer depended on something I totally hadn't seen in the story, and several where I recognized what the clue was as soon as he began giving the answer. Still, I dislike know-it-all detectives (I don't like Sherlock Holmes, either), and while the setting is unusual it's not one that interests me. Mostly murders of various sorts, with motives ranging from covering up a crime to jealousy (though none of them were truly crimes of passion, they were all premeditated to one show more extent or another). Judge Dee also did a little vigilante justice now and then, lightening a charge for someone who made a bad choice but wasn't a bad person, and in one case blackmailing someone who wasn't actually guilty - of _that_ crime, at least - into aiding a victim. Glad I read it, doubt I'll ever reread. show less
This is an enjoyable book, but I wouldn't recommend it as an introduction to van Gulik's Judge Dee mysteries. Van Gulik was raised in East Asia from early childhood and tutored in Mandarin from an early age. He served throughout Asia in the Dutch Diplomatic service and married a Chinese woman, so few people would be so ideally positioned to write works based on Chinese culture for Western audiences. As Van Gulik explains in his afterwards, Judge Dee is a real historical person who lived from A.D. 630 to 700 and contemporary "Chinese still consider him their master-detective, and his name is as popular with them as that of Sherlock Holmes is with us."
I first read the Judge Dee mysteries when a friend loaned me her Dee novels, so the show more only book in the series I bought and own is this one, an anthology of short stories very much akin to Arthur Conan Doyle's Adventures of Sherlock Holmes stories in flavor. Purely as mysteries I don't think these match the Sherlock Holmes stories such as "The Speckled Band," nor is the character of Dee quite so strong as Holmes, and Van Gulik's style is rather creaky. One reviewer called the language "stilted" and I rather agree. But the draw here is more the depiction of Chinese culture and history during the Tang Dynasty and on those terms I find the novels offer something unique and are well worth seeking out, and even though I don't think Van Gulik is strongest in this short form, these stories do display something of the appeal of those novels. The eight short stories are fine little puzzle pieces that turn on such things as an incense clock, a pawn ticket or croaking frogs in a lotus pond and takes you through all levels of Chinese society from great generals and rich merchants to prostitutes, beggars and street performers. If you're at all curious about things Chinese, you might find these just your cup of (green) tea. Although I'd start with the first book chronologically if you can find it, The Chinese Gold Murders. show less
I first read the Judge Dee mysteries when a friend loaned me her Dee novels, so the show more only book in the series I bought and own is this one, an anthology of short stories very much akin to Arthur Conan Doyle's Adventures of Sherlock Holmes stories in flavor. Purely as mysteries I don't think these match the Sherlock Holmes stories such as "The Speckled Band," nor is the character of Dee quite so strong as Holmes, and Van Gulik's style is rather creaky. One reviewer called the language "stilted" and I rather agree. But the draw here is more the depiction of Chinese culture and history during the Tang Dynasty and on those terms I find the novels offer something unique and are well worth seeking out, and even though I don't think Van Gulik is strongest in this short form, these stories do display something of the appeal of those novels. The eight short stories are fine little puzzle pieces that turn on such things as an incense clock, a pawn ticket or croaking frogs in a lotus pond and takes you through all levels of Chinese society from great generals and rich merchants to prostitutes, beggars and street performers. If you're at all curious about things Chinese, you might find these just your cup of (green) tea. Although I'd start with the first book chronologically if you can find it, The Chinese Gold Murders. show less
Entertaining collection of short stories featuring the investigating magistrate of T'ang Dynasty China. The stories are logical, and are full of historical colour, and are a quick and pleasant read.
This is a collection of eight cases handled by Judge Dee.
Set back in the 600s in China, these short stories cover a ten year span of Judge Dee’s career.
Dee is not only a Master Judge, he also investigates the crimes he is presented with to find the persons responsible for the crimes.
In “Murder of the Lotus Pond,” an elderly poet is found murdered in the pavilion in the middle of a lotus pond on his property. It occurred at night with no known witnesses, except the frogs who live in the pond. “Frogs can’t talk” — or can they?
This is the second book of the Judge Dee Series and I’ve enjoyed both. It is illustrated with drawing in the style of the period to give the feeling of the era.
Reading of a different culture in a show more different time takes me into a new world. A bit of arm chair travelling. show less
Set back in the 600s in China, these short stories cover a ten year span of Judge Dee’s career.
Dee is not only a Master Judge, he also investigates the crimes he is presented with to find the persons responsible for the crimes.
In “Murder of the Lotus Pond,” an elderly poet is found murdered in the pavilion in the middle of a lotus pond on his property. It occurred at night with no known witnesses, except the frogs who live in the pond. “Frogs can’t talk” — or can they?
This is the second book of the Judge Dee Series and I’ve enjoyed both. It is illustrated with drawing in the style of the period to give the feeling of the era.
Reading of a different culture in a show more different time takes me into a new world. A bit of arm chair travelling. show less
The language is oddly stilted in these stories, both the dialogue and the descriptions. I remember guffawing when I heard one of the audiobooks basically start with "a dark and stormy night". Still, it's one of the very very few series to combine China and mysteries.
Délicieux et astringent comme un litchi.
Oct 31, 2022French
Nov 15, 2005Tagalog
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Author Information
109+ Works 10,307 Members
Robert H. Van Gulik was born in the Netherlands on August 9, 1910. He joined the Dutch Foreign Service in 1935. From 1942-1945, he was secretary for the Dutch mission to Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalist government in Chongqing, China. During this time, he translated a number of Chinese texts including Celebrated Cases of Judge Dee (Dee Goong An). He show more proceeded to write sixteen of his own Judge Dee novels. His scholarly works included Siddham: An Essay on the History of Sanskrit Studies in China and Japan, Hayagriva: Horse Cult in Asia, and Sexual Life in Ancient China. He died on September 24, 1967. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Some Editions
Series
Judge Dee: Publication order (short stories 14)
Judge Dee: Chronological order (Short story collection)
Belongs to Publisher Series
SaPo (411)
Work Relationships
Contains
Common Knowledge
- Canonical title
- Judge Dee at Work: Eight Chinese Detective Stories
- Original title
- Judge Dee at Work
- Original publication date
- 1967
- People/Characters
- Judge Dee
- Important places
- China
- Original language
- English
- Disambiguation notice
- The eight stories contained in this anthology have been individually cataloged and place in their proper order in the series Judge Dee: Chronological order.
Which is nice, but this entry is a bit of a mess. The origina... (show all)l "Judge Dee at work" contained only six stories. That form of the work was published in several languages. When Van Gulik died the English language publishers decided to add two extra "left-overs" - published otherwise in other languages. That form of the work also got translated into other languages. This entry currently combines the six and the eight story versions, in all languages.
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- Reviews
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- Media
- Paper, Audiobook, Ebook
- ISBNs
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- ASINs
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