Jade Dragon Mountain

A Novel

By: Elsa Hart

Narrated by: David Shih

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.

©2015 Elsa Hart (P)2015 Macmillan Audio

Great Story

Great story, setting, characters and narration. A clever detective story. I thoroughly enjoyed this audio book and will seek out more from this author.

excellent

I really enjoyed this book. Fascinating from a historical aspect and thrilling from a mystery aspect

Terrible narration obscures the story

How could the performance have been better?

The performance is dreadful. Some characters unlistenable.

Any additional comments?

The author is done a terrible injustice with the awful narration.

Excellent

this was a delightfully written and narrated mystery. The connection with a culture unknown to me was also delightful.

Not much to the story

The history is rich and interesting but the story, to me, is predictable and flat.