Title: The Emperor's Pearl
Subtitle: a Chinese detective story
First published: 1963
Description: It all begins on the night of the Poo-yang dragonboat races in 699 A.D.: a drummer in the leading boat collapses, and the body of a beautiful young woman turns up in a deserted country mansion.  There, Judge Dee—tribunal magistrate, inquisitor, and public avenger—steps in to investigate the murders and return order to the Tang Dynasty.
 
In The Emperor’s Pearl, the judge discovers that these two deaths are connected by an ancient tragedy involving a near-legendary treasure stolen from the Imperial Harem one hundred years earlier. The terrifying figure of the White Lady, a river goddess enshrined on a bloodstained altar, looms in the background of the investigation. Clues are few and elusive, but under the expert hand of Robert van Gulik, this mythic jigsaw puzzle assembles itself into a taut mystery.
Subjects: Mystery, Judges, Di, Renjie, in fiction, Judges in fiction, History, China in fiction, Dee Jen-Djieh (Fictitious character), Dee jen-djieh (fictitious character), fiction, China, fiction, Fiction, mystery & detective, general, Fiction, historical, Fiction
Places: China
People: Renjie Di (629-700)
Time periods: Tang dynasty, 618-907