
The Chinese Nail Murders
1961
First Published
4.15
Average Rating
220
Number of Pages
Part of Series
A.D. 676 In the fifth installment of Robert Van Gulik's ancient Chinese mystery series based on historical court records, detective Judge Dee is appointed to the magistrate of Pei-chow - a distant frontier district in the barren north of the ancient Chinese Empire. It is here that he is faced with three strange and disturbing crimes: the theft of precious jewels, the disappearance of a girl in love, and the fiendish murder involving the nude, headless body of a woman. And even more curious, the crimes seem to be linked together by clues from a popular game of the period, the Seven Board.
Avg Rating
4.15
Number of Ratings
1,394
5 STARS
37%
4 STARS
44%
3 STARS
17%
2 STARS
2%
1 STARS
0%
goodreads
Author

Robert van Gulik
Author · 30 books
Robert Hans van Gulik was a Dutch diplomat best known for his Judge Dee stories. His first published book, The Celebrated Cases of Judge Dee, was a translation of an eighteenth-century Chinese murder mystery by an unknown author; he went on to write new mysteries for Judge Dee, a character based on a historical figure from the seventh century. He also wrote academic books, mostly on Chinese history.