Items related to The Skull Mantra
When a headless corpse is found on a remote Tibetan mountainside, veteran Inspector Shan Tao Yun might seem the perfect candidate to solve the crime - except that he has been stripped of rank and imprisoned in the gulag for offending the Party in Beijing. Desperate to close the case before the arrival of high-profile American tourists, the district commander has no choice but to grant a temporary release from prison for the brilliant Shan. Embittered about everything except his compulsion to find the truth, Shan soon discovers that the victim was a man notorious for persecuting Tibetan priests. Gradually, Shan exposes a massive crime machine, which can only be stopped with the help of an unlikely alliance of Americans, aged monks, and even a sorcerer. With the epic struggles of the Tibetan people as a backdrop, Shan's travails present a triumph of human values over the starkest adversity. Ultimately, THE SKULL MANTRA is a tale of great hope and great tradgedy, of incredible agreed and stalwart selflessness, of the gulf between East and West, and of the wider gulf between those who live for enlightenment and those who live for power.
"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
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.
Review:
"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
"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)
"A cocktail of action adventure...a great read" (Guardian)
"Complex, crammed with Tibetan and Buddhist lore and legend, and utterly fascinating" (Daily Telegraph)
"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.
- PublisherMinotaur Books
- Publication date2000
- ISBN 10 0312268475
- ISBN 13 9780312268473
- BindingHardcover
- Rating
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