Skeleton God

Starred review from January 30, 2017
Edgar-winner Pattison remains without peer at integrating a fair-play whodunit into a searing portrayal of life under an oppressive and capricious regime, as shown by his ninth Insp. Shan Tao Yun mystery (after 2014’s Soul of the Fire). Shan, who lost his previous position after uncovering uncomfortable truths, now works as a constable in the secluded Tibetan town of Yangkar. Shan has done his best to stay off the radar of anyone in power, hoping that his diminished profile will enable less harsh treatment to continue for his imprisoned son, Ko. But events overtake Shan’s intention when locals hear a surprising sound emanating from the tomb of a centuries-dead lama. The tomb turns out to contain two other corpses: one of a Chinese soldier who died decades earlier; the other of a Westerner, killed just hours before. The shocks for Shan don’t end there. Both men seemed to have been murdered in exactly the same manner. Even readers unfamiliar with the physical and cultural devastation China has wrought in Tibet will find themselves engrossed—and moved—by Pattison’s nuanced portrayal. Agent: Natasha Kern, Natasha Kern Literary Agency.

February 1, 2017
Inspector Shan struggles to separate implausible myth from verifiable fact in probing a murky murder scene.Now working as a constable in a rural Tibetan outpost, Inspector Shan Tao Yun (Soul of the Fire, 2014, etc.) is pressed in to a trip to the mountains when a superstitious woman named Yara bursts into his office with the cry, "The dead are rising!" She drops a set of coral beads covered in blood, which a female prisoner recognizes as the property of a hermit nun. When Shan investigates, he finds the nun, Nyima, brutally assaulted and two corpses nearby. One is a Chinese soldier dead for decades, the other a Western man dead for just a few hours. Examining the bodies in the comfort of the indoors is the first step in his investigation. Both were stabbed in identical fashion while immobilized with nails through the hands. Are the malevolent spirits whom all the terrified locals whisper about responsible? The methodical Shan is not to be swayed by superstition. In a modest library in Lhasa, he bones up on the military history of the region, looking for keys to the identities of the victims. The complexion of the case changes considerably when he learns that the dead Western man and Nyima were of the same family. To unravel the mystery, Shan must confront both rampant corruption and the locals' denial of a shameful past. Pattison's ninth installment provides an important history lesson little understood in the West with authority, nuance, and genuine suspense.

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February 1, 2017
Like every policeman holding together a rural backwater, Constable Shan must pay lip service to outsiders' whims while navigating local realities. But if the backwater is in remote Tibet and the bosses are in China, the stakes are quite a bit higher than usual. Shan is just trying to keep his head down, but then he is led to a tomb that has been emitting a strange noise and, when opened, reveals a mummified saint who has company. The constable discovers that Chinese influence on his village has been more devastating than he knew, and his hapless, long-imprisoned son is far from the only victim of the conquerors. This ninth in Edgar Awardwinner Pattison's Inspector Shan Tao Yun series is slow in parts but offers a satisfying tale of murder mixed with historical detail, family love, and 1984-like political inanity that will keep readers tuned in. Though Pattison's work is more literary than Dan Brown's, readers who enjoyed the religious elements of The Da Vinci Code might want to give this one a try.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)

October 15, 2016

In his ninth outing, Shan Tao Yun, constable of a remote Tibetan town, has a new case involving reports that a nun has been brutally attacked by ghosts. What he discovers about government corruption and a secret effort to reunite Tibetan refugees will change his life and the town forever. From an Edgar Award winner.

Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

February 1, 2017

The past and the present collide in Pattison's ninth Tibet-set Shan Tao Yun adventure (after Soul of the Fire). Now the constable of an isolated Tibetan town, Shan isn't sure what surprises him most: the report of a nun being assaulted by ghosts or what he discovers at the scene. He soon realizes this politically charged case has tentacles reaching to the highest echelons of the Chinese government in Beijing and may be related to a Tibetan refugee program.

Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.