MURDER IN CANTON by Robert van Gulik. 206 pages. Scribner's. $3.95.
.Something is amiss in the great port city of Canton in the year A.D. 680, when Judge Dee arrives from Peking, ostensibly to look into foreign trade. What is missing—and what the Tang dynasty's master detective is looking for—is a fellow named Lew, the Imperial censor and pivotal power in the palace intrigues of the capital. Lew soon turns up dead, murdered by a delayed-action poison. The judge, of course, finds his culprit after dealing with a clutch of lively characters: the blind and beautiful Lan-lee, who collects crickets; Zumurrud, a...
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