This book is very different from the rest of the Judge Dee series, a collection of eight short stories rather than a full-length or half-length “novel”. They’re very quick to read and are meant to give an illustration of Judge Dee’s methods of detection. Most of them are rather clever and I enjoyed them a great deal. One involves Chiao Tai and Ma Joong, two of Judge Dee’s lieutenants, handling a case more or less on their own (till Judge Dee returns to wrap up), plus one that shows Judge Dee screwing up twice – but two wrongs make a right in this case. A nice collection of stories.

As a bonus, at the end of the book there are a few pages giving a chronology of the mysteries, which was a helpful summary for me.