Judge Dee is about to step into the shoes of a dead man...

Most people would refuse the job of Magistrate at the lonely port town of Peng-lai - especially as the last occupant of the post has been found poisoned in his library, his papers missing. But Judge Dee is not most men. He arrives ready to get to the truth, only to find his life complicated even further by a missing bride, a vanished artisan, a man-eating tiger and an evil conspiracy.