Bone Mountain

Inspector Shan #3

by Eliot Pattison

When disgraced former inspector, Shan Tao Yun joins a group of reverent Tibetans returning a sacred artefact to its home, it seems he has at last found the peace he has struggled for since leaving prison. What starts as a spiritual pilgrimage, however, quickly turns into a desperate flight through the Tibetan wilderness as the outlawed monk who guides them is murdered and Sham discovers that the artefact has recently been stolen from the Chinese army. But why is the army so desperate to find the artefact entrusted to Shan? Why is an aged medicine lama being stalked by government agents? Why has an American woman, a geologist for an oil company, abandoned the project and fled into the mountains? Shan discovers not answers, but only new mysteries as he is drawn to such unexpected places as the raucous headquarters base of the Western oil venture and a monastery that seems more attuned to the teachings of the party than those of Buddha. And the further he travels into the mountains, the more Shan realises that what is at stake is not only justice but the spiritual survival of those who have joined his strange quest. At the heart of Pattison's powerful tale is a story of a brave, oppressed people who have learned to endure by drawing strength from their land and their rich spiritual traditions.

Genres: Mystery, Fiction, China, Thriller, Mystery Thriller, Crime, Buddhism

436 pages, Kindle Edition

First published September 19, 2002

About the author

Edgar Award winning Eliot Pattison has been described as a "writer of faraway mysteries," a label which is particularly apt for someone whose travel and interests span a million miles of global trekking, visiting every continent but Antarctica.

An international lawyer by training, Pattison first combined his deep concerns for the people of Tibet with his interest in fiction writing in The Skull Mantra, which launched the popular Inspector Shan series.

The series has been translated into over twenty languages around the world. Both The Skull Mantra and Water Touching Stone were selected by Amazon.com for its annual list of ten best new mysteries. Water Touching Stone was selected by Booksense as the number one mystery of all time for readers' groups. The newest installment, Soul of Fire, was included in Publisher's Weekly's list of "Best Book of 2014".

Pattison's fascination with the 18th century American wilderness and its woodland Indians led to the launch of his second critically acclaimed Bone Rattler series.

His dystopian novel, Ashes of The Earth, marks the first installment in his third book series, set in post-apocalyptic America.

A former resident of Boston and Washington, Pattison resides on an 18th century farm in Pennsylvania with his wife, three children, and an ever-expanding menagerie of animals.

Reviews

[Bettie · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you enter a camp, you never come out': inside China's war on Islam. In Hotan, documents show officials are expanding detention camps and increasing surveillance


Bettie's Books

[Laura · Rating 3 out of 5]

When disgraced former inspector Shan Tao Yun joins a group of reverent Tibetans returning a sacred artefact to its home, it seems he has at last found the peace he has struggled for since leaving prison. But when one of the group is murdered, Shan discovers that the artefact has been stolen from the Chinese army.

[Sophie · Rating 5 out of 5]

If I had to name the one thing I love most about these books, it's Lokesh. He is one of the most likable and inspiring characters I have ever met in a book.

It's good I don't have to limit myself to just one thing, however, because that way I can also talk about Pattison's uncanny ability to describe a country and its traditions and people so well it truly feels like you are there, and you can feel the wind and sense the beauty. And I can talk about how powerful his descriptions of the crimes against the Tibetans are. And how beautiful his language is, and how he manages to combine the depressing truth with hope, even if it is fictional. But there are good people as well as bad, and it's good to be able to keep that in mind.

And what a great main character Inspector Shan is, and how wonderfully different these "crime novels" are because apart from trying to find out the truth, there's not much that's comparable to mainstream crime fiction. Since Shan is officially listed as an escapee from a labor camp, he can't go around and demand proof or do background check or call a crime lab or do any of the things detectives in other novels do. His quests for truth are a lot less straightforward but still told in such a compelling way that it's impossible to put the book down, even though there are no cheap thrills.

I don't think these books are everybody's cup of tea, but then again, which book ever is? But I love them a lot and I cannot wait to read the rest.

Oh, and one thing: usually I prefer to read books in English, if that's the original language. But for the first time in a while I understand people when they say they're used to the translation, and when the translation is as good as this, it's understandable. So I'm going to stick to the German version :)

[Marsha Altman · Rating 3 out of 5]

Too long, too depressing. The first book was amazing, the second book had the added interesting element of the Uighur struggle, but here was just have the same tropes: the Tibetans have had a miserable past, are miserable now, and have nothing to look forward to in the future. If anything, they're delusional, holding mantra sessions against tanks and oil rigs coming to destroy the remnants of their culture.

In this book it's one bad thing after another. Sadly, Shan, who usually holds the book together, does very little actual detecting, and spends most of the book in a state of despair and depression. When he finally does his job, other events he has almost nothing to do with are more important to the resolution, which is positive but not entirely believable. Not helping was the amount of characters to keep track of in a long book. I'm still not entirely sure who killed Drakte, and wasn't the stone eye supposed to go in some statue it had been torn from? What happened to that?

I want to keep reading the series, which is incredible, but I hope Pattison kinda pulls it together in future books.

[Timons Esaias · Rating 3 out of 5]

This review is very much an echo of my take on the previous volume in the series, Water Touching Stone. This book has a cleverly created main character, and a wonderful setting. It also has too many atrocities, too many characters, too many plotlines (with the result that coincidence seems to be a primary plot element), and too many grimaces (12, that I noticed). I started it in June, and it took until the end of December for me to finish it -- I kept reading until the atrocities got too painful, putting it aside for a time, reading another mystery in the meantime, then repeat.

There are positive elements, though, which is why I kept going back. And why I'll probably start the next one around next summer. Inspector Shan is an interesting, dynamic character, and modern rural Tibet is also fascinating as a setting. There's enough fascinating storytelling to overcome the superfluities.

But what, you ask, happens in this one? Well, I don't want to spoil anything, so I'll just say that the hidden Tibetan monks have come into possession of the eye of a deity statue belonging to a remote valley, and they have an oracle that a Han is to carry it there. The Chinese Army is looking for this artifact, and Shan has no papers, so he's in constant risk of being arrested. Then somebody dies, and everything goes smash.

That summarizes the opening of MacGuffin #1, but we end up with #2-7, at least. My guess is that these books might be better for readers who skim, but are willing to sit still for a landscape description from time to time. Close readers will tend to slog.

[Lee · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another stunner by Pattison in his Inspector Shan series.

A long book (626 pages in the pb version I read) and a slow pace could be the recipe for boring, but Shan and Pattison's other characters are so engaging and the obvious feelings that the author has for Tibet and Tibetans in their struggle against China means that interest does not wane. As with all the Shan books so far it is this struggle both within Shan as he continues to discover his inner deity and of the Tibetans to retain everything that they are against the oppressive forces of the Chinese regime that is as much the crux of the story as is the actual 'mystery' itself.

[Lorelei · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely the best book yet by Eliot Pattison. I had a little trouble getting into it, but I think that was because of other things in my life, not the book. I couldn't put it down the last 100 pages, and it was just wonderful. Not technically a mystery, but it's story starts with a murder, and the guilty party is identified in the end. In between, so many things happen! I love reading about Tibet, about the mountains, the animals, the traditions and the people with which Pattison fills his world.

[Ann · Rating 5 out of 5]

I think this is the best novel I've ever read.

[Jim Bogue · Rating 5 out of 5]

Pattinson writes beautiful and haunting books set in a cruel but vivid Tibet. His hero, former detective, now ex prisoner Shan, is a Chinese observer in a Tibetan world. He is impelled, and sometimes compelled, to solve mysteries. But since, in the current situation, it is hard to have a completely happy ending, the reader must be content with small triumphs.
Here he and his friends try to help villagers being displaced by an oil project. He stumbles into rivalries between different Chinese agencies - religious, economic, and military. And he meets a girl prophetess and an American cowboy.

[Ardys Otterbacher · Rating 5 out of 5]

Oh my goodness...this is also the Shan I have been wanting to read again. By now Pattison is settling into his style and his story. I did get a little tired of Lokesh's "crooked grin" but that is a small niggle compared to the vastness of the story.

[Mimi · Rating 4 out of 5]

a very long book about chinese corruption and atrocities in Tibet, good for a person like me with a bad cold..needed a long book

[Georgia Hollrah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Once I returned to the book , I really enjoyed it. It is very different.

[Maurice · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found this story too long and complex. However, it contained enough nuggets to keep me reading until the very end.

[Alex Edwards · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found this book extremely moving as ever with this series. It was a little long and convoluted at times, but beautiful and its a story that needs to be told.

[Dorothy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bone Mountain is the third in Eliot Pattison's interesting series of thriller/mysteries about Shan, a former police inspector in Beijing who spent years in a Chinese prison because he refused to turn a blind eye to corruption in high places. He was exiled to a work camp in Tibet which was otherwise peopled by Tibetan monks and lamas. He learned much from his fellow inmates and when a Chinese official arranged for his unofficial release from prison, he made his way to those monks and lamas on the outside and cast his lot with them.

In the first two books in this series, I felt rather lost in the narrative. It was only with this entry that I began to feel that I could follow what the writer was trying to do, as I began to understand a bit more of the Tibetan Buddhist philosophy.

At one point in the narrative, Lokesh, Shan's Tibetan lama friend, says that Tibetans like to walk for it keeps them connected to the earth and gives them time to contemplate. I am a gardener so I understand about connection to the earth and contemplation. Perhaps I have more in common with the Tibetan Buddhists than I realized.

The central story here is of Shan's guarding of a sacred relic which had been stolen from a village and has now been recovered and is being returned. He travels with a salt caravan which has secreted the relic and is carrying it back to its village. But then, on the journey, the relic mysteriously disappears and Shan must solve the mystery of that disappearance and recover the relic once again.

As with all of these stories, Shan's journey in search of the relic becomes a journey in search of enlightenment as he seeks his inner deity, even when he doesn't realize that is what he is seeking. Along the way, he picks up a mixed group of companions ranging from patriotic Tibetans trying to save their culture from the Chinese to an American diplomat seeking the body of a young geologist who has allegedly fallen to her death in the mountains.

Readers with a Western logical bent of mind will find it helpful to suspend their disbelief as they travel through the rugged Tibetan hills and valleys to finally reach Bone Mountain and the centuries-old cave of the "medicine lamas." Along the way, we find that several of the characters are in need of redemption, even if they don't realize it at first, and, in the end, most of them find it, even a cold and cruel Chinese colonel who seems the least likely to be touched by the Tibetan philosophy.

This is a complex story that meanders along at a very slow pace. An unnecessarily slow pace, I think. The plotting is really incremental and repetitive. I know the Tibetan way of life is contemplative, but I don't think the telling of it has to be quite so turgid.

Moreover, Pattison has his favorite adverbs that he uses over and over and over again. (Who was it who said that the road to hell is paved with adverbs?) For example, things always seem to happen "suddenly." People and animals appear suddenly. A character understands things suddenly. Mountains break apart and rivers appear suddenly. Little things like that just drive me mad!

This is a promising series about a fascinating culture. This book, however, was too long and too repetitive. I think it could have been made a lot better by a more ruthless editor.

[Justin · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the third novel in Pattison's Shan series. Shan is a former government inspector, an ethnic Han Chinese from Beijing, exiled to Tibet (for having the misfortune of being slightly too successful in fighting public corruption). Pattison's Shan series quickly became one of my favorites last year, along with the superficially similar Qiu Xiaolong's Inspector Chen series. Both series are English language mysteries which involve Han Chinese, and both are really good, but there the similarities pretty much end.

Xiaolong's Chen is a confirmed bachelor, somewhat westernized and worldly (having studied English literature at the university), who fights crime and solves homicides as a Shanghai police official. In contrast, Shan (meaning Mountain in Mandarin), although ethnically Han and Taoist, is spiritual and idealistic, and comes to identify strongly with his fellow outcasts, Tibetan Buddhist monks. Unlike Chen, who manipulates the Communist system from within, Shan uses his knowledge of the apparatus as a former government official to affect the system from without, typically in defense of a downtrodden Tibetan.

The series - and the novel - are engaging in their own right, with a varied cast of characters, Han, Tibetan, and Foreigners. This novel, and the two previous novels, are written against the backdrop of the political and spiritual fissure between Tibet, the Communist Party, and predominantly Han provinces. The reader actually learns quite a bit of history, and plenty about both the P.R.C. and Tibet. After reading the first three novels (Did I mention they were all good?), I was intrigued and inspired enough to do some research, and the author puts a significant amount of history into his plots.

Regardless of your desire to learn about Tibet or Buddhism, the ultimate test of a mystery novel (or any fiction) is - is it entertaining? I bought one of the Pattison/Shan series as a gift for my mother, an avid mystery reader and connoisseur.

I think if you are giving a novel as a gift to your mother, that speaks for itself.

[Linda · Rating 5 out of 5]

As with every book in this series, Tibet is the main character. When I go into these books, I live under their spell for days after - and I've found my worldview being re-evaluated in terms of how the people of Tibet live and believe.

Trying to summarize the plot of Bone Mountain - or of any of the Inspector Shan series is something I'll leave to others - because for me, there is no summary possible; let's just say it involves elderly lamas; an "outlaw" ex-Bejing party official who found himself in a Tibetan gulag and befriended by the lamas; events connected to, and generated by their religion; and the efforts of the Tibetans to maintain a way of life that has been unchanged for centuries - in the face of an equally stubborn effort on the part of the Chinese government to eradicate any individual thought or action.

The plot is heartbreaking - a mixture of basic mystery, and the story of a people and their culture being systematically destroyed by conquerors who see the country as nothing more than a giant treasure chest filled with natural resources, and who will do whatever it takes to exploit them. And yet, I don't find these stories sad - I'm usually left with some hope that in the face of Tibet's determination to maintain the old ways, they will survive.

Rarely do I read every word of a book - I'm prone to skimming - picking out the relevant parts and moving on. Eliot Pattison's Inspector Shan series does not allow for such indulgence - you'll lose the whole thread if you skip even a sentence because the you're visiting a culture (actually at least two cultures: Tibetan and Chinese) and a country, and being introduced to a philosophy of life that are almost the opposite of our own.

We need to read this series - to understand what's happening in Tibet, and to understand how to reconnect with ourselves and with the world on which we live.

[Joyce · Rating 4 out of 5]

When disgraced former inspector, Shan Tao Yun joins a group of reverent Tibetans returning a sacred artefact to its home, it seems he has at last found the peace he has struggled for since leaving prison. What starts as a spiritual pilgrimage, however, quickly turns into a desperate flight through the Tibetan wilderness as the outlawed monk who guides them is murdered and Sham discovers that the artefact has recently been stolen from the Chinese army. But why is the army so desperate to find the artefact entrusted to Shan? Why is an aged medicine lama being stalked by government agents? Why has an American woman, a geologist for an oil company, abandoned the project and fled into the mountains? Shan discovers not answers, but only new mysteries as he is drawn to such unexpected places as the raucous headquarters base of the Western oil venture and a monastery that seems more attuned to the teachings of the party than those of Buddha. And the further he travels into the mountains, the more Shan realises that what is at stake is not only justice but the spiritual survival of those who have joined his strange quest. At the heart of Pattison's powerful tale is a story of a brave, oppressed people who have learned to endure by drawing strength from their land and their rich spiritual traditions.

[Ilirwen · Rating 5 out of 5]

When I first came across Eliot Pattison's mysteries set in Tibet, I was thrilled. Tibetan culture is something I've been interested in for years, in fact ever since I first read Tintin in Tibet. My love for Tibet only increased when I discovered Tibetan dogs (but that's another story.)

Like the two earlier books in the series, Bone Mountain was fascinating, but sad. Parts of it read like a fantasy because of the incredibly interesting and unique culture and lifestyle of (some of) the Tibetans. Pattison's 'sleuth' Han Chinese Shan, first came to Tibet when he was deported to a gulag. He survived the harsh conditions in the camp by embracing Tibetan religion and culture (the two are completely interwoven, so it's hard, if not impossible to separate the two). Bone Mountain deals with the desctruction of Tibet's nature, by the Chinese occupation force. Reading about it almost made me cry. The 'hero' of the book is really Tibetan culture, in many ways illustrated by the characters. They're all unique, fascinating and mostly sympathetic. It's obvious that Pattison has come to care about his Tibetan friends.

[Booknblues · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love the Inspector Shan mysteries and seem to be addicted to them right now. There is like any mystery a bit of a formula and some suspension of belief, but the characters, scenery and Buddhist attitude draw me in.

Generally Shan the ex Beijing Police Inspector who has spent time in a prison and been unofficially released is given a task which is set before him by the Buddhist monks (Gedun or Lokesh) whom he lives with.

In Bone Mountain, Shan is sent to return the eye of a deity to a faraway mountain village. Before he can start one of the Purba (resistance) who is arranging the transport is killed by a mysterious man in disguise.

Along the way they meet with many mishaps and encounter an American cowboy, who is really a diplomat named Wilson.

There is all kinds of government shenanigans going on and oil exploration in the villagers valley.

Pattison develops some great characters who I fall in love with. Lokesh is great and I love the cowboy Wilson, who says every Tibetan needs a cowboy.

[Annabelle · Rating 2 out of 5]

Pattison still does the extensive research, and I still love and care about the Shan, the Chinese Investigator who is sent to the gulag in Tibet after being too honest. But the plotting is turgid, and it is hard to care as Shan and Lokesh, his Tibetan monk side kick, travel and travel, find strange people suffering and secret caves, Americans helping the Chinese to mine Tibet, but then turning when they are captured by the Tibetan Buddhist simplicity and lovingkindness.
In this one, Gendun, Shan’s teacher after he was released from the slave camp, sends him north with a Buddhist “eye” which seems to be a stone. There is interesting Tibetan Buddhist detail about monk schools for herbal medicine and the existence of an enforcer who killed those who hurt monks. It is a bit balanced, in that it shows how one Tibetan community killed monks before the Chinese.

[Richard Jones · Rating 4 out of 5]

All of Eliot Pattison's mysteries are - like the best mysteries - about so much more than a puzzle. They are about people and places of which most of us know next to nothing, but are very much worth knowing about. Pattison's research is exemplary and astonishingly deep; his compassion for complicated people and situations is strong and intense. Four books in and I've found nothing but extraordinary work. Fair warning: Pattison's subjects are always involved in serious and painful circumstances, and he stints nothing in presenting the pain and sorrow. That said, the stories are always worth the work and difficulty because Pattison believes in redemption and the strength of the human spirit.

[Kristena West · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love all inspector Chan mysteries, they go beyond what one would expect. I am always so grateful that the traditions of Buddhism are part of the story line and some of the hidden mysteries are revealed. The problems that Chan faces as a "hidden" Buddhist ex Chinese investigator, are filled with tragedy and moral challenges that hopefully I will never have to face.

In writing these expose's on what China is doing to the Tibetans' Pattison supports the efforts of everyone who is trying to help this situation. My highest recommendation.

[Alan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Eliot Pattison's books about Shan, a former investigator who after going after the wrong party official was sent to labor camp in Tibet and became involved in Tibetan Buddhism. Now released from labor camp he is journeying with his friend the monk Lokesh carrying the "eye" of a deity back to the valley it came from. Very interesting interaction between the traditions of the Tibetans and the attempts by the Chinese to obliterate them. This is the 3rd book in the series which began with The Skull Mantra.

[Kathleen Hagen]

Bone Mountain, by Eliot Pattison, b-plus, Recorded by National Library Service for the Blind,

Chan Tao Yun is a Chinese bureaucrat who got on the wrong side of the Chinese government when he started defending and supporting Tibetan monks who were being abused and killed, and whose culture was being deliberately destroyed by the Chinese government. He spent time in a labor camp and then dedicated himself to helping Tibetan monks save their culture. This is the third book in the series and continues the saga of Yun’s helping the Tibetans preserve their culture.

[S.L. Stoner · Rating 5 out of 5]

In this very well-written adventure story, Pattison does an amazing job of showing how the beliefs of Tibetan Buddhism permeated the Tibetan culture. He articulates this unique animist cosmology so thoroughly that the reader can see how it functions as a coherent alternative to traditional Western spiritual beliefs. At the same time, the story lays bare China's destructive incursion into Tibet as it joins with global corporations to extract resources from a so-called "backward" country. In sum, an entertaining, educational and inspiring read. S.L. Stoner, Sage Adair Historical Mysteries.

[Peter · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another incredible intellectual, spiritual and mysterious journey in a series that I have grown terribly fond of. A former Chinese investigator living a twisted life training as a Buddhist Monk who is forced by fate, kharma and personality to rub up against some of the ugliests atrocities of our age. Pattison knows China, Tibet and Buddhism at a depth and force that makes the books truly believable, engrossing and moving.

[Lisa Wilcox · Rating 4 out of 5]

So many characters in this one and intertwined plot threads, I didn't quite manage to keep track of them all. The cultural conflicts between the Communist Chinese and the many indigenous cultures of Tibet —particularly the diverse traditions which meet in Tibetan Buddhism— were well and truly developed. Pattison somehow manages to raise profound spiritual questions through the familiar genre of detective fiction.

[Alain DeWitt · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoy Pattison's Inspector Shan series novels because they work on several levels. First, they educate the reader about Tibetan culture. Second, they are intriguing mysteries. And, third, they are a damning indictment of the Chinese oppression of Tibet. In all cases, Tibetan culture forms the backbone of the mystery. In order to accomplish this, Pattison displays a masterful understanding of Tibetan culture and Buddhism (which are one and the same).

[Rhonda]

Brilliant

This is my new favorite series. Not only are they wonderful stories, but also a thorough introduction to and exploration of Tibetan culture and Buddhist practice. I have a Harvard degree in Asian Studies and a fairly extensive intellectual understanding of Tibetan Buddhism. These books give me an emotional and tactile experience of the practice. I love seeing Tibet through Shan's eyes.