The Phantom of the Temple: A Judge Dee Mystery

Judge Dee presided over his imperial Chinese court with a unique brand of Confucian justice. A near mythic figure in China, he distinguished himself as a tribunal magistrate, inquisitor, and public avenger. Long after his death, accounts of his exploits were celebrated in Chinese folklore, and later immortalized by Robert van Gulik in his electrifying mysteries. InThe Phantom of the Temple,three separate puzzlesthe disappearance of a wealthy merchant's daughter, twenty missing bars of gold, and a decapitated corpseare pieced together by the clever judge to solve three murders and one complex, gruesome plot. "Judge Dee belongs in that select group of fictional detectives headed by the renowned Sherlock Holmes. I assure you it is a compliment not given frivolously."Robert Kirsch,Los AngelesTimes Robert Van Gulik (1910-67) was a Dutch diplomat and an authority on Chinese history and culture. He drew his plots from the whole body of Chinese literature, especially from the popular detective novels that first appeared in the seventeenth century.

Robert van Gulik (1910–67) was a Dutch diplomat and an authority on Chinese history and culture. His many works include sixteen Judge Dee mysteries, a study of the gibbon in China, and two books on the Chinese lute.