I found the explanation for the reference to Chinese Bell Murders in the earlier Chinese Maze Murders
here.
His first effort in that direction was to translate and publish in 1949 one of the old stories, the Celebrated Cases of Judge Dee or the Dee Goong An.
<snip>
The publication of the Dee Goong An did not have quite the effect van Gulik wished, since it did not inspire a revival of the literature. So, he decided to revive the literature himself, by writing the The Chinese Maze Murders. This was published in Japanese in 1951 and in Chinese in 1953. These books were successful, and van Gulik wrote two more, The Chinese Bell Murders and The Chinese Lake Murders.
<snip>
Van Gulik had actually written his stories first in English, and he soon decided to proceed with their publication in that language also. The English preface of The Chinese Maze Murders is dated 1956 -- after the 1951 Japanese and the 1953 Chinese editions. Van Gulik evidently rewrote the three books slightly for the editions in English, since there is a reference in the Maze Murders to the Bell Murders and a reference in the Bell Murders to the Lake Murders, even though the latter books were written subsequent, not prior, to the former ones. In the chronology of Judge Dee's life, van Gulik at first wrote books from his later life and then moved forward.
Quote:
Originally Posted by JSWolf
That seems to be the proper order to read these and that makes this one way down the list.
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Proper? Oy. Written chronology or character chronology? That seems an everyone for herself/himself kind of decision. Me, I wouldn't think of reading The Magician's Nephew before The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. And if you opt for written order, everyone (but one) agrees that Chinese Maze Murders was, as the University of Chicago Press puts it, "Robert van Gulik’s first venture into writing suspense novels." Or as the quote from Wikipedia cited above by Tom has it, "Van Gulik's novels and stories made no direct reference to the original Chinese work and so Celebrated Cases of Judge Dee is not considered to be part of the Judge Dee series. "