Prayer of the Dragon: An Inspector Shan Investigation Set in Tibet

The author describes life in Chinese controlled Tibet, with a hint of the supernatural. The Navajo - Tibet connection is novel and unique to mystery fiction as far as I know. Many of the characters from the series are back. A trip to a place most of us can only imagine.

These books are not for the faint-hearted. They require patience. You can't speed read through them and expect to understand. That said, Prayer of the Dragon remains true to the style and themes of the earlier books in the series (e.g.,The Skull Mantra (Inspector Shan Tao Yun)) and keeps you wondering what on earth is happening. With seemingly supernatural invocations at every turn, there is always a practical and believable result...the reader is required to perservere. Along the way one gets incredible lessons about people and life in another, very different place.

Eliot Pattison,as usual, weaves a tightly knit mystery set in a background most of us have only heard about. He makes both the background and the characters come alive. It is rare when I dread a book ending but with this, I did....the reader can't help but want more. It is told with Shan as the main character, but Pattison makes us identify with many of the three dimensional characters he introduces. As in life, no one is either all good or all bad. And, an added plus is that we end this book knowing far more about Tibet.....and the Navaho cultures than we could ever imagine.

Eliot Pattison has come through once again for mystery lovers who want a book that both challenges the mind and stimulates the imagination. When I read his first book years ago, I described it as Tony Hillerman meets the Dalai Lama. This book brings that description to life in spades. Perhaps the most easily read of the Shan books, Prayer of the Dragon kept me up late into the night three evenings in a row and when I finished it, I had both a feeling of satisfaction and an itch to read whatever comes next. This is one series well worth suggesting to patrons of my library who are looking for a thinking person's author. Thank you Eliot Pattison for coming through yet again.

In a secret lamasery high in the Tibetan Himalayas Sleeping Dragon Mountain near the village of Drango the monks summon former Beijing special investigator Shan, who lives nearby having escaped from imprisonment. He and his close friends Lokesh and Gendun are shown two mutilated corpses whose arms were removed and an unconscious stranger, who is not Tibetan, Chinese, or Nepalese lying nearby. The monks want to execute the comatose man believing he killed and eviscerated the victims. The former People's Republic of China detective convinces the monks to give him some time to investigate and learn the truth. He knows he must solve the case fast as every moment the stranger lives places the monks in jeopardy. Shan learns the survivor of the tragedy is an American Navajo who accompanied by his niece seeks the ancient ties between Tibetan Buddhism and his people's belief in Bon. As Shana and his two Lama pals continue their inquiries, the trio will soon be shocked by the evil connection between their ancient belief systems and the cynicism of the modern world. The Shan mysteries are some of the best written as the audience will feel they are on top of the world (see BONE MOUNTAIN, THE SKULL MANTRA and BEAUTIFUL GHOSTS). The investigation is cleverly designed so that the reader obtains a strong whodunit, but also a deep look at life in Tibet especially at a lamasery. This is another winner with the added bonus of the connection between Tibetan Buddhism and the Navaho religion. Harriet Klausner