Jade Dragon Mountain, Elsa Hart
Jade Dragon Mountain, Elsa Hart
List: $26.99 | Sale: $18.89
Club: $13.49

Jade Dragon Mountain
A Mystery

Author: Elsa Hart

Narrator: David Shih

Unabridged: 11 hr 55 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 09/01/2015

Synopsis

On the mountainous border of China and Tibet in 1708, a detective must learn what a killer already knows: that empires rise and fall on the strength of the stories they tell.

Li Du was an imperial librarian. Now he is an exile. Arriving in Dayan, the last Chinese town before the Tibetan border, he is surprised to find it teeming with travelers, soldiers, and merchants. All have come for a spectacle unprecedented in this remote province: an eclipse of the sun commanded by the Emperor himself.

When a Jesuit astronomer is found murdered in the home of the local magistrate, blame is hastily placed on Tibetan bandits. But Li Du suspects this was no random killing. Everyone has secrets: the ambitious magistrate, the powerful consort, the bitter servant, the irreproachable secretary, the East India Company merchant, the nervous missionary, and the traveling storyteller who can't keep his own story straight.

Beyond the sloping roofs and festival banners, Li Du can see the mountain pass that will take him out of China forever. He must choose whether to leave, and embrace his exile, or to stay, and investigate a murder that the town of Dayan seems all too willing to forget.

About Elsa Hart

Elsa Hart is the author of several acclaimed mystery novels set in eighteenth-century China, including City of Ink, one of Publishers Weekly’s Best Books of 2018. She was born in Rome, but her earliest memories are of Moscow, where her family lived until 1991. Since then she has lived in the Czech Republic, the U.S.A., and China. She earned a B.A. from Swarthmore College and a J.D. from Washington University in St. Louis School of Law.

Reviews

Goodreads review by H (no longer expecting notifications) Balikov on December 12, 2017

China – Three centuries ago A Solar Eclipse that might change the course of a ruling dynasty The Murder of a Jesuit priest A Clash of Cultures in a distant corner of a vast empire Elsa Hart deftly mixes a beautiful setting full of the sounds and smells of a 18th Century Chinese outpost with an iconic in......more

Goodreads review by Renata on March 24, 2018

When I was ten years old, my favorite possession was a Chinese coolie hat in pale aqua and tan. This was during the China phase of my life when I would sit in the school library during lunch and copy out the Chinese calligraphy from a Time-Life book on China. What a nerdy kid I was when not climbing......more

Goodreads review by Emma on March 04, 2022

The context and setting of this story were rich and evocative, fascinating reading. However the mystery itself wasn’t that good, nor the character development.......more

Goodreads review by Patricia on November 03, 2015

I loved this book and hope there will be more written about Li Du, the traveling scholar. "Jade Dragon Mountain" takes place during the Qing dynasty mid 1600's in China. I enjoy reading about places and times I know I will never experience and Elsa Hart's writing was excellent for making the culture......more

Goodreads review by Eilonwy on June 01, 2020

Li Du, banished royal librarian, has travelled to the far edge of China. When he pays a visit to his cousin, a magistrate, he learns that the Emperor is about to make an appearance, in conjunction with an eclipse of the sun. Li Du’s plans to hasten on his way are changed when a Jesuit monk, a gue......more

Add to Cart
Add to Wish List