The Skull Mantra (Inspector Shan Tao Yun) by Eliot Pattison

Below is my review of The Skull Mantra (Inspector Shan Tao Yun) by Eliot Pattison.

The Edgar Awards are presented every year by the Mystery Writers of America. They honor the best in mystery fiction, non-fiction, television, film, and theatre published or produced in the previous year. The awards are technically the Edgar Allan Poe Awards.

Some Tibet info. Learn about gompas.


(Photo of the Potala Palace near Lhasa is from Pondstone Communications Blog)
Another review at:

BookLoons Reviews - Skull Mantra by Eliot Pattison

"I don't believe everything I read on a book's cover, but when the blurb on The Skull Mantra compares this thriller to greats like Gorky Park and Smilla's Sense of Snow, it's dead on. Pattison has written a remarkable first novel, which places an indomitable protagonist in the disturbing political setting of contemporary Tibet. Who hasn't heard of the plight of the Tibetan people after the brutal Chinese takeover with its erasure of ancient monasteries, genocidal treatment of monks and nuns, and forced labor camps?"

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My review:

The Skull Mantra earned Pattison the 2000 Edgar Award for best first novel from the Mystery Writers of America. The story is set in contemporary Tibet. The mystery centers around the efforts of imprisoned former detective Shan Tao Yun to solve a string of murders of high-ranking Chinese officials. The powers-that-be are bent on pining the murders on several Tibetan Buddhist monks. When the headless body of the local prosecutor is discovered by Shan's prison labor gang, he is allowed to investigate the crime by Colonel Tan, the local ranking official. Having spent three years sharing close quarters with imprisoned monks, Shan is highly skeptical that a monk is behind this murder.

The lives of the Tibetan monks and all Tibetans under Chinese domination are Pattison's real focus. That focus raises this book above its rather convoluted and, shall we say, unlikely mystery (are disgraced Chinese detectives really given more-or-less free rein to investigate murders?). Pattison also explores beliefs of Tibetan Buddhists. The demon Tamdin is central to the story, but of greater interest we also learn about gompas, the fortress-like monasteries where traditional practices are studied and passed on; and we learn about gomchen or great meditators; and we learn about the painstaking creation of beautiful sand mandalas, which, once completed, are destroyed.

Pattison sheds light on the Chinese treatment of Tibet, and especially the Buddhist monks; the treatment seems to swing between bad and abhorrent. For example, Shan learns that during the Cultural Revolution the Red Guard seized and destroyed ancient Buddhist manuscripts and used the shreds to line their latrine. Tibetans have been killed or imprisoned, as well. The Chinese government has also drastically altered demographics by encouraging Chinese emigration to Tibet to an extent that Chinese are now a majority in Lhasa, the capital city. (The Chinese government disputes these claims.)

While the history and the mystery contribute to the book's value, its transcendental strength is the exploration of Buddhist spirituality. This element comes through not just through the monks' lives, but also through the changes in Shan and his two assistants/minders. The book could have used a bit tighter editing. Physical locations could have been more distinctly identified as it was sometimes difficult to know where things were happening. Pattison has written another five books in the Shan series and two more in a new series set in colonial America (Bone Rattler: A Mystery of Colonial America). The Skull Mantra gives readers a original and creative take on the detective mystery genre. Highly recommended.