The Inspector Shan Tao Yun Series by Eliot Pattison


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Highly recommended, especially to those interested in political resistance against overwhelming odds, Buddhism, China, indigenous peoples, and stories of personal redemption.

Exiled from Beijing to Tibet, Shan builds a new life with the Buddhist monks who live in a hidden monastery in the mountains.

Awesome!This book fascinates in so many ways: as an intricate murder investigation, as an insider's tour of unreachable Tibet, as a heartrending lament for a people and a culture, as a heart-stopping thriller pitting the all powerful Colonel Tan against the supremely vulnerable prisoner Shan.

Breaking rocks for a roadbed, a prison work gang finds the decapitated body of a prosperous man.

The Skull Mantra (1999, Inspector Shan #1)

Another astonishing Inspector Shan book. This time, Shan hunts a murderer in Xinjiang, a nomadic culture of ethnic Tibetans, Uyghurs, and Kazakhs. Words fail me as I try to describe how vivid and rich a world this is. Read this book right now, if you haven't. FYI This and Skull Mantra are the strongest of the series. If you can only read two, read these.

Someone is murdering Tibetan orphans in Xinjiang.

Water Touching Stone (2001, Inspector Shan #2)

Bone Mountain

(2002, Inspector Shan #3)

I loved this one too. It isn't as majestic as the first three books in the series—the scale of this one seems smaller, but still a fine, fine book.

Shan discovers a corpse during a ceremony to reconsecrate the ruins of a monastery destroyed during the Chinese occupation.

Beautiful Ghosts (2004, Inspector Shan #4)

Paperback

If you haven't read any of the books in this series, start with the first one, The Skull Mantra. If you're hooked on Shan, you have to read this book (The Prayer of the Dragon) too. You don't need me to tell you that...

Shan struggles to save a Navajo-American judge who has been imprisoned in a small village.

Prayer of the Dragon (2007, Inspector Shan #5)

If you haven't read any of the books in this series, start with the first one, The Skull Mantra. If you're hooked on Shan, you have to read this book (The Lord of Death) too. You don't need me to tell you that...

Shan stumbles into a government cover-up when he is carrying a corpse across a mountain pass

Excerpts from Reviews

“Rich and multilayered stories that mirror the complexity of the surrounding land.”

—San Francisco Chronicle

“Pattison amazes and astounds with some of the most compelling prose out there. ”

—BookReporter.com

"Reviewers frequently compare a new writer to Tony Hillerman; here is a truly possible successor."

—Boston Globe

“Shan becomes our Don Quixote. . . . Set against a background that is alternately bleak and blazingly beautiful, this is at once a top-notch thriller and a substantive look at Tibet under siege.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“Pattison thrills both mystery enthusiasts and reader fascinated by, and concerned about, Tibet.”—Booklist

WHO IS SHAN TAO YUN?

Man on Run with Band of Renegade Monks

Shan Tao Yun was an up-and-coming investigator working for the Beijing government, until the day he discovered evidence dangerous to a powerful government official. The official imprisoned Shan in the Chinese gulag.

Eventually, a battered, brutalized and barely breathing Shan lands in a lao gai camp in Tibet where his fellow prisoners—Buddhist monks—bring him back to some semblance of life. In return, Shan uses his investigator's savvy and his understanding of the Chinese bureaucracy to help the Tibetans however he can.

Highly recommended to those who like tough-as-nails heroes like Martin Cruz Smith's Arkady Renko.