The Lord of Death: Summary and book reviews of The Lord of Death by Eliot Pattison, plus links to an excerpt from The Lord of Death and a biography of Eliot Pattison.

Shan Tao Yun is an exiled Chinese national, a former Beijing investigator, on parole from the Tibetan gulag to which he had been consigned as punishment. He is ferrying a corpse on muleback over the slopes of Chomolungma - Everest - at the request of a local wisewoman who says the gods have appointed this task to him, when he encounters what looks like a traffic accident. A government bus filled with imprisoned illegal monks has overturned. Should the escaping monks be caught, the brutal Chinese knobs will punish them. Then Shan hears gunfire. Two women in an approaching sedan have been killed. One is the Chinese Minister of Tourism; the other, a blond Westerner, organizes climbing expeditions. Though she dies in his arms, Shan is later met with denials that this blond foreigner is dead.

Shan must find the murderer, for his recompense will be the life and sanity of his son, Ko, imprisoned in a Chinese "yeti factory" where men are routinely driven mad.