The Eunuch
This debut novel, set in Jin Dynasty (12th-century) China, is a unique historical mystery. Most procedurals feature an arbitrary deadline imposed by superiors to quicken the plotting. This offering ups the ante—life is cheap in this incredibly complicated bureaucracy, no matter how high up the food chain the bureaucrat dwells. There is the usual territorialism and danger engendered by palace politics, mercenary jockeying for place combined with capricious culling by the emperor. Yet even investigative success can mean death if it uncovers certain perpetrators or tangentially offends the wrong person. Chief Investigator and Eunuch of Standing Gett must quickly navigate a complex mystery, the solving of which is secondary to staying alive in this environment. The result for him is a state of “constant, bone-crushing tension.” One of the emperor’s concubines is found murdered in a locked antechamber that would seem to leave the emperor as the only viable suspect. The emperor can murder whomever he chooses with complete impunity, so if he didn’t do it, why would someone bother to implicate him?
The hierarchies in the court, in the harem, and especially racial between the reigning minority Jurchens and the Chinese, add depth and nuance to what is essentially a locked-room mystery. Sense of place is strong. Gett is an intriguing protagonist, his motivations and thought processes engaging, and the prose is skillful in its evocations (e.g., “The question… was in his mind like a heavy stone, rolling about and crushing his other thoughts”). This is an accomplished novel with a fascinating setting and appealing historical-cultural immersion—a standout in the genre.
