A Murder Most High

A Murder Most High is a novel by Luo Jie, reworked from old cases of ancient Chinese crime fiction. Published by Henan Literature and Art Publishing House in 2008, it carries the subtitle "A Life Hangs by a Thread, Yet Heaven Stays Silent." The novel employs a double narrative: one strand follows a Ming dynasty wit called "Old Feng," who, by the dim light of an oil lamp amid dreary rain, records anecdotes and old cases from the Song and Ming dynasties; the other follows "Little Qian" four hundred years later, who bends over his desk to continue these old cases, filling in the details, characters, and causes that the ancients omitted, so that the old stories grow veins and flesh again. The book contains sixteen cases in all—fourteen murders, plus one case of passion and one case of misfortune—spanning the reigns of four Song emperors (Renzong, Huizong, Gaozong, and Lizong) and five Ming emperors (Yongle, Xuande, Hongzhi, Zhengde, and Wanli). It opens with a headless male corpse found in a willow grove outside Wulin Gate in Haining Commandery in the third year of the Song Xuanhe era. After the county office posts a reward, the family of a sedan-chair bearer named Huang Laogou is drawn in: his two sons cut off their father's head at night and soak it in water, yet in the end even Laogou himself cannot recognize the head. The killer seems to vanish from the world, but the victim's father discovers material evidence in an aviary, and the case is transferred to the Court of Judicial Review for retrial. The merchant Li Ji is pushed onto the chopping block, and then two more merchants step forward vowing to bring down the high officials of the Court. Similar puzzling cases unfold one after another: clues break off abruptly, bloodstains vanish, cases nearly become unsolvable, and the investigators themselves are repeatedly at death's door. The author follows the vernacular style of Feng Menglong, while weaving in the psychology and irony of the modern novel, writing of the vast gulf between the sanctity of human life and its worthlessness. The reading is by turns amusing and chilling.