A review by antij
The Celebrated Cases of Judge Dee (Dee Goong An) by Robert van Gulik

4.0

This is a very interesting book in how much its unlike modern western detective stories. Seeing as how its a translation of a book originally written in 18th century China about real cases solved by the Real 7th century Judge Dee, one could begin to see how this could showcase some really intriguing differences. However, reading this book in an ongoing series or other books very similar to you, could be difficult to get behind. Primarily the quickness Judge Dee moves to torture is a bit uncomfortable, especially since it rushes straight to beat him so much that he's bleeding everywhere, whether or not the person is an actual criminal or not. There's a lot of information in this addition to show that the Judge doesn't act this way lightly, for various legal reason, and it was a very different time and place, but it still makes him it fairly difficult for me to get behind him as a character.