The eight short stories in Judge Dee at Work include characters from van Gulik's other mysteries. A "Judge Dee Chronology" at the back of the book shows how the stories fit together with the other fifteen novels on Judge Dee's life.

"Delightful novels, so scrupulously in the classic Chinese manner yet so nicely equipped with everything to satisfy the modern reader."--New York Times

"Entertaining, instructive and oddly impressive. Judge Dee, the officers of his tribunal and the people with whom he and they are concerned are interesting folk, and the world of crime, mystery, violence, lust, corruption and ceremony in which they move is formidably picturesque."--Times Literary Supplement

Robert van Gulik (1910-67) was a Dutch diplomat and an authority on Chinese history and culture. He drew his plots from the whole body of Chinese literature, especially from the popular detective novels that first appeared in the seventeenth century.