{"id":11014,"date":"2024-06-18T07:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-06-18T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=11014"},"modified":"2024-06-17T20:44:51","modified_gmt":"2024-06-18T00:44:51","slug":"the-murder-of-mr-ma-by-john-shen-yen-nee-and-sj-rozan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=11014","title":{"rendered":"The Murder of Mr. Ma by John Shen Yen Nee and SJ Rozan"},"content":{"rendered":"
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This new light-hearted crime adventure is a book I\u2019ve been looking forward to for some months. I already admire SJ Rozan\u2019s award-winning mysteries featuring New York City private detectives Bill Smith and Lydia Chin. Although it is The Murder of Mr. Ma, co-written with media executive John Shen Yen Nee, is vastly different from the Smith\/Chin stories, but equally entertaining. It features my favorite fictional detective, Tang dynasty Judge Dee Ren Jie in a 20th<\/sup> century version.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Judge Dee arrives in 1924 London to investigate the murders of former colleagues from the Chinese Labour Corps. (During World War I, the British government recruited several hundred thousand workers from its colonies and elsewhere to perform non-military duties, in order to free up British soldiers for fighting. Some 96,000 of these workers were Chinese.) Judge Dee\u2019s war role was to mediate when a Chinese worker ran afoul of the military authorities. Military man William Bard, now an inspector in London\u2019s Metropolitan Police force, became Dee\u2019s nemesis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Soon after his arrival in London, Dee meets a young academic, Lao She, a man with little worldly experience but a good heart, who acts as Dee\u2019s guide and sounding board. Lao is Watson to Dee\u2019s Holmes, recording their adventures and asking the pertinent questions that let Dee\u2019s intellectual powers shine. The affectionate and sometimes prickly relationship between them is also reminiscent of the Holmes\/Watson duo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It doesn\u2019t take Dee long to find old friends and acquaintances in the London Chinese community. In particular, he encounters Sergeant Hoong Liang, whose father taught Dee a full menu of Chinese martial arts skills, something that comes in handy on numerous dramatic occasions throughout this story. Dee also reaches out to knowledgeable characters in London\u2019s underworld. Like Holmes, his circle includes people high and low.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Between his fighting skills, his gift for mimicry and disguise, and his flawless logic, Dee is a real superhero. But he does have one serious flaw. The pain of his wartime injuries was treated with opium, and he\u2019s become addicted. On top of trying to find the murderer of his friends and persuade the police\u2014especially his old enemy, Bard\u2014to take the murders of the Chinese men seriously, he\u2019s suffering the ill effects of drug withdrawal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The story moves at breakneck speed and involves a subculture of London life not usually dealt with in mystery stories, but full of atmosphere and (mostly) charming peculiarities. It is an exciting ride, and though some of the antics must be taken with a grain of salt, it remains great fun throughout.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This new light-hearted crime adventure is a book I\u2019ve been looking forward to for some months. I already admire SJ Rozan\u2019s award-winning mysteries featuring New York City private detectives Bill Smith and Lydia Chin. Although it is The Murder of … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"My favorite detective, who lived in Tang Dynasty China 13 centuries ago, reappears in 1920s London, Holmesian mental faculties intact, plus awesome martial arts skills! Super entertaining!","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[52,1288,54,126],"tags":[468,2195,333,1417],"class_list":["post-11014","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-crime","category-culture","category-detective","category-reading-2","tag-china","tag-judge-dee","tag-london","tag-sj-rozan"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2NkiT-2RE","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11014","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11014"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11014\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11016,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11014\/revisions\/11016"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11014"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11014"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11014"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}