Dragon Bones
Lisa See
Paperback
(Random House Publishing Group, March 15, 2004)
When the body of an American archaeologist is found floating in the Yangzi River, Ministry of Public Security agent Liu Hulan and her husband, American attorney David Stark, are sent to investigate. As Hulan scrutinizes this death, David tries to discover who has stolen an artifact from the site. This artifact is not only an object of great monetary value but one that is emblematic of the very soul of China. Everyone - from the Chinese government, to a religious cult, to an unscrupulous art collector - wants this relic, and some, it seems, may be willing to kill to get it. Dragon Bones combines ancient myth with contemporary anxieties concerning religious fanaticism and terrorism to tell a story of love, betrayal, history, ecology, greed - and gory murder.