Retribution for a Murdered Son

A widow takes a lover, a monk, and when her young son sees too much, the boy is murdered and hidden. Retribution for a Murdered Son follows the crime, the cover-up and the patient magistrate who uncovers it. Based on a notorious case that was also a banned stage play, it is a grim, gripping nineteenth-century crime novel. This is a complete new English translation, with names in modern pinyin and the text rendered as plain, readable English prose. Every case is short and self-contained, and together they form one of the roots of the Chinese detective story, long before Judge Dee reached the West. The plotting is brisk, the clues are concrete, and the picture of daily life, from village quarrels to the magistrate's yamen, is as interesting as the crimes themselves.