A diabolically clever puzzle mystery that could only be solved by Judge Dee, a detective the Los Angeles Times ranked with Sherlock Holmes <p/> Judge Dee presided over his imperial Chinese court with a unique brand of Confucian justice. A near mythic figure in China, he distinguished himself as a tribunal magistrate, inquisitor, and public avenger. Long after his death, accounts of his exploits were celebrated in Chinese folklore, and later immortalized by Robert van Gulik in his electrifying mysteries. <p/> In The Phantom of the Temple, three separate puzzles--the disappearance of a wealthy merchant's daughter, twenty missing bars of gold, and a decapitated corpse--are pieced together by the clever judge to solve three murders and one complex, gruesome plot.
