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Summoned by the news that a venerated teacher has been murdered and a lama is missing, an unlikely group of outcasts dashes across the remote northern reaches of the Tibetan plateau. Two old Tibetans are rushing to restore the spiritual balance caused by the violent death. A sullen resistance fighter is racing to battle a new foe. But Shan Tao Yun, the exiled former investSummoned by the news that a venerated teacher has been murdered and a lama is missing, an unlikely group of outcasts dashes across the remote northern reaches of the Tibetan plateau. Two old Tibetans are rushing to restore the spiritual balance caused by the violent death. A sullen resistance fighter is racing to battle a new foe. But Shan Tao Yun, the exiled former investigator from Beijing just released from four years in the gulag, has set out to find justice, an elusive goal among the embittered, forgotten people of western China.Guided by a spirited young Kazakh woman, Shan begins to peel away the many layers of secrets that hide the true motives of the killer, and discovers an American - an apparent infiltrator of the dissident movement - dead in the local prison, a haunting ruin of the Silk Road.
Ultimately Shan's answers can be found only by revealing still greater tragedies. Justice, in the rough form he has come to expect, is available only if he is able to pierce the hatred and distrust that has been bred by Beijing's rule.A taut thriller told by an emerging master, Water Touching Stone is one of the year's most eagerly-awaited novels. Ostensibly, this is a mystery novel, and it's a good one.
It may seem strange, then, for me to suggest that the marvelous and compelling storyline is practically irrelevant, but in some ways it is. An even greater power of this book lies in it's characterizations, it's sense of place, and it's vivid, visceral evocation of vanishing (and emerging) cultures. Set in Tibet and Central Asia amid societies being absorbed into the dominant Han Chinese political system, the novel paints such an indelibl. In this, his second novel featuring Inspector Shan, a Han Chinese political exile in Tibet, Pattison moves from southern Tibet, the setting for The Skull Mantra, to the far northwest of China, to the lands of the Kazakh and Uighur Moslem clans. The action begins in media res, Pattison immediately creating a situation of grave danger as Shan and his Tibetan companions are sent to solve the murder of a teacher and her pupils.
Buddhist and Taoist myths and philosophy are central to the narrative, a. At our bookstore, this is shelved under crime, and yet I find myself hesitating to call it crime fiction. Yes, there is a murder - there are several murders, actually - and there is crime, and there is a detective, but this was unlike any other piece of crime fiction I ever read.Although it's the second in a series of novels about detective Shan, this book was the first I read completely. I started reading the first book a while ago and even though I liked it, I didn't finish it and returned it. A beautifully and skillfully written book that weaves Tibetan Buddhist philosophy and a story of mystery and adventure. Complex and compelling, this is the second book in which the exiled Han investigator, Shan Tao Yun has to confront his fears and memories while searching for a rabid killer in the lock-down culture of Chinese controlled Tibet.Here is one insightful sample: 'The one word I would never use for Tibetans,' she said, with a strangely distant tone, is harmlessEveryone else we can tal.
One of the most amazing series of books I have ever read.Don't let the fact it is a 'detective' series dissuade you from reading them.This series gets to the heart of all that is/has been going on in Tibet.History hidden behind the label of a detective series, these books speak of Tibet, it's struggle againstthe invasion of China, how the Chinese tried to wipe out Buddhism, it's monks, and a way of life that has existed for thousands of years. This series will make your soul cry, make your spiri. A murderer is preying on a group of orphans and their teacher as disappeared. In response a disgraced former Chinese investigator and his Tibetan mentors sally forth.
As they seek to prevent further deaths they come across the resistance, kazakhs and uighers seeking to maintain their culture and the han chinese settling in their lands. The book is more than a crime thriller, it is equal part an exploration of tibetan culture and a travelogue. It is on this third dimension that the book worked be. This is the second of Pattison's books that I've read. I think both are great.
I'm sure that his writing style will remind most mystery fiction fans of Tony Hillerman. However, there is an important difference. Hillerman's mysteries certainly have deeper spiritual and cultural themes at their foundation compared to the average mystery, but Pattison's presentation of these themes is much more rich than Hillerman's. In any case, I appreciate the challenge of having more to think about than who wil.
While I was reading this book, the news broke of the 101st self-immolation of a Tibetan in Nepal since 2009. The self-immolaters are protesting the Chinese occupation of their homeland. It was a sad reminder that, even though these books are fiction, they are based on very real events; namely, the sixty-year-long effort by China to subjugate Tibet and obliterate its culture and religion.Of course, for the traditional Tibetan, culture and religion are very much the same thing.
Evidently, that is. Now inspector Shan finds himself traveling the length and breadth of Tibet looking for a killer. A teacher among the herdsmen has been killed and when he arrives in the mountains, he finds one of her students also has been murdered. Shan vows to find the killer though he must remain out of sight from the always menacing Chinese presence throughout the country. As the story turns, we experience a complex and far reaching mystery of murder and international intrigue, along with may fascinating ins. BEWARE: One man's bookflap summary is another man's spoiler.My heart is full after reading this book.
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As with the first book, 'Water Touching Stone' succeeds on all levels: character exposition, plot, but especially on meaningful themes, vivid descriptions of the landscape (both natural and man-made) as well as the author's elegant language.The later Shan books fall short, in this regard, compared to the first two.After I'd read Pattison's first investigator Shan novel, 'The Skull Mantra,' I sea. I liked this book a lot, especially the sense of place and setting that it offered was great, you really get a feeling of how important culture, tradition and identity are to the peoples of Tibet and Xinjiang, and how they struggle to keep these (their very heart and soul) intact under Chinese rule. I say 'liked' and not 'loved' (hence the 3 instead of 4 stars), this is mostly because I was just more impressed with the first book of the series, The Skull Mantra, and in the end I didn't feel as i. Enjoyable mystery in the mysterious land of Tibet. This is a fast read, nearly as good as his first (Skull Mantra), but burdened a little with his political messages (free Tibet, etc). It's not that these messages aren't worthy, they can be ever-present.
But for a unique mystery, this is it. By weaving a mystery novel, with an unusual protagonist, against a very mysterious and seldom glimpsed land (Tibet under Chinese rule), Pattison makes this an irresistible read. It's rare to have a truly uni. Pattison’s 2nd book after the brilliant Skull Mantra.
It is pretty good. I still really liked Shan, the tidbits about the Tibetan Buddhist monk Lokesh’s practices and attitudes of supreme letting go into the childlike innocence and joy of life. The Taoist I Ching phrases also are intriguing. In this book, Shan is sent by the monks to the Northwest of Tibet inhabited by Islamic horse loving Kazahk because a boy has died and a monk is missing.
It is certainly not surprising when the boy is a t. I don't know what 'worshiping the god within' means. I think Pattison is good at story telling, the culture and the setting, but he's definitely not a Buddhist, even if he could be sympathetic. 'Worshiping the god within,' sees Buddhism as a good human teaching, that has nothing transcendent and that is offensive to me. Supposedly some lamas were happy after going to a meeting with the Pope, because he said it was a good human teaching-meaning it had nothing to do with the transcendental.
Eliot Pattison brilliantly fuses his deep knowledge of Chinese history, anthropology, and politics with the classical mystery genre, but this is more than a series of mystery books; it is a plea to understand modern Tibet and the persecution of the Tibetan people. Here, Pattison takes his love and respect for the Tibetan people and expands it to the Muslims of the Xianjiang Autonomous Region. 'Water Touching Stone' fails to reach the heights of 'The Skull Mantra:' it's too confusing and there is. Even better than his first book, 'The Skull Mantra', this book continues the story of Inspector Shan Tao Yun, former Beijing official imprisoned in Tibet.Now free to walk around Tibet, Shan risks imprisonment by venturing into Xinjiang, to solve the mystery of a dead teacher, and try and stop the killer of her wards, the orphans of the 'Zheli'. The story has twists and turns, but what is more compelling is Pattison's description of the beautiful country, the Tibetan monks, Kazakhs, Uighurs and t. Complex and multi-layered?
Yes, but mostly just confusing-very, very confusing. I just found it next to impossible to follow the action in this novel as the characters bopped back and forth and back and forth again to the various locales, looking for something or other-never well defined.
I yawned my way through interminable descriptions of landscapes and geological formations that I could little picture nor understand, but mostly I scratched my head trying to fathom the motives and purposes o. Water Touching Stone: an Inspector Shan Tao Yun mystery, by Elliott Pattison, a-minus, Borrowed from the Library for the Blind.In this one ShanTao, no longer an Inspector from Beijing, and just recently released from prison camp, is asked by his Tibetan monk friends to find out why a beloved teacher has been killed, and why the orphans she educated, children around the age of 10, are being systematically murdered as well.
At first it appears to be a serial killer, but Shan soon realizes that the. This is the second story of Shan Tao Yun, the former Beijing investigator turned prisoner and Buddhist. He's sent to investigate the death of a venerated Buddhist teacher and lama and finds himself embroiled in the politics of a different kind.There are stretches of this book that resonated deeply with me and pulled me in only for me to reluctantly surface but then the political message would jar me out of the pleasure of reading it. The message is very heavy-handed and I did want to occasionall. I was told that this isn't as good as the first one, but for me - no. I don't see how it could have been made better. It is long book, and maybe hard for some to get through, but I was so involved in what was going on, and the characters, and the mystery(s) that I didn't really notice.
I am a slow reader, and it took me a while, but I definitely speeded up the last fifty pages, I couldn't help myself. Anyway it is a murder mystery, sort of, taking place in Chinese occupied areas in and near Tibe. Is there a Detective Lama? If there is, then Inspector Shan must be him. Shan is again in the borderlands of China. He's traveling with a purba, Lokesh, and Gendun.
He meets an army of Maos, a prosecutor with a conscience, clans of horsemen, a wonderful camel, the second best lama in his tenth best incarnation, lots of greedy government officials, and too many wounded fathers. There is much information in Pattison's mysteries.
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Sometimes he is a little clumsy about revealing it. In spots you can. Definitely not as good as The Skull Mantra, but I liked it well enough. There's lots of moving around through various locales, and I found that somewhat difficult to follow.
I just couldn't keep all the places and their significance straight. This may have more to do with my having read the first half of the book about two months before the second half than the writing, but most of the traveling around seemed somewhat superfluous to the story. I think I shall wait a while before reading the next. If you've ever wondered what all the fuss is about freeing Tibet, reading this series will make things pretty clear - BUT, don't try to read any of these books in a limited time period. They start slowly - Pattison spends a lot of time building the foundation of a very complex story, and then slowly begins to reward your patience by providing answers here and there along the way, while at the same time presenting new questions.The story is heartbreaking, and at the same time filled with hope - I. I love all inspector Chan mysteries, they go beyond what one would expect. I am always so grateful that the traditions of Buddhism are part of the story line and some of the hidden mysteries are revealed.
The problems that Chan faces as a 'hidden' Buddhist ex Chinese investigator, are filled with tragedy and moral challenges that hopefully I will never have to face. In writing these expose's on what China is doing to the Tibetans' Pattison supports the efforts of everyone who is trying to help t.
Eliot Pattison - Edgar Award winning Eliot Pattison has been described as a 'writer of faraway mysteries,' a label which is particularly apt for someone whose travel and interests span a million miles of global trekking, visiting every continent but Antarctica. An international lawyer by training, Pattison first combined his deep concerns for the people of Tibet with his interest in fiction writing in The Skull Mantra, which launched the popular Inspector Shan series. The series has been translated into over twenty languages around the world. Both The Skull Mantra and Water Touching Stone were selected by for its annual list of ten best new mysteries. Water Touching Stone was selected by Booksense as the number one mystery of all time for readers' groups. The newest installment, Soul of Fire, was included in Publisher's Weekly's list of 'Best Book of 2014'. Pattison's fascination with the 18th century American wilderness and its woodland Indians led to the launch of his second critically acclaimed Bon.