Take Agatha Christie and Arthur Conan Doyle, give them an authentic Chinese flavour and plop the adventure into 1920's London and you have this great murder mystery.

This has all the vintage feel of my favourite Poirot or Holmes adventure but with a brilliant cultural twist. Finally main characters who aren't upper crust, English take the limelight! Lao and Dee face more than just murderers and immigrants, willing or otherwise - they all have to deal with the strange looks, sly comments and genteel racism of 1924, London.

Lao as the shy academic with the crush on his landlady's daughter wants more than his academic career - he'd quite like to write a book. Then there is Judge Dee, we first meet him when he has been arrested for taking part in an affray. He and Lao make a great pairing.

The problems of opium addiction are never shied away from and every character had a flaw that was easy to latch onto and made them feel a bit more "life-like". The shorter chapters help to keep the fast pace going. I love learning more about Chinese culture and history. I even went and learned more about the real life persons Lao and Dee were based on.

Historical or vintage murder mystery with a new and unique voice!

The Murder of Mr. Ma is a fast paced exciting murder mystery full of action. I really enjoyed the story and the 1920s London setting is superb.

I do enjoy Sherlock Holmes so The Murder of Mr. Ma was right up my street. Add to this it focuses on a minority that can often be overlooked, named Chinese people in Britain post world war 1. I particularly loved the mixture of the crime genre with action of martial arts thrown in for good measure. I also enjoyed the realism of the follies and effects of opium addiction and usage, something that of course was prevalent in the lead up and after World War 1.
The action scenes are amazingly detailed, allowing you to visualise as you read which only added to the enjoyment of the novel. But it isn’t all action and crime. We have some exploration of the society of the time and historical facts as well. For me this helped cement my love for the novel. It’s a mixture of a good romp, fantastic action and crime thriller but also has elements of social experiences of those of Chinese origin who lived in Britain during the 1920’s.

I would like to thank Netgalley and Titan Books for an advance copy of The Murder of Mr Ma, the first novel to feature Judge Dee Ren Jie and his assistant Lao She set in London in 1924.

Judge Dee is in London to investigate the murder of Ma, a man he knows from the trenches of WWI. He meets Lao through a confluence of events and co-opts him into the investigation, but shortly after interviewing Ma’s widow another Chinese man is murdered and then another.

There is much to admire about The Murder of Mr Ma, but sadly it’s not for me. It didn’t hold my attention for two main reasons, one, Dee is an opium addict and I felt uncomfortable with his experiences and, two, there are a lot of fight scenes in the novel all told in glorious detail. I have no objection to fight scenes, but I have no visualisation skills so I felt that I was constantly wading throw scenes that made no sense to me.

With his opium addiction and preternatural intelligence Dee is obviously based on Sherlock Holmes with Lao playing Watson (very well it must be said). I don’t know anything about the other Judge Dee character to make and comparisons. This judge Dee has a well developed sense of fairness and justice and he’s not without a playful side, when he’s not indulging his vice. Lao, I think, is a more ambiguous character. He’s open and pleasant, but is keenly aware of the racism he encounters and perhaps tries too hard to fit in. What else can he do?

The plot is full of hijinks with fights, visions, plenty of roof top clambering and a very inventive defence system. I think that readers more invested than I was might even find it funny. I was impressed by the solution, which is more complicated than the rest of the novel would imply. So a high note to finish on.

The Murder of Mr Ma is an inventive read.

The Murder of Mr Ma is something a bit different in the murder mystery field,and very welcome as such. With echoes of Sherlock Holmes,who gets an acknowledgement, being set largely amongst the Chinese community of post WW1 London and with a liberal smattering of martial arts action it's great fun and a very promising beginning to a new series.

Academic Lao She's life revolves around his lectures and unrequited admiration for his landlady's daughter until he meets Judge Dee Ren Jie, a larger than life character investigating the death of a former comrade in the Chinese Labour Corps during the war.
With Lao playing Watson to the mercurial Dee's Holmes and the body count rising the pair negotiate boarding houses,opium dens and businesses in their search for the murderer,along the way meeting such luminaries as Ezra Pound and Bertrand Russell.
There are several echoes of the Holmes stories, Dee has an Opium habit and employs a gang of street urchins for information and errands,but one major difference is his "Crouching Tiger,Hidden Dragon Dragon" type martial arts skills. This threw me completely the first time Dee used drainpipes,gutters and rooftops to scoot across London and used his "lightness abilities" in a fight but once I'd got used to it it was great fun and something out of the ordinary is always good in what can be a formulaic genre.

Aside from the thrills and the fun the book describes the experience one of the less well-known ethnic groups in the London of that time, not least the virtually unknown role of the Chinese Labour Corps during the Great War..........and the appalling way they were treated in the not so great tradition of foreign helpers to our military once they're deemed no longer useful .

My only criticism is that I found some of the fight scenes quite confusing, Dee's extensive "Jackie Chan" repertoire would have worked better in more concise form , a couple are quite long and I had to drop my reading speed considerably to keep track.

That aside I loved it,not least the parts I was initially wary of when I first encountered them,Dee's seemingly gravity-defying acrobatics and one outrageous scheme in particular.
Great stuff.

This is a wonderful addition to the annals of historical mysteries-- it is refreshing to read a book placed in the 1920s which has its focus on often ignored minority in fiction. Chinese existed in 1920s London and its about time we have a historical fiction with two Chinese men as the detectives alongside their cohorts, and its about time we explore facets of society/history -- Chinese involvement in World War I, Chinese experience in London in 1920s, antiquities, opium dens etc,-- that hasn't been shown in novels yet. This book was a great romp with entertaining bits like the Springheel Jack and lovely social criticism about various things including opium use (and also our judgement of opium users), racism (and how that can look), religion and food (what? British food hadn't yet undergone its revolution to make it tasty). I can't wait for the second book and return to romping around London with them.