The Conspiracies of the Empire is a Judge Dee mystery and outisde the author, Dr. Qiu Xiaolong's, long running Inspector Chen series. Released by Severn House 5th Nov 2024, it's 192 pages and is available in hardcover and ebook formats. Paperback due out in July 2025 from the same publisher. It's worth noting that the ebook format has a handy interactive table of contents as well as interactive links.
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 settings and character names are exotic and although set in the Tang dynasty, it reads well for modern audiences. Most readers will encounter no trouble immersing themselves in the story.
The secondary character names are confusing and occasionally a little difficult to keep straight, so the electronic version of the book was great to be able to easily search back in the text to easily clear up confusion.
This was an engaging and beautifully written book. I'm intrigued enough to search out the other 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. The author/publisher have also included appendices with translated poems related to the story by contemporary historical poets.
Four and a half stars. Beautifully rendered.
Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes
No comments:
Post a Comment