Customer Reviews

Dragon Bones

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

It was nearly my bedtime when I picked up Lisa See's DRAGON BONES expecting to read for a half hour or so. But I was caught and I kept reading until after 3 a.m.Same thing the next night until I finished the novel.

I am not usually a fan of thrillers. A decaying body floating miles and miles on the Yangzi River, with minute details as to its progressive decomposition and mutilation, doesn't strike one as an enticing way to lead readers into a book. But in this case, it is. Lisa See artfully uses the body's journey to introduce the complex web of geography, history, myth, religion, as well as national and international politics, art, economics-and terrorism--in which her characters move.

See's sleuths, as in two earlier books, are an intriguing married couple, Inspector Liu Hulan of the Ministry of Public Security, native of Beijing, educated in the United States, and Lawyer David Stark, whom Liu first met while both were in law school in the United States. They are convincing and attractive, although their survival in some of their perilous undertakings is almost beyond belief. We share in their sometimes troubled relationship with each other as well as in their battles against evil forces and people.

Not one murder, but several, it turns out. One might wish that the final and bloodiest murder had been performed off-stage.

This is a thriller/mystery set in China at an archeological dig. The detective Hulan, a Chinese woman married to David, an American lawyer, works for the state police and has been assigned the job of looking into the death of a young American man fished out of the Yangtze River. It is quickly determined who he is and where he must have come from (the archeological site), so she and her husband are sent there, although Hulan resists because she doesn't want to be taken away from her work investigating a religious cult. Hulan is asked to investigate the man's death, and David is asked to look into the possibility that relics from this site are finding their way illegally into art auctions. The place they're excavating is going to be flooded by the construction of a bigger-than-Hoover-Dam dam that will displace vast numbers of people. There is a rather large cast of characters, many of whom are staying at a Chinese guesthouse with Hulan and David. You get the impression that the murderer is either one of the people at the archeological dig or that one of these people knows what happened. A sub plot involve trouble in the marriage of David and Hulan.

I was enjoying this until the end, and then it just seemed too over-the-top. I thought it was much more violent than it needed to be or that made any sense to me. On the other hand, reading about China and the controversial damming of the Yangtze River was quite interesting.

"Dragon Bones" is the third book in a series featuring Inspector Liu Hulan and her attorney husband David Stark. Five years have passed since the tragedy that punctuated "The Interior." And Hulan and David are still grappling with a personal crisis in their lives.
Hulan has become a fully realized character in this novel. Author See does some things with her that she has not done before. For the first time there is a feistiness about her. She has certainly become more assertive in her role as an inspector. She remains the only female in a world of law enforcement dominated by men.
Hulan's sexuality also comes into play in "Dragon Bones." There is a sassiness about the way she carries herself around a certain male character. She is put in more than one situation where she must walk a fine line between remaining faithful to her husband or cheating on him.
In the end, Hulan is able to exorcise her demons. All of her issues get washed away by the Yangzi River. And like Andy Dufresne, she comes out clean on the other side. Hulan has reinvented herself and in so doing has returned to the character we first met in the opening pages of "Flower Net." The author could not have written a better ending. She has effectively set the stage for the next installment in this series.
Lisa See's storytelling, like her character development, has improved since "Flower Net." The plot is tight and well conceived. We are thrust into the story when the first dead body shows up in the opening sentence of the prologue, unlike her previous novels where we had to wait for several pages.
In conclusion, Lisa See has once again opened up a world that most of us will never experience first hand. She doesn't just take us to contemporary China, she takes us off the beaten path. Like the caverns that are so much a part of this story, the country is an organic entity. It is at times an antagonist, and even when it isn't, it is never neutral. I am fully captivated by it.
We are not just entertained in "Dragon Bones," we are educated as well. And isn't that what a good novel is supposed to do?

Dragon Bones is Lisa See's third book featuring Inspector Liu Hulan and American Attorney David Stark. Several years have passed since the last book, The Interior, and during that time, our heroes have experienced much love, happiness, and a devastating loss. As See points out, the Chinese have a saying: "Things always change to the opposite". Soon after the novel begins, David and Hulan are sent on two separate assignments near the Three Gorges Dam: David is to investigate the theft of ancient artifacts, while Hulan is to investigate the murder of a promising, young American archaeologist.

With See's articulate, clear, and wonderfully descriptive writing style, Dragon Bones is well-paced and full of intrigue, making it a challenge to put down. Plot twists and murders constantly keep readers on their toes, demonstrating See's excellent skills as a storyteller.

One reason I've always enjoyed See's series is for the protagonists, David and Hulan. See has done a brilliant job creating in-depth, captivating characters with an interesting past. You can't help but care about them as they struggle to solve these crimes as well as mend their broken relationship. Sometimes we get a glimpse of David's perspective, while other times we get into Hulan's mind. This is one of my favorite aspects of See's writing--her ability to switch points of view subtly, yet so effectively. By getting into David's and Hulan's minds, it's evident that the two of them are meant for each other. But as the story progresses, readers will wonder if their relationship can survive after all the tragedies they have experienced. The answer is clear at the end of the novel.

Not only are some of the scenes extremely poignant, some are also very funny, particularly those involving the acerbic Pathologist Fong. And though this novel was entertaining, I also learned much, including Chinese culture, archaeology, and history of the Three Gorges Dam.

I would highly recommend this book!

All of the ingredients were present to make Dragon Bones the perfect novel: the characters were so developed and complex they practically jumped off the page; the plot was multi-layered with interesting twists and turns; Lisa See's engaging writing style and pace made for an enjoyable read; and the depth of information about Chinese culture and way of life rounded out the storyline.

I would recommend this for anyone looking for a five star engrossing read that you just won't be able to put down.

I read one other book by the author, Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, which I also loved, and was impressed by how different this novel was, and yet how much I enjoyed it. Clearly, Ms. See is an extremely talented writer capable of tackling very different types of novels. I can't wait to read another of her books!

Put Lisa See's mystery novel DRAGON BONES in a Western context - an emotionally distant marriage between two intellectual professionals, the tragic death of a daughter, a mysterious, pseudo-religious cult, horrific ritual murders, corrupt government officials, false identities, illicit sexual relationships, high tech terrorist threats, and high profile auction houses dealing in stolen cultural artifacts - and you have another stereotypical potboiler. Set the same story line on the banks of the Yangtze River, throw in Tiananmen Square, the Falun Gong cult, and the controversial Three Gorges Dam, and you have a study in modern China and its conflicted desire to modernize while preserving its cultural heritage. And no better exemplar of this issue exists than the Three Gorges Dam, what with its displacement of 1.25 million people, its controversial technological answer to an ancient problem of flood control, and its submerging of thousands of cultural relic and historical sites and the loss of countless archaeological finds.

Central to the story in DRAGON BONES is a Falun Gong-style cult called the All-Patriotic Society. Liu Hulan, an Inspector in China's Ministry of Public Security, grew up in a wealthy family, spent many years in the United States, and married David Stark, a lawyer, before returning to live together in China. Liu, whose namesake was a Chinese martyr, carries the guilt of her infant daughter's death to meningitis like a millstone that threatens her marriage. After an unfortunate incident in Tiananmen Square, she is assigned to investigate the mysterious death of a foreigner found floating in the Yangtze River. Her husband David joins her at the government's request to investigate the disappearance of cultural artifacts being excavated from an archaeological dig at the same location where the foreigner died. Thus begins two strands of investigation that ultimately merge as an internal ideological threat to the stability of the Chinese government.

While her rendering of Chinese culture and rural life along the Yangtze ring true enough, Ms. See's story is too often weakened by farfetched behaviors and events by characters who are too consistently stereotypical. Readers are asked to accept the notion of ritualistic human sacrifice in the service of a reverential peace-loving cult whose leader she renders as entirely unconvincing in that role for too many reasons to recount here (and without spoiling the plot). Furthermore, we are asked to accept the idea that the Chinese masses could be mobilized to revolt over a dragon legend and a symbolic mushroom object. One critical aspect of the story concerning the safety of the Three Gorges Dam feels shoe-horned into the book, never fully-developed and ultimately discarded in what amounts to a literary aside. In the end, as one comes to expect while reading DRAGON BONES, all ends well and Liu Hulan faces and conquers her personal demons.

Despite its wooden characters and pop psychology marital melodrama, DRAGON BONES is a serviceable suspense story. Three stars for a fascinating setting and an interesting depiction of Chinese life and the country's attempts to reconcile modernization with its cultural heritage. Ms. See presents some interesting insights for those who want to learn about China while partaking of their mystery stories.

What I like best about Lisa See is usually not the novel in itself, but the detailed, and genuine aspects of China and its culture. I really enjoy learning chinese words and the traditions of this unique country.
The story is a mistery/thriller that revolves around the construction of the biggest Dam in the world, the impact that this will have on China's culture and the discovery of a very important artefact that could also change China's history, forever. In between there are gruesome murders and religious cults, and the rekindling of love between american lawyer Stark and his chinese wife Liu Hulan. Together they'll try to solve the murders and the mistery and, hopefully, save their love.

I really enjoyed this book. I plowed through it in 2 days because I couldn't put it down.

Don't look for any deep symbolism or meaning here - it's pure entertainment. The main characters are well drawn, and the plot interesting - a Chinese woman and her estranged American husband trying to solve a murder and theft of artifacts at an archeological dig. Liu Hulan and David Stark are an intense, powerful couple, and you are drawn into their anguish in the first few pages.

Lively supporting characters at the dig site make the book even more fun. The plot twists and turns, changing your opinion of the characters multiple times before the book's fantastic finish.

I did learn some things about Chinese culture and politics, but they were overshadowed by the luminous characters and gripping action.

Dragon Bones is Lisa See's third contemporary Chinese mystery featuring Inspector Liu Hulan. I read the first one, Flower Net, and somehow the second passed me by. Like Flower Net, Dragon Bones is both a great detective story and a window into modern Chinese culture. Lisa See manages to show us a lot about a rapidly modernizing China without bogging down the story. Liu Hulan is the kind of character I'd like to have a meal with: smart, interesting, with pain in her past but not consumed by it. Lisa See has a gift at making the character seem completely Chinese to the Western reader yet sympathetic at the same time.

Having recently read, and loved, Snow Flower and the Secret Fan: A Novel, , I understand more about Lisa See's strengths as a writer. Depiction of foreign culture: fantastic. Male characters: not so much. This wasn't as apparent in Snow Flower because the men lived in a different world from the women characters that were the focus of the story. In Dragon Bones, Hulan is married to an American man, David Stark. David's character never comes to life like Hulan's. Although he and I (and the writer) have more in common than Liu Hulan and I do, never the less, Hulan is fully three-dimensional and believable where David falls flat.

If you like mysteries that are different without being gimmicky, you will enjoy this book. There's no need to read them in order although I'm sure there are some benefits from doing so. There are some graphic crime scenes, as a warning to the squeamish.

While I loved the "Snowflower and the Secret Fan" story, I felt this story was lifted right off the Indiana Jones adventures--trite and boring....been there, read that...nothing new...contrived. Found myself skimming thru many, many pages. Used plot, etc. I predicted the outcome from the first.....this is NOT a 5-star thriller!!!