{"id":662,"date":"2008-09-21T15:07:26","date_gmt":"2008-09-21T19:07:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/?p=662"},"modified":"2026-03-22T10:37:54","modified_gmt":"2026-03-22T14:37:54","slug":"precious-dragon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/662","title":{"rendered":"Precious Dragon"},"content":{"rendered":"

Precious Dragon<\/em> (2007) Liz Williams<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>The third Detective Inspector Chen novel, it seems as if recent activities have brought Chen and Zhu Irzh to the attention of authorities, and they are charged with escorting the emissary from Heaven, Miss Qi, through Hell.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, an old woman arranges the marriage of her only daughter, and soon after is entrusted to care for her only grandson. And elsewhere, a teenage boy who sings in the chorus of the Opera is pulled into a mystery that tangentially involves Chen and Zhu Irzh.<\/p>\n

By the end, everyone is involved including Chen’s wife, Zhu Irzh’s mother, and the Badger Teakettle, and we taken a rather thorough tour of Hell.<\/p>\n

Although there are rather strong elements of horror in the story (particularly the time spent in the Ministry of Lust) I didn’t find it particularly disturbing. Possibly because at least some of the characters treat their surroundings in such a matter-of-fact manner it was easy for me to do the same.<\/p>\n

As with previous books, Precious Dragon<\/em> is a complete story arc, however, this story builds upon previous stories, and it looks like future books in the series will continue to do so. You should be able to read this book without having read the previous books in the story, but as usual I recommend going back and reading the series in order.
\nRating: 8\/10<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Precious Dragon (2007) Liz Williams The third Detective Inspector Chen novel, it seems as if recent activities have brought Chen and Zhu Irzh to the attention of authorities, and they are charged with escorting the emissary from Heaven, Miss Qi, through Hell. Meanwhile, an old woman arranges the marriage of her only daughter, and soon […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","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":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[31,2,8,291,42,16],"tags":[127,126,655],"class_list":["post-662","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-asian","category-fantasy","category-mystery","category-paper","category-police","category-supernatural","tag-detective-inspector-chen","tag-liz-williams","tag-violence"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/piQkW-aG","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":4240,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/4240","url_meta":{"origin":662,"position":0},"title":"Precious Dragon","author":"Michelle","date":"December 21, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Precious Dragon (2007) Liz Williams The third Detective Inspector Chen book finds Chen back at work, and, after having stopped a rampaging goddess in the previous book, Chen and Zhu Irzh must now suffer the attentions of the public, and, more specifically, the accolades of part of the government of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "8.5\/10"","block_context":{"text":"8.5\/10","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/8-5-10"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/Precious-Dragon.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":26409,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/26409","url_meta":{"origin":662,"position":1},"title":"Precious Dragon","author":"Michelle","date":"March 21, 2026","format":false,"excerpt":"Precious Dragon (2007) Liz Williams (Detective Inspector Chen #3) Detective Inspector Chen and Zhu Irzh are taken from their current cases and sent to Hell to escort the Celestial, Miss Qi. \u201cMiss Qi will be coming with us, then?\u201d Chen asked, more to stave off yet another difficult discussion than\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "8\/10"","block_context":{"text":"8\/10","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/8-10"},"img":{"alt_text":"Precious Dragon","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/Precious-Dragon-200x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":25939,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/25939","url_meta":{"origin":662,"position":2},"title":"Snake Agent","author":"Michelle","date":"March 15, 2026","format":false,"excerpt":"Snake Agent (2005) Liz Williams (Detective Inspector Chen #1) It's been more than half a decade since I last read this series, and I'd forgotten how much SF and horror it has. Probably because both are far less important than the fantasy and mystery, and neither the SF or the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "9\/10"","block_context":{"text":"9\/10","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/9-10"},"img":{"alt_text":"Snake Agent","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/Snake-Agent-199x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":384,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/384","url_meta":{"origin":662,"position":3},"title":"The Demon and the City","author":"Michelle","date":"May 29, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"The Demon and the City (2006) Liz Williams After reading The Snake Agent, I've been looking forward the reading the next Detective Inspector Chen book. (In fact, the paperback edition has been on pre-order for several months.) As with many authors I like, after getting a book, I'm hesitant to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "8\/10"","block_context":{"text":"8\/10","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/8-10"},"img":{"alt_text":"The Demon and the City","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.klishis.com\/Books\/images\/demon_and_the_city.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":25946,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/25946","url_meta":{"origin":662,"position":4},"title":"The Demon and the City","author":"Michelle","date":"March 18, 2026","format":false,"excerpt":"The Demon and the City (2006) Liz Williams (Detective Inspector Chen #2) \u201cI\u2019m here about an irregularity in your feng shui dowsing license,\u201d the demon said. \u201cMy name\u2019s Seneschal Zhu Irzh. Want to see my badge?\u201d At this point he had produced a piece of paper which, to Paravang\u2019s horrified\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "8\/10"","block_context":{"text":"8\/10","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/8-10"},"img":{"alt_text":"The Demon and the City","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/Demon-and-the-City-200x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2358,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/2358","url_meta":{"origin":662,"position":5},"title":"The Iron Khan","author":"Michelle","date":"April 30, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"The Iron Khan (2010) Liz Williams I stumbled across The Snake Agent in 2007, and since then have eagerly bought books in the Detective Inspector Chen series whenever they came out. However, at some point finding those books was getting to be more and more difficult. Scuttlebutt has it that\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "8\/10"","block_context":{"text":"8\/10","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/8-10"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/Iron-Khan.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/662","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=662"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/662\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=662"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=662"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=662"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}