Judge Dee Plays His Lute: A Play and Selected Mystery Stories

Bar Harbor: Wonderly, 1997. First Edition. hardcover. One of 150 numbered copies SIGNED BY THE AUTHOR, new in Dust Jacket. The creator of Amsterdam cops Grijpstra and de Gier and Japanese Inspector Saito has been called "a superlative mystery writer" by Time. He has attracted countless fans around the world with his unique blend of urban and rural detection with just a dash of Zen. In Judge Dee Plays His Lute: A Play and Selected Mystery Stories, van de Wetering has selected an interesting and diverse group of nine stories and a play. Four stories feature members of the Amsterdam "Murder Brigade." "The Flower Print Murder" is a tale of buried sexual obsession set along the rural Maine coast. "Happy Hermits" chronicles the last days of a retired swindler at a wildlife sanctuary in the Florida Keys. "Off Season" and "Inspector Saito and the Twenty-Sen Stamp" are two very different stories set in Japan. "Judge Dee Plays His Lute" is a radio play, produced originally in Germany, about strange goings on at fellow-Dutch author Robert van Gulik's funeral, published now in English for the first time. The author's sly wit and whimsical humor are very much in evidence. When you've finished Judge Dee Plays His Lute, you'll know why The Los Angeles Times calls van de Wetering "One of the masters of the mystery form"