Leila Anani's Reviews > Eight Skilled Gentlemen

This is the 3rd book in the Master Li trilogy and tragically the last book Barry Hughart ever wrote due to problems with his publishers - There was nothing out there like these at the time and I think the publishers had no idea how to market them - A crying shame because these novels are the top end of the Asian fantasy grenre and had they been published today would have been in bookstore windows along with the glut of writers in the field now: Elizath Lim, Liz Williams, Axie Oh, Sue Lynn Tan - to name a few others I've enjoyed recently.

In this one Master Li (Imagine if Durnken Master was Lam Ching Ying) and Number 10 Ox, his hunky muscle apprentice have to solve the mystery of various manderins being murdered by different demons - the first gets decapitated by a Kyonsi, the next dances himself to death.... The whole plot revolves around a Holmes esque conspiracy for unsrupulous Eunuchs to run a fake tea racket weaved in with a supernatural plot of magic cages that house demons and a supernatural boat race.

This volume was my least favourite of the trilogy, I think because the plot was so convoluted and some of the verse so obscure that it lessened the impact of some of the action sequences. There were less laugh out loud moments than the lighter Bridge of Birds and we get much more gore including a Titus Andronicus cannibal scene where a gay Manderin ends up eating his lover and a gormet butcher who would give Lecter a run for his money.... However saying this is the weakest of the three books isn't much of a criticism because honestly the whole trilogy is brilliant and I loved the lot, but I probably put this one down to stop for dinner, whereas the other two it was like dinner - meh, got to finish this.....

If you like Pu Song Ling and Asian fantasy films of the 80's you'll love this trilogy which is criminally underrated. I wish Hughart had written more.