The Poisoned Bride, and Other Judge Dee Mysteries

Judge Dee was a real Tang dynasty magistrate, but Gulik's novels are based on stories about him from the Ming period. Taking the setting and plots (and some of the literary conventions) from these stories and from other Chinese texts, and modifying them to suit Western tastes, he has created one of the more engaging detectives it has been my pleasure to encounter. Although enjoyable purely for their puzzle-solving element, what appeals most about the stories are their satisfyingly detailed and convincing settings: good historical novels set in China are relatively rare, so it is great that someone as knowledgeable as Gulik has turned his hand to the genre. Each novel has a short postscript explaining the sources used and some of the cultural background.