Sand and Sorrow

Tang Dynasty Gaochang, a dying oasis on the Silk Road. When a constable investigates a farmer's dead ox, he stumbles into a savage underworld of water wars, cannibalistic survival, and ritual murder in the slums. Following the bleak procedural realism of Peter James, every clue reveals a new horror, and the final arrest only exposes the irreversible collapse of humanity. Justice is served, but the desert continues to devour the weak.