The Skull Mantra

When a headless corpse is found by a prison work gang on a windy Tibetan mountainside, veteran police inspector Shan Tao Yun might seem the perfect man to solve the crime - except that he himself is serving an indefinite sentence in the gulag for offending the Party in Beijing. Desperate to close the case before an American tourist delegation arrives, the district commander has no choice but to grant him a temporary release. Embittered about everything except his compulsion to find the truth, the brilliant Shan faces an untimatum- solve the case fast and in a politcally expedient fashion, or the Tibetan priests in his work brigade will be punished. han is thrown into a maelstrom of intrigue involving American mining interests, Tibetan sorcerers, corrupt party officials, a secret illegal monastery and much more.