Judge Dee series by Robert Van Gulik

Summary :

In this series, Judge Dee, magistrate in China during the Tang Dynasty (600s). He is a semi-fictional character based on the historical figure Di Renjie, magistrate and statesman of the Tang court.

The author Robert Van Gulik came across this character in a second-hand book store in Tokyo . He then translated the book into English and used the character and style to write his own Judge Dee historical mysteries.

Mainly it deals with mysteries and crimes that Judge Dee managed to solved in the beginning of his career.

My Comments :

I have come across this series when Bookalicious posted up that they have Judge Dee books in their store.

Intrigue, I search online and found some free ebooks. The first book that I read in the series was Poisoned Bride And Other Judge Dee Mysteries . After that book, I was hooked.

I have been fascinated by Justice Bao series in the television. Justice Bao is about a good judge that is just and fair in the old days. I knew there are a lot of Judge Bao stories in Chinese books but I have not come across and English book for that. Hence am very excited to find Judge Dee series carries the same tone of stories as Judge Bao.

What I love about is that each book have a complicated plot. Judge Dee does not only solve one mystery but sometimes 2-3 cases at the same time. Plot are usually beautiful and smooth. 

It was also very helpful that the author added in the background of the ancient justice systems in either beginning or at the end of each book so that readers can understand more why and how Judge Dee can come to the said solution and on how the author took the motive from real cases that had occurred before.

However , I feel that there are some scene especially the torture and execution maybe disturbing to some people. 

I was a bit disappointed at

The Chinese Nail Murders

as it have the similar plot and solutions

Poisoned Bride And Other Judge Dee Mysteries

The last 3 books were hard for me to read as they have a heavier tone. In these 3 books, Judge Dee have more senior position . He is getting old and feeling worn out(Sounds a bit like Sherlock Holmes in his last legs?). Sad to say that some of my favourite characters in the series started to disappear. 

Overall, am giving this series 4 stars out of 5 stars

For more information, check out the series in Goodreads. 

Sneak Peek to My Library

It's unbelievable. I have not been posting here for nearly half a year. I have been busy with house moving. That was followed by year end holidays and the back to school rush.

Today have a bit of time and here is the sneak peek of the library. It's "work-in-progress".  Things are still pretty messy. Not easy to arrange over 2000 books and  at the same time feed my reading addiction.

 Finally, my pride and joy can be "released" from their jail. I do love Arthur Hailey's books very much.

 Some "light" reading to cheer me up after some depressing books.

 Who doesn't have or have not read a Dan Brown book? 

Another pride and joy. Books by a Malaysian author. Only books missing is Nanyang. It's really great to read about time before Malaysia is formed.

 My near completion of Sue Grafton alphabets series.

 Another terrific series by a talented author, Shamini Flint. The topic she touched in her books are controversial and one will appreciate it more if ones have some knowledge of history and political background on each of the country touched

 These are the "golden oldies" . My reads when I was in Primary school.

 Took quite long for me to save up my pocket monies back then to buy each book. Hopefully, one day my son will read them to improve his Bahasa Malaysia language. But then now am not sure that it will do as Bahasa Malaysia have evolved quite a lot since my days in school. 

 I bet everyone who is a keen reader would have come across or heard of Pearl S. Buck "The Good Earth "  at one time or another. But have you heard of the other titles?

Some of the older books here were trash to others while it's a treasure for me.

 Ho! Ho! Ho!...hands up who likes Harry Potter series.

Another of my addiction...Isaac Asimov series. Thanks to Thomas Heng who first introduced books from this author to me.

Well, guess it's back to work now. Will post up more reviews when I have the time.