The Chinese Maze Murders

A Judge Dee Mystery

By: Robert van Gulik

Narrated by: Peter Kim

The very first mystery in the beloved series starring Judge Dee, a detective whom the Los Angeles Times ranked with Sherlock Holmes!

Join the T'ang Dynasty detective Judge Dee on his very first full-length mystery! Poisoned plums, a cryptic scroll picture, passionate love letters, and a hidden murderer with a penchant for torturing and killing women lead Judge Dee to the heart of the Governor’s garden maze and the answers to three interwoven mysteries. This book kicked off Robert van Gulik's long-running series and introduced countless listeners to a cozy, clever series and the incredible detective at its center. Listen to this one, and you'll quickly find yourself seeking out the whole series.

This audiobook is expertly read by Peter Kim, with audio engineering by Sam Platt. It was produced and published by Echo Point Books & Media, an independent bookseller in Brattleboro, Vermont.

©2024 Robert van Gulik (P)2025 Echo Point Books & Media, LLC

Judge Dee is a great read

Judge Dee is a great read, and I'm really glad this has been made into an audio book. I hope they record all of the author's Judge Dee series.

Love Van Gulik’s Judge Dee mysteries and I hope they all are produced

IYKYK about a Judge (or Detective) Dee, a real historical figure during the reign of notoriously vicious Empress WuTzutian, van Gulik expanded upon the contemporary records of hDee’s feats of deduction to about 15 novels, all pretty entertaining and rich with accurate details that let the reader/listener go to a far away empire and distant past. As for the narrator, Philip Kim, I find his work a reading rather than a dramatic performance but very in keeping with the style of the written novels as translated into English. I like him a lot. Name pronunciation is mixed but the publisher is based in Vermont and has access to a well regarded Chinese studies dept at Middlebury College for definitive ways to say. Wade Giles system Van Gulik uses has its quirks and differs a lot from weird Imo Pinyin so…

A reader rather than a narrator

The narrator is merely reading the text. Initially that bothered me but as the book progressed the pleasure of the story outweighed the deficiencies of the reader. I plan to purchase more books in this series. Perhaps the reader will become more animated.

Suffers from marginal narration

The monotone delivery of the text made it difficult to distinguish the various characters engaged in dialogue.