Special District: Harbin: Drawing the Tiger's Bones

by Tim Stickel

A mixed-race patrolman at the bottom ranks of Harbin's Special District police force. A dismembered body. A raging Red Terror campaign. A brewing war with the Soviet Union…

1929: Borya is at the bottom ranks of Harbin's Special District police force. His meager salary is the only thing that keeps his widowed mother and sisters fed. When fate takes him from chasing pickpockets to pairing him with one of the force's premier detectives, his life changes forever. They are assigned to investigate the dismembered body of one the city's foreign businessmen uncovered in the nearby Japanese zone.

The trail takes them from the upscale boulevards of Harbin’s New Town, to the seediest neighborhoods of the lower city, and beyond to the frontiers of Manchuria. Slowly they are drawn into a potential war with the Soviet Union that could tear apart the whole balance of life as they know it…

Can Borya and Inspector Chinn stay alive long enough to solve the crime?

Special District: Harbin, Drawing the Tiger’s Bones is an International Mystery & Crime police detective novel that keeps you on the edge of your seat. If you like fast-paced mystery thriller suspense and thriller crime novels that keep you surprised with every turn of the page, then you will definitely love this book by author Tim Stickel.

First place winner of the 2021 North Street Book Award for Genre Fiction

337 pages, ebook

First published April 7, 2022

About the author

I have been an avid student of history all my life. I studied at the University of Washington and received a BA in History, concentrating on Far Eastern history. I discovered that writing historical fiction allowed me to share my love of history. I try to be as accurate to the past as possible by including extensive research of available academic books, articles, travel guides, and maps of the time period.

My Harbin mystery series showcases a unique city and time period, beginning in 1929. It reflects our own tumultuous and divisive times, but gives us hope by showing the resilience of the human spirit then...and now.

Reviews

[Star Gater · Rating 3 out of 5]

Action genre is not my goto. I had to focus, really concentrate to keep up. I enjoyed the storytelling. The customs and cultures of the Orient were a part of the book, I found these interesting. The book is not complicated. Names and places slowed me down.

I would classify this as a man's book, and I would gift it.

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[Glenn Ledbetter · Rating 4 out of 5]

Stickle’s first novel is set within a historical context and skillfully weds two genres: coming of age and mystery. Its subtitle, “Drawing the Tiger’s Bones,” is explained in Chapter 6 where Inspector Chinn tells young Borya (20) that “seeing what’s in a man’s heart is the key to finding the our [sic] murderer…Always watch the eyes, then the mouth and any body movements. But the eyes cannot lie, and you will learn to be able to read a man’s thoughts through his eyes.”

And later in the same chapter, we glimpse the novel’s structure when Chinn tells Borya how to unmask the killer. “You must pull on the threads and see which one pulls apart the seam and disrobes the guilty one…So, you fill your notebook up with threads and cross each one off when they don’t pan out. Hopefully, there will come a point when there is only one left.” We now know the book is going to be one episode after another until pulling one certain thread reveals “who dunnit” and why—greed.

And that’s how the plot goes. As more and more threads are pulled, the suspense builds.

Stickel’s thorough research of the time, place and situation pays off quite well for the reader. I’m quite ignorant of the history of that region of China, but he guides us through the cosmopolitan interactions among the Chinese, Russian, Korean, and Japanese cultures and characters. The level of detail is quite impressive.

But I kept wondering if I had just read an anachronism. I’d ask myself things like, “Did they really have those things in small-town, rural Manchuria back in 1929?” The only example I’m fairly sure about was the passage that mentioned a spreadsheet. Is it or is it not?

His descriptions and vocabulary are both vivid and precise. The syntax is straightforward, which makes for easy reading. The character development is solid; we care about the main ones, the “good guys.” The prominent use of dialog is admirable.

The book’s point of view is third person limited. We see everything through the protagonist, Borya. But in one place, Stickel breeches this and briefly slips into third person omniscient. To me, it was jolting. There were a few typos, too. But so what? Maybe these are simply the result of my reading the book in Kindle; maybe they don't appear in the original book. Read on.

I like the omission of excessively graphic violence and sex scenes. I like the inclusion of the role that spirituality played in certain characters’ lives. The focus stays centered on pulling those many threads to “Draw the Tiger’s Bones” and solve the murder.

In sum, all of these elements point to a skillful, knowledgeable, fiction writer with a very fertile imagination. So, enjoy this tale, and look forward to Harbin Book 2 in the series.

[Patricia Gulley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Definitely a part of history I knew little about, Manchuria and the conflicts between the Soviet, China, and Japan. 1929 an interesting murder mystery that has a 1/2 Korean, 1/2 white Russian as the protag and all the prejudices involved in such a diverse city of Harbin with its politics changing with every takeover. Lots of details.