Judge Dee at Work

I first encountered Judge Dee during the summer of 1974 when Judge Dee and the Monastery Murders appeared on television. It was announced as a "pilot", which excited me when I saw the film (I did not know then that a "pilot" appearing during the summer meant the series was not picked up and the network was trying to recoup some losses by using it as a fill-in). An all-oriental cast, set in historical China, a detective that had to use brains instead of bullets...alas, not for American television!

Fast forward several years. When I eventually got married, got a television and got a VCR the movie surfaced again on late-night television (nowadays late-night television is the home of infomercials, once upon a time it was the home of movies). I taped it and watched it several times. Fun stuff!

Fast forward again several more years, a couple of jobs, and a different work location. Working in downtown New York, you would occasionally come across a speciality shop. One of these was a bookstore that specialized in mysteries. At that time I was working my way through the Brother Cadfael series by Ellis Peters. Imagine my surprise when I saw several titles by Robert Van Gulik including a omnibus edition that included The Haunted Monastery! Could it be?

It was! And even better...I found that there was a bit of a Van Gulik republishing spree going on, including a collection of short stories that had a chronology. Given my anal-retentive nature of attention to detail, I was in seventh heaven. So I rapidly consumed the entire series.

Flash forward again. While digging through books, I came across these again. As it has been more than ten years, it is time to go through again. Alas, the videotape that I had made of The Monastery Muders seems to have vanished (and no DVD has been released).

Robert Van Gulik (translator); Celebrated Cases of Judge Dee (Dee Goong An): An Authentic Eighteenth-Century Chinese Detective Novel (Dover Publications, Inc.; 1976; ISBN 0-486-23337-5; cover by Robert Van Gulik).

Celebrated Cases is a translated and edited version of a real Chinese-language Judge Dee novel. It features many of the elements that Van Gulik later expanded upon for the original series entries (Dee's lieutenants, his methods of detection, etc.), but adds much that Van Gulik never really touched on again. For example, Dee would employ, in this book, a much more "vigorous" method of questioning than the rest of the series. This can be read at any time during the rest of the series, as it does not fit in with the "canon". Almost as interesting as the rest of the book are Van Gulik's notes at the end concerning his translation.

Robert Van Gulik; The Chinese Gold Murders (The University of Chicago Press; 1977; ISBN 0-226-84864-7; cover by Ed Lindlof). Summary here.

Dee's fictionalized career starts with this novel-length work with strong overtones of being several short works woven together. This comes from an approach the Van Guilik often used: several separate story threads that may or may not be linked (they are for this entry). Dee deals with murder and smuggling in the port-city of Peng-lai. The story also introduces his two trusted lieutenants ("brothers of the green wood") and his trusted oldest servant and even tosses in a touch of the supernatural. Unlike the first book, Celebrated Cases, Dee relies entirely on detective work, thinking, questioning and footwork. None of the more "extreme" methods of the first book are present.

Robert Van Guilik; Judge Dee at Work (The University of Chicago Press; 1992; ISBN 0-226-84866-3; cover by Ed Lindlof). Summary here.

The short stories in this collection span the career of Judge Dee and the book ends with a mostly-complete chronology of his fictionalized career (it misses the book Poets and Murder). All good short works that fill in the career of this ancient detective.

Made up of: Five Auspicious Clouds; The Red Tape Murder; He Came with the Rain; The Murder on the Lotus Pond; The Two Beggars; The Wrong Sword; The Coffins of the Emperor; Murder on New Year's Eve.

Counts as two entries in the 2009 Year in Shorts.

(More to come as I go through the series again!)

Robert Van Gulik; The Lacquer Screen (The University of Chicago Press; 1992; ISBN 0-226-84867-1; cover by Ed Lindlof).

Judge Dee travels to Wei-ping after a conference in the capital. Instead of relaxing, as he intended, he gets involved in a murder, an apparent suicide and a case of fraud. He spends time undercover and finds that the three cases are really one.

Addendum: The lack of The Haunted Monastery on DVD shows that there are still plenty of titles out there that might sell...maybe if the studios were to take a "print on demand" approach? Heck, I'm surprised nobody has figured out (Roddenberry = Money) that the failed pilots that Gene Roddenberry worked on (Spectre, the various Genesis II efforts and The Questor Tapes) have a certain audience.