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The Skull Mantra
The Skull Mantra
Nov 4, 2025 9:20 PM

Author:Eliot Pattison

The Skull Mantra

'Summoning is a dangerous thing. To the old Buddhists, words were the most dangerous weapon of all.'

Shan Tao Yun is a former investigator for the chinese government who once got a little too close to the truth. Now he breaks rocks in a Tibetan prison camp high in the Himalayas. Only the remarkable courage of the Buddhist monks who are his fellow prisoners give him the will to survive.

But when a smartly dressed headless corpse is discovered on the bleak moutainside, Shan is forced to become a detective once more. And as he uncovers a web of intrigue involving a beautiful American mining engineer, Tibetan sorcerers, corrupt Chinese officials and the Buddhist Resistance, he begins to realise that far more than his own survival is at stake.

Reviews

Vivid, absorbing, intriguing

—— Sunday Telegraph

A cocktail of action adventure...a great read

—— Guardian

Complex, crammed with Tibetan and Buddhist lore and legend, and utterly fascinating

—— Daily Telegraph

Unexpectedly moving...a wry, fantastic book

—— Books of The Year , Irish Times

Brilliant and subtle... What matters is Solstad's dedicated application to the mysteries of human conduct and relations that his town treasurer illustrates

—— Independent

The existential novel is alive and well... Solstad has a dry and bleakly comic style

—— Daily Telegraph

Solstad is a masterful investigator of human thought and behaviour, and, like the inside of anyone’s head, this novel is in turns funny, mournful, quizzical and insightful. And a real pleasure to read.

—— Jane Graham , Big Issue

The hottest novel to come out of China this year

—— Time Out, Beijing

An inventive and highly topical novel by Chan Koonchung, is among the first to explore a scenario that much of the world is speculating about today

—— Wall Street Journal

Chan’s story is not only absorbing in its own right, it also shines reflected light on the foibles of the West

—— The New York Times

A potent futuristic satire on the re-ordering of not just history by time itself

—— Ind

In Makkai's picaresque first novel, Lucy, a 26-year-old children's librarian, "borrows" her favorite patron, bright, book-loving 10-year-old Ian, after his fundamentalist parents enroll him in a program meant to "cure" his nascent homosexuality.

—— Booklist
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