Water Touching Stone

May 14, 2001
Few mystery sequels have been awaited with as much anticipation as this one, and in many ways this is a worthy successor to Pattison's first novel, the Edgar- winning The Skull Mantra
(1999); it too is full of reverence for the beleaguered people of Tibet, especially its tortured and imprisoned Buddhist monks. "I know that of all the world I have seen, the lamas are the best part of it," says Shan Tao Yun, a former high-ranking police investigator from Beijing who—because he looked too deeply into some financial scandal—was disgraced and imprisoned in a Tibetan gulag, where his life and his soul were saved by the monks who were his fellow prisoners. Released without official consent after his investigations into a murder exposed Chinese corruption, Shan has been living quietly among the monks, awaiting his chance to escape the country with the UN's help. Will he now risk his freedom to find out who killed a revered teacher and several wandering orphan boys? To Pattison's credit, he makes Shan's choice to roam across the wastes of northern Tibet in a virtually endless and dangerous search seem inevitable and totally believable—even if some readers would rather see him in action on the streets of London or San Francisco. And Shan's companions are largely fascinating: a vast gallery of Kazakh resistance fighters, White Russian smugglers who ride camels along the old Silk Road and Chinese officials of varying degrees of nastiness. Finally, though, there are too many people, places, events and questions—and pages—to sustain the amazing energy of Pattison's initial creation. (June 2)Forecast:Given the critical success of
The Skull Mantra, which is being released simultaneously in paperback, and continuing political controversy surrounding China, this book has real breakout potential.

May 1, 2001
Chinese ex-investigator Shan Tao Yun, who was introduced in the Edgar Award-winning The Skull Mantra, has come to the inhospitable terrain of western China to unravel the mysterious death of a popular teacher. Shan's team of allies, a remarkable array of Kazakhs, Tibetans, and others, quickly learn that the teacher's death masks others. Alas, the interference of tyrannical Chinese investigators, the hardships of the terrain, and the complexity of the interweaving plots slow Shan down despite his stunning psychological and political insights. The first half of the book moves at a meditative pace, but once the true quarry is identified, the hunt quickens and suspense mounts unbearably. As in the previous book, Shan mirrors the spirituality and peril of the Tibetan cause, while the addition of the Kazakh, Uighur, and other non-Buddhist indigenous elements makes this a compelling saga of vanishing peoples. The archaeological themes are but one of the ways Pattison demonstrates his power to evoke the desperate cataclysms that these tribes and individuals suffer. For all public libraries where the East lures readers. Barbara Conaty, Library of Congress

Copyright 2001 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from May 1, 2001
Pattison's debut, " The Skull Mantra" (1999), won the Edgar Award, and his second continues the adventures of his smart, courageous, and spiritually inclined hero, Shan Tao Yun. Once a high-level Beijing investigator, Shan didn't tow the Communist line and consequently endured the horrors of the Tibetan gulag. He now devotes himself to helping the Tibetans in their seemingly impossible battle for justice under China's brutal occupation. As the curtain rises, Shan is traveling in the company of a lama and various members of the Tibetan resistance, including Jakli, a young Kazakh woman of great valor. They're investigating the death of a revered teacher, Lau, whose young students are also dying. Shan's perilous mission sends him across the world's most astonishing landscape as he holes up in the ruins of Karachuk (once a great Silk Road oasis), in secret Buddhist mountain caves, and in tents that could have been pitched 2,000 years ago but that now shelter portable computers. Things get really crazy when Shan meets a pair of American anthropologists risking their lives to prove that, contrary to the government's claims, the Chinese were not the first people to inhabit this mysterious land. Sandstorms, clandestine nuclear missile installations, and rumors of the reincarnation of a lama all figure into Pattison's remarkably complex, knowledgeable, and compelling tale, which both celebrates Tibet's marvels and decries its suffering.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2001, American Library Association.)