{"id":24137,"date":"2024-12-15T20:57:09","date_gmt":"2024-12-16T01:57:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/?p=24137"},"modified":"2024-12-25T13:07:57","modified_gmt":"2024-12-25T18:07:57","slug":"the-murder-of-mr-ma","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/24137","title":{"rendered":"The Murder of Mr. Ma"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Murder of Mr. Ma<\/em><\/a> (2024) John Shen Yen Nee & S.J. Rozan (A Dee and Lao Mystery #1)<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>Set in London in 1924<\/p>\n

Lao She is living in London, teaching English to aspiring businessmen and politicians when he is told Judge Dee was swept up during a Chinese protest and needs to get out of jail before his enemy, now an inspector a the Met, discovers him.<\/p>\n

Both Dee and Lao were historical figures; although they lived in very different times the authors decided to place them both in London in the 1920s and allow the action to unfold.<\/p>\n

Dee is in England to take the body of a man with whom he had fought in WWI back to China, only another murder happens and Lao She is swept up in the mystery and adventure.<\/p>\n

The mystery was fun, but I have to admit that the fight scenes didn’t work for me, because I don’t see things in my mind, so those parts I skimmed.<\/p>\n

\u201cCan you fight?\u201d Dee asked me. <\/p>\n

\u201cIndeed I can,\u201d I replied. \u201cI\u2019m Manchu, born under the Plain Red Banner. There were plenty of knocks to be had in the Peking of my youth.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I can see how the fight scenes would be cinematic, they just don’t work for me.<\/p>\n

Dee had served in WWI and suffered badly from what had happened there. I don’t doubt the events as described were an amalgamation of things that happened to many in the Chinese Labour Corps (a group I knew nothing about before, but my knowledge is history is very hit or miss).<\/p>\n

Dee stayed in the shadows of the horse stall for some minutes, until, as he told me later, the visions from the trenches had begun to fade. For this was what had driven him from our company: the sight and smell of blood, the screams of men and the concussion of bombs, the pulse of mud and metal raining down.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I had read previously about how the British has used opium to manipulate the Chinese and also read about how wide-spread opium addiction was in the late 1800s and after, so it was interesting to see those two things appear in a single story.<\/p>\n

It was a fun action-packed mystery and I will want to read another.<\/p>\n

Characters<\/strong>: Lao She, Judge Dee Ren Jie, Ma Ze Ren, Captain William Bard, Hoong Liang, Miss Mary Wendell, Mrs Wendell, Mrs. Hennessey, Bertrand Russell, Dora Russell, Ezra Pound, Li Zi Rong, Colonel Livingstone Moore, Jim Finney\/Jimmy Fingers, Roger Whytecliff, Miss Clarissa Porter, Guo Song, Chin Peng Da, Mrs. Moira McCarthy, Commissioner Lin Tse Shu, Washington Jones, Reverend Robert Evans, Jiang Gwan Li, Lu Yan, Jeremiah Stone, Arthur Ward<\/p>\n

Publisher: Soho Crime<\/p>\n

Rating: 7.5\/10<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Murder of Mr. Ma (2024) John Shen Yen Nee & S.J. Rozan (A Dee and Lao Mystery #1) Set in London in 1924 Lao She is living in London, teaching English to aspiring businessmen and politicians when he is told Judge Dee was swept up during a Chinese protest and needs to get out […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[194,30,292,204,33,207,8],"tags":[403,804,805,212,806],"class_list":["post-24137","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-7-5-10","category-british","category-ebook","category-good","category-historical","category-mental-health-rep","category-mystery","tag-addiction","tag-dee-and-lao","tag-john-shen-yen-nee","tag-ptsd","tag-s-j-rozan"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/piQkW-6hj","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":24595,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/24595","url_meta":{"origin":24137,"position":0},"title":"Murder in the East End, Audio Book","author":"Michelle","date":"May 21, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"Murder in the East End, Audiobook (2020) Jennifer Ashley narrated by Anne-Marie Piazza (Below Stairs Mystery #4) Set in London in 1882 \u201cDaniel and I were raised together, and he tells me you know under what circumstances. 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