Deception, by Eleanor Cooney & Daniel Altieri

This long, twisted mystery is set in 7th century China.   Magistrate Dee is the detective and Madame Wu and her mother are the evil doers, Wu becoming Empress of China.   A form of Buddhism with deep ties to magic and superstition is at the end silenced by the practical Confucianism of Dee.


I schlepped this 640 page (hard cover version) book on several flights before finishing it, and it never lost my interest.