The Skull Mantra - Softcover

Pattison, Eliot

3.91

4,658 ratings by Goodreads

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0312978340 ISBN 13: 9780312978341

Publisher: St Martins Pr, 2001

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When a headless corpse turns up on a Tibetan mountainside, veteran police inspector Shan Tao Yun is released from prison to investigate the crime, and he quickly uncovers a conspiracy involving American mining interests, corrupt Party officials, and Tibetan sorcerers. Winner of the 2000 Edgar Award for Best First Novel. Reprint.

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Review:

Once, Shan was the brightest investigator of financial corruption in Beijing; he asked the wrong questions and is serving an indefinite sentence in a labour brigade in Tibet where he has learned to love and revere the ageing monks who toil beside him. When the local prosecutor is found without his head, Shan is pulled from his barracks and obliged to investigate.

"On what grounds do you refuse, Comrade Prisoner?"
Shan did not reply. On the grounds that I cannot lie for you, he wanted to say. On the grounds that my soul has been worn to thin threads by people like you. On the grounds that the last time I tried to find the truth for someone like you I was sent to the gulag for my trouble...
Tan slowly drained his tea and shrugged. "Still, you are not permitted to refuse."

With Prosecutor Jao the fourth senior official to be killed, is there a Tibetan nationalist conspiracy? Or are the monks right to fear the return of Tamdin, demon of protective vengeance? And what is the role of the American geologists Rebecca and Kincaid? Shan is determined to find the truth before the army starts shooting his labour brigade, but wherever he turns he finds himself caught up in the contradictions of Chinese rule and his own conflicting loyalties...

This is a powerful and moving thriller whose polemic against Chinese rule in Tibet and admiration for the traditions of Tibetan Buddhism never takes over from breakneck tension and the slow deliberate unravelling of a complex and ingenious plot. The more we read, the more we are caught up in the cold chill of high plateaux and betrayal; we learn with Shan to trust nobody, and be surprised by unlikely virtue. --Roz Kaveney

Review:

"Vivid, absorbing, intriguing" (Sunday Telegraph)

"A cocktail of action adventure...a great read" (Guardian)

"Complex, crammed with Tibetan and Buddhist lore and legend, and utterly fascinating" (Daily Telegraph)

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