''Judge Dee at Work'' is a collection of 8 ''

gong'an Gong'an County () is a county in southern Hubei province, People's Republic of China, bordering Hunan to the south. It is under the administration of Jingzhou City. History During the Han dynasty and the Three Kingdoms era, Gong'an County was k ...

detective A detective is an investigator, usually a member of a law enforcement agency. They often collect information to solve crimes by talking to witnesses and informants, collecting physical evidence, or searching records in databases. This leads the ...

short stories written by

Robert van Gulik Robert Hans van Gulik (, 9 August 1910 – 24 September 1967) was a Dutch orientalist, diplomat, musician (of the guqin), and writer, best known for the Judge Dee historical mysteries, the protagonist of which he borrowed from the 18th-century ...

and set in

Imperial China The history of China spans several millennia across a wide geographical area. Each region now considered part of the Chinese world has experienced periods of unity, fracture, prosperity, and strife. Chinese civilization first emerged in the Y ...

(roughly speaking the

Tang dynasty The Tang dynasty (, ; zh, c=唐朝), or the Tang Empire, was an Dynasties of China, imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 618 to 907, with an Wu Zhou, interregnum between 690 and 705. It was preceded by the Sui dynasty and followed ...

). It is a fiction based on the real character of

Judge Dee Judge Dee, or Judge Di, is a semi-fictional character based on the historical figure Di Renjie, County magistrate (China), county magistrate and statesman of the Tang dynasty, Tang court. The character appeared in the 18th-century Chinese detectiv ...

( Ti Jen-chieh or Di Renjie), a

county magistrate The county magistrate or local magistrate, known by several Chinese names, was the official in charge of the '' xian'' ("county"), the lowest level of central government in Imperial and early Republican China. The magistrate was the official ...

and

statesman A statesman or stateswoman is a politician or a leader in an organization who has had a long and respected career at the national or international level, or in a given field. Statesman or statesmen may also refer to: Newspapers United States ...

of the Tang court, who lived roughly 630–700. The book features eight illustrations by the author. The book also has a postscript where the author places all the novels and stories into a coherent timeline for his semi-fictional character.

Overview

Judge Dee, a magistrate in Imperial China is a crime solver, a detective. In these stories Judge Dee solves a series of un-related crimes from different times in his career. There is no over-all narrative to these stories.

List of stories

# "Five Auspicious Clouds" - set in the year 663 when Judge Dee was a magistrate of Peng-lai. # "The Red Tape Murder" - set in the year 663 when Judge Dee was a magistrate of Peng-lai. # "He Came With the Rain" - set in the year 663 was a magistrate of Peng-lai. # "The Murder on the Lotus Pond" - set in the year 666 when Judge Dee was a magistrate of Han-yuan. # "The Two Beggars" - set in the year 668 when Judge Dee was a magistrate of Poo-yang. # "The Wrong Sword" - set in the year 668 when Judge Dee was a magistrate of Poo-yang. # "The Coffins of the Emperor" - set in the year 670 when Judge Dee was a magistrate of Lan-fang. # "Murder on New Year's Eve" - set in the year 670 when Judge Dee was a magistrate of Lan-fang.

References

External links

* 1967 short story collections Judge Dee Gong'an novels Heinemann (publisher) books {{1960s-mystery-novel-stub