The lacquer screen

Magistrate Judge Dee, still early in his career, is called on by a senior colleague who has a fine lacquer screen. A scene of two lovers has been strangely changed so that the man is now stabbing the woman. The colleague is convinced his mind is failing and that he may end up killing his own wife. At the same time, a banker has taken his own life for no clear reason, and a woman of striking beauty has let Dee's aide, Chiao Tai, believe she is a courtesan.

To untangle these threads, Dee and Chiao Tai slip into a band of robbers under disguise. The story is set in Tang dynasty China, and Dee is drawn from a real seventh-century magistrate, Di Renjie, whom van Gulik built into a detective hero.

This is the sixth novel in van Gulik's Judge Dee series, and it suits readers who enjoy period detective stories with close attention to court life and the workings of Chinese justice.