The Jade Temptress by Jeannie Lin is the second of her historical romance mysteries set in Tang Dynasty China. The heroine Mingyu, a highly trained courtesan, discovers one of her highest-ranking clients spectacularly dead and must work with big, rough-hewn Constable Kaifeng to solve the mystery and maintain her reputation. She always has to walk a very narrow path socially, and in addition was accused of murder by him in the previous novel, so their relationship is somewhat fraught (he briefly questioned her using painful methods we in the modern day would call torture). Meanwhile, Kaifeng has a political enemy who wants him out of his job. The mystery is not the primary focus, and though I enjoyed the romance as these two guarded people open up to each other, just the historical detail alone makes these books worth reading; Lin is terrific about telling you a lot about the period in an unobtrusive, integral way.