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The Skull Mantra is the first in the Inspector Shan Tao Yun series by Eliot Pattison. Per SYKM, it won the 2000 Edgar Award for Best First Novel. It has dropped to $2.99 at Kindle and Kobo US.

Kindle US: https://www.amazon.com/Skull-Mantra-...dp/B003J5UIGY/
Kobo US: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/the-skull-mantra

Spoiler:

Winner of the 2001 Edgar Award for Best First Novel, The Skull Mantra was a sensation when first published and received wide acclaim from critics and readers alike. The Skull Mantra is ranked as a novel about a people and a place--the Tibetans of the high Himalayas--as it is a gripping thriller.

The corpse is missing its head and is dressed in American clothes. Found by a Tibetan prison work gang on a windy cliff, the grisly remains clearly belong to someone too important for Chinese authorities to bury and forget. So the case is handed to veteran police inspector Shan Tao Yun. Methodical, clever Shan is the best man for the job, but he too is a prisoner, deported to Tibet for offending someone high up in Beijing's power structure. Granted a temporary release, Shan is soon pulled into the Tibetan people's desperate fight for its sacred mountains and the Chinese regime's blood-soaked policies. Then, a Buddhist priest is arrested, a man Shan knows is innocent. Now time is running out for Shan to find the real killer.

The Skull Mantra is the winner of the 2000 Edgar Award for Best First Novel.