The Lord of Death: An Inspector Shan Investigation set in Tibet

By Eliot Pattison

Praise for the Tao Yun Shan series:

“Majestic.”—The New York Times Book Review

“A powerful picture of courage in the face of tyranny.”—The Washington Post

“Nothing I’ve read or seen about how China has systematically crushed the soul of Tibet has been as effective.”—Chicago Tribune

Shan Tao Yun is an exiled Chinese national and a former Beijing investigator on parole from the Tibetan gulag to which he had been consigned as punishment. He is ferrying a corpse on muleback over the slopes of Chomolungma—Everest—at the request of a local wisewoman who says the gods have appointed this task to him, when he encounters what looks like a traffic accident. A government bus filled with imprisoned illegal monks has overturned. Then Shan hears gunfire. Two women in an approaching sedan have been killed. One is the Chinese minister of tourism; the other, a blond Westerner, organizes climbing expeditions. Though she dies in his arms, Shan is later met with denials that this foreigner is dead.

Shan must find the murderer, for his recompense will be the life and sanity of his son, Ko, imprisoned in a Chinese “yeti factory” where men are routinely driven mad.

Eliot Pattison is an international lawyer based near Philadelphia. His five previous Shan novels have been critical and commercial successes. He won the Edgar® Award for Best First Novel and was nominated for the Crime Writers’ Association Golden Dagger.


From the Hardcover edition.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
• Release date: Jun 1, 2009
• ISBN: 9781569477922

Eliot Pattison

Eliot Pattison is the author of The Skull Mantra, which won the Edgar Award and was a finalist for the Gold Dagger, as well Water Touching Stone and Bone Mountain. Pattison is a world traveler and frequent visitor to China, and his numerous books and articles on international policy issues have been published around the world.

Reviews for The Lord of Death

[ilirwen · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I thought I'd already reviewed this book, but obviously not. There isn't all that much to add to my earlier reviews, except for one thing. At the start of this book I feared the worst for the hero and others. After I'd finished the book at least I can hope for more titles in the series, which is great. If my nerves can handle more... LOL.

[birksland · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The sixth Shan Tao Yun book. In this one, Shan is working the slopes of Mt. Everest, hauling dead bodies away when he witnesses two traffic accidents and murders. The premise moves along like the rest of the series, with Shan interviewing people as he dodges the authorities. His two previous traveling partners, a pair of Tibetan lamas from the other books, are not with him on this journey and are missed.I've read the whole series, and this book seemed to deal more with the murder story and not as much with "color," like the ways of the people and the landscape. There is still a lot of good China/Tibet details, but without the two lamas, Shan's character, and the book itself, seems to have lost some of the spirituality that it had in previous volumes. Still, I would recommend it, especially if you've been following the series.

[cbloky · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

i picked this book up at a library sale because it looked interesting. The book was good with many twists and was hard to firgure out who did it to the very end. I enjoyed learning a bit about the history of Tibetan culture

[heathrel · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I like the way that Pattison manages to interweave the plot and the characters of his novel with the history
and, especially, the landscape of Tibet without diverging too sharply into the didactic. The novel's main weakness is that a number of the characters are hard to distinguish one from another; Pattison does not do enough to separate their personalities, and it doesn't help that his main character persists in threatening one person after another in the same way: Beijing will realize how you've made a mess of things and you'll lose
everything that separates us. As an American with an interest in both China and Tibet, I think that Pattison's
decision to make his main character a Chinese person sympathetic to Tibetans and forced to live in Tibet in a manner not much elevated above the Tibetans yields some really interesting perspectives, though I am sure that both Tibetans and Chinese might construct things differently.

[millilinnea · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I thought I'd already reviewed this book, but obviously not. There isn't all that much to add to my earlier reviews, except for one thing. At the start of this book I feared the worst for the hero and others. After I'd finished the book at least I can hope for more titles in the series, which is great. If my nerves can handle more... LOL.

[revslick_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

if you're looking a political intrigue, culturally informative, and an asian Sherlock Holmes, without the racist stereotypes then try this series. It is not as good as the first ones but still holds its own.

[bezoar44 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

After a couple of books with increasingly panoramic plots, this sixth book in Pattison's Shan Tao Yun series returns to a narrower scope. There's still history here, and a fascination with cross-cultural interactions, but the story doesn't offer much hope for sweeping change in Tibet, and in that sense feels more realistic. Instead, Shan works to solve a series of interlocking murders -- including the death of a mule -- in an effort to save his son from destruction. There are a couple false notes: in this book, Shan seems to have lost some of the admirable Buddhist qualities he had picked up over several of the previous books; he's more willing to mislead or threaten. I missed the way, in previous novels, his compassion or patience often unexpectedly turned his vulnerability into a strength, but I appreciated the chance to see the pragmatic detective at work. There's also a point in the plot when Shan sneaks into a tightly-guarded secure facility. A climactic encounter happens, then the chapter ends, and as the next begins, Shan is somewhere else entirely, without a explanation of how he escaped without getting caught. But overall, the mystery is well-conceived, and should satisfy anyone hungry for the unique flavor of this series.

[lillian3_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is the 6th in the series (Shan Tao Yun). I want to go back and read the rest! The series is set in Tibet and the main character, Shan, is an exiled Chinese national. Informative perspective on the conditions Tibetans are living under ... really interesting characters.