The Railway Conspiracy
“fun, a dizzy mashup of genres: detective fiction, political intrigue, martial arts combat, with some humor thrown in. . . . highly entertaining.”
The real Di Renjie was a county magistrate of the Tang Court (in power from 618–907) who became the subject of an 18th century Chinese mystery novel, Di Goong An. That novel was discovered in an antiquarian bookstore by Robert van Gulik, a fascinating Dutch Sinologist and statesman.
Van Gulik translated the book into English, then decided to write his own ten Judge Dee novels during the 1950s and 1960s. Since the success of van Gulik’s works, other authors have tried to keep Judge Dee alive. French novelist Frédéric Lenormand’s 19 Judge Dee novels have not been translated into English. The great Chinese-born American mystery writer Qiu Xialong has recently brought Judge Dee back to life in his novel In the Shadow of the Empire (2021).
John Shen Yen Nee and S.J. Rozan’s Judge Dee Is quite different from the scholarly Dee of earlier novels. S.J. Rozan is known for her Lydia Chin and Bill Smith mysteries, set in present New York City. John Shen Yen Nee has spent much of his life as an executive at D.C. Comics and, later, Marvel Comics. Their Judge Dee operates in London in the 1920s and is a master of disguise and martial arts. His is accompanied on his crime solving forays by a young scholar, Lao She, who, like Sherlock Holmes’ Dr. Watson, narrates.
In this, the second of Nee and Rozan’s novels, Dee is at first sent to recover a “dragon taming” mace to its rightful owner, the glamorous, brilliant Madame Wu. He is aided by Lao She and the rest of Dee’s motley crew: Jimmy, a cockney pickpocket, and Sergeant Hoong, a former policeman who now owns a tea shop.
The first sentence of The Railway Conspiracy is “It seems every tale of. Dee Ren Jie begins with a fight.” The battle between Dee’s odd foursome and a giant Russian and a wiry Japanese fighter and their henchmen is the first of a series of elaborate skirmishes that show Dee’s prowess at martial arts. The reader can almost imagine the “BAM,” “POW,” and “THWACK” of comic book captions emblazoned on the page. Dee has appeared at this brawl in a bizarre, frightening disguise that he dons for a number of these battles. Such flying exhibitions of martial arts are better seen than read. A Chinese-produced Judge Dee Netflix series, set in the era of the original novels, gives the magistrate plenty of thrilling fight scenes that would shock Dee’s original creators.
Why is our Chinese judge hired by a Chinese businesswoman battling a Russian and a Japanese? The elaborate plot of The Railway Conspiracy involves political coups involving all three countries being coordinated out of London. The goal is to restore non-communist autocrats to power in the three countries. As Dee tries to unravel the complicated plot, murders and explosions rock the foggy city. Dee and his band, which expands to include a young woman with Ninja skills and a wily dog, try to avert a geopolitical nightmare.
Lao is an excellent Dr. Watson-like narrator. His creators have given him a clever way to tell the reader what he experienced and what is going on elsewhere that is recounted to him. Dee’s switching of personae strains credibility, but The Railway Conspiracy is meant to becfun, a dizzy mashup of genres: detective fiction, political intrigue, martial arts combat, with some humor thrown in. Judge Dee meets Sherlock Holmes meets kung fu movies with some history holding it together. The result is highly entertaining.