Book excerpt: First published in the eighteenth century, Dee Goong An chronicles three of Judge Dee's celebrated cases, woven together into a novel. A double murder among merchants, the fatal poisoning of a new bride, and an unsolved murder in a small town — these crimes launch Judge Dee down the great silk routes and even into graveyards to consult the spirits of the dead. With his keen analytical wit, can he discover the killers? First of the Judge Dee books, translated by Robert van Gulik.