Rating: 7/10
- Accuracy: Solid on provincial administration and on the underworld of thieves’ guilds, with van Gulik’s usual period blend.
- Plot: Travelling incognito, Judge Dee meets a fellow magistrate haunted by a lacquer screen that seems to foretell his wife’s murder.
- Clues: Ingenious and visual, centred on the painted scenes of the screen.
- Reveal: Neat, with Dee’s disguise and underworld experience paying off.
Judge Dee, travelling on official business, finds himself in a neighbouring district. There he meets its magistrate, a troubled man who fears that a lacquer screen in his house, painted with scenes that seem to change, has shown him killing his wife. Then his wife is found dead.
To investigate, Dee takes on disguise and joins a band of thieves with his assistant Chiao Tai. The episodes among the criminals give the book a lively, comic energy, and show Dee operating outside his authority.
The central mystery, based on the images in the screen, is characteristically clever, and the setting is well evoked. The interplay between official and criminal worlds is one of the more enjoyable features of the series.
The drawbacks are that the plot depends on coincidences and that the characters are again rather thin. Some readers find the disguise premise implausible.
The 7 reflects a playful and ingenious entry, lighter than the first five novels but full of invention. It is a good example of van Gulik’s ability to vary his formula.
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