Through his central character, Chinese political deportee and Tibetan prison detainee Shan Tao Yun, Pattison presents a compelling murder mystery which begins with the discovery of a headless corpse and a gold cigarette lighter at the site of a on road-building project. Pattison constructs a rich depiction of the tragedgy of Tibet today, the clash of race, religion and culture which threatens to eradicate an entire people and thousands of years of history, tradition and human experience. Throughout the story there is shown a Buddhist awareness of the value of any single life and the ripples of its impact on everything around it.
Pattison doesn't short change the reader on character development. Through Shan's experience of each moment, the landscape of Tibet itself emerges from setting to a character in the story.
The pacing is excellent. With the revelation of each blossom in this flower of a mystery, Pattison never releases the sense of urgency, the awareness of hidden threat to each character. Everyone has something obvious and something hidden to lose. Every action of every other character puts someone else further at an unexpected risk. Often that risk determines whether someone lives one more day. No one is immune to the threat of ruin, disappearance, erasure. No one is what he or she seems, and I was pulled expertly away from presumptive character judgments about each one from one chapter to the next.
I learned a great deal about Chinese politics, Buddhism, favored nation development deals, without having to stop to think about learning while devouring the story. I've found myself researching more on Buddhism, recent Chinese political history, and the current events of business between the US and China from having read this mystery.
This complexity and depth, a revelation of new real-world information is what I think of when I want a great read in a mystery. The mental images the Skull Mantra evokes will haunted me long after the last page was been turned.
What a great movie this could become in the right caring hands. It could easily be as much of a classic film as _Smilla's Sense of Snow_ from the novel of the same name by Peter Hoeg.
If you don't want a shallow whodunnit, this book is for you!
Greg Iles, Author of The Quiet Game and 24 Hours
I am adding this quote because I think readers who like Iles' books will also like Eliot Pattison's. The next book in this series of novels set in Asia, titled Water Touching Stone which will be out in June is even more powerful and supsenseful. Hard to imagine Pattison could top this-- but he does! Watch for this book that explores other cultures in this part of the world in the context of a great mystery novel.