The Shadow of the Empire is a Judge Dee mystery and tie-in to Qiu Xiaolong's long running Inspector Chen series. First released in 2020, this reformat and re-release from Severn House 1st Feb 2022 is 192 pages and is available in trade paperback in this edition as well as most other formats. It's worth noting that the ebook format has a handy interactive table of contents as well as interactive links. I've really become enamored of ebooks with interactive formats lately.
This is beautifully lyrical and well written story. Most western readers who are familiar with Judge Dee, first came into contact with the character via Robert van Gulik's wonderful stories. The style (and mystery), though semi-fictional is in no way derivative of van Gulik's work. The plotting is intricate and the book is filled with poetry (the main suspect is poet). The settings and character names are exotic and although set in the Tang dynasty, it reads well for modern audiences. I had no trouble immersing myself in the story.
I found the secondary character names confusing and occasionally a little difficult to keep straight in my own mind, so the electronic version of the book was great to be able to easily search back to keep them straight.
This was an engaging and beautifully written book. I'm intrigued enough to search out the tie-in series (Inspector Chen) by the same author. Kudos, also, to the translator/s' work (I can't easily find translation info in the eARC provided for review). The English language version doesn't read as if it's been translated at all, and the story flows quite easily and naturally.
Four and a half stars. Beautifully rendered.
Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes
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