Intriguing!
City of Ink (Li Du Novels #3) by Elsa Hart
I have not read Hart's previous novels featuring Li Du, but I am now hooked and will remedy that mishap very soon.
The title 'City of Ink' is so fitting as one becomes aware of the novel's setting, with the frenzied hoards of scholars that have descended on the city of Beijing.
It's the early 1700's and Li Du, a scholar of some note, previously exiled from Beijing, returns to investigate his mentor's demise. His mentor was executed for conspiracy. Working as a humble clerk, the assistant to the Chief Inspector Sun of the North Borough Office, Li Du becomes involved with the murder inquiries into the death of a local factory owner's wife. As the investigation continues Li Du feels there is more to the death than it appears on the surface. However the city officials want things solved quickly. The husband is their obvious choice--but not necessarily Li Du's.
Beijing is swamped with candidates for the upcoming Civil Examinations. An occasion that can make or break a scholar and their family's future. Highly competitive, the city is rife with all sorts of high jinks and suspect practices. The Civil Examinations are the background that are part of the mix, part of the path of the investigations of the deaths and of the mystery around Li Du's private investigations. As Li Du references, "The paths to which I refer are not made of dirt and stone, but of paper and ink."
Bai Chengde an eminent scholar later says, "One cannot write the whole truth, even with an ink pot as deep as the sea.” I love that image! And the whole truth of these murders and what happened to Li Du's mentor will bring so much into the fore, into point and counterpoint. The depths of the truth are indeed multilayered.
Add to this the behaviour of various other parties that seem to touch on the subject, including the foreign priest, and Li Du finds himself walking on eggshells as past and present collide.
A captivating read!
A NetGalley ARC
*****
Comments
Post a Comment