Mandarin Gate

In Mandarin Gate, Edgar Award winner EliotPattison brings Shan back in a thriller that navigates theexplosive politicaland religious landscape of Tibet. In an earlier time, Shan Tao Yun was an Inspector stationed in Beijing. But he lost his position, his family and his freedom when he ran afoul of a powerful figure high in the Chinese government. Released unofficially from the work camp to which he'd been sentenced, Shan has been living in remote mountains of Tibet with a group of outlawed Buddhist monks. Without status, official identity, or the freedom to return to his former home in Beijing,Shan has just begun to settle into his menial job as an inspector of irrigation and sewer ditches in a remote Tibetan township when he encounters a wrenching crime scene. Strewn across the grounds of an old Buddhist temple undergoing restoration are the bodies of two unidentified men and a Tibetan nun. Shan quickly realizes that the murders pose a riddle the Chinese police might in [...]fact be trying to cover up. When hediscovers that a nearby village has been converted into a new internment camp for Tibetan dissidents arrested in Beijings latest pacification campaign, Shan recognizes thedangerous landscape he has entered. To find justice for the victims and to protect an American woman who witnessed the murders, Shan must navigate through the treacherous worlds of the internment camp, the local criminal gang, and the governments rabid pacification teams, while coping with his growing doubts about his own identity and role in Tibet. From Booklist Pattisons storytelling prowess and commitment to exposing the truth about Chinas dismantlement of Tibet are as potent as ever in his seventh Tibetan mystery. His embattled hero Shan Tao Yuns Chinese ethnicity and former life as a Beijing investigator disguise his profound allegiance to Tibet, especially the few surviving monks, nuns, and lamas struggling to preserve the countrys mountain-anchored spiritual traditions, though his tattoo marking him as a gulag survivor offers a clue. Always careful to steer clear of the Chinese authorities, Shan nonetheless snaps into full detection mode when a trio of gruesome murders takes place at a ruined convent. His risky investigation is complicated by the uncanny ability of a determined woman, a Chinese official, to appear at the direst of moments. The master of suspense stoked by humanitarian outrage, Pattison ratchets up his dramatic and soulful series with an embroiling plot involving a Chinese gang, a monks shocking suicide, charming exiled professors, and a dissident computer hacker to reveal the Chinese governments newest and most diabolical mode of cultural annihilation in magnificent, much-violated Tibet. --Donna Seaman Review "Pattison dramatically portrays the bitter oppression suffered by the Tibetan people under Communist China in his excellent seventh novel featuring Chinese investigator Shan Tao Yun. Pattison movingly delineates the difficulties of seeking justice under a police state in this brilliantly constructed and passionate whodunit."-- Publishers Weekly (starred review) "Pattison portrays the oppression of the Tibetan people with dramatic delicacy and rich insight. While Mandarin Gate is set in a locale farther away than most readers will ever dare venture, this mystery brings the plight of Tibet into sharp focus, weaving the region's cultural, social and political conflict into a compelling narrative." --CNN.com