Elsa Hart – författare

In Elsa Hart's stunning debut, an exiled librarian traveling through the 18th-century Chinese/Tibetan borderlands must learn the truth about a Jesuit priest's death before the Emperor arrives

One of 2018's Best Mysteries by Publisher's WeeklyOne of the Best Audiobooks to Listen to in October by The Washington Post"This entry solidifies her status as a top-notch historical mystery author." - Publisher's Weekly (starred review)"Richly detailed novel of life and crime in 18th century China." -The Wall Street JournalFollowing the enthralling 18th century Chinese mysteries Jade Dragon Mountain and White Mirror, comes the next Li Du adventure in City of Ink.Li Du was prepared to travel anywhere in the world except for one place: home. But to unravel the mystery that surrounds his mentor's execution, that's exactly where he must go.Plunged into the painful memories and teeming streets of Beijing, Li Du obtains a humble clerkship that offers anonymity and access to the records he needs. He is beginning to make progress when his search for answers buried in the past is interrupted by murder in the present. The wife of a local factory owner is found dead, along with a man who appears to have been her lover, and the most likely suspect is the husband. But what Li Du's superiors at the North Borough Office are willing to accept as a crime of passion strikes Li Du as something more calculated. As past and present intertwine, Li Du's investigations reveal that many of Beijing's residents - foreign and Chinese, artisan and official, scholar and soldier - have secrets they would kill to protect. When the threats begin, Li Du must decide how much he is willing to sacrifice to discover the truth in a city bent on concealing it, a city where the stroke of a brush on paper can alter the past, change the future, prolong a life, or end one.

On the mountainous border of China and Tibet in 1708, a detective must learn what a killer already knows: that empires rise and fall on the strength of the stories they tell. Li Du was an imperial librarian. Now he is an exile. Arriving in Dayan, the last Chinese town before the Tibetan border, he is surprised to find it teeming with travelers, soldiers, and merchants. All have come for a spectacle unprecedented in this remote province: an eclipse of the sun commanded by the Emperor himself. When a Jesuit astronomer is found murdered in the home of the local magistrate, blame is hastily placed on Tibetan bandits. But Li Du suspects this was no random killing. Everyone has secrets: the ambitious magistrate, the powerful consort, the bitter servant, the irreproachable secretary, the East India Company merchant, the nervous missionary, and the traveling storyteller who can''t keep his own story straight.Beyond the sloping roofs and festival banners, Li Du can see the mountain pass that will take him out of China forever. He must choose whether to leave, and embrace his exile, or to stay, and investigate a murder that the town of Dayan seems all too willing to forget.