Master detective Judge Dee sets out to solve a puzzling double murder and discovers that complicated passions lurk beneath the seemingly tranquil landscape of academic life. A student has been murdered; a beautiful poetess is accused of whipping her maidservant to death; and further mysteries lie in the shadows of the Shrine of the Black Fox. "The China of old, in Mr. van Gulik's skilled hands, comes vividly alive again." --Allen J. Hubin, New York Times Book Review "If you have not yet discovered Judge Dee, I envy you that initial pleasure ...the discovery of a great detective story. For the magistrate of Poo-yan belongs in that select group headed by Sherlock Holmes." --Robert Kirsch, Los Angeles Times "Pleasing as a cup of jasmine tea." --Parade of Books Robert van Gulik (1910-67), a Dutch diplomat and an authority on Chinese history and culture, drew his plots from the popular detective novels that appeared in seventeenth-century China.