Robbing graves has been the Wu family’s ancestral business for centuries. They’re good at it and they’ve pursued their craft under a strict code of ethics—until Uncle Three came along. As the son of a legendary grave robber, finding and looting tombs is in his blood. When he discovers a secret that had destroyed his father’s career, he knows this knowledge can make him rich beyond all imagination, if it doesn’t kill him first.

With five other men, including his inexperienced but well-educated nephew, Uncle Three sets off on a quest that will immediately take the life of one of his grave robbing team, and leads the remaining four to some of the most perilous spots in China. From a corpse-filled cavern that harbors blood zombies to an undersea labyrinth which is impossible to escape, from a gigantic bronze tree with a menacing secret to the mountains of the Korean border, from a haunted city in the Gobi Desert to a swamp laden with predatory serpents, the grave robbers risk their lives repeatedly for a man whom they suspect of being a liar—if not a murderer.

Uncle Three proves to be as elusive as he is untrustworthy and his nephew is forced to rely on his remaining teammates, Panzi, Fats, and the pokerfaced enigma who calls himself Qilin. But are any of them to be trusted? Who was responsible for the death of Uncle Three’s lost love, Wen-Jin? And who—or what—is the mysterious mastermind that lurks as an invisible and deadly power behind the scenes?

Nobody has the answers—or if they do, they’re not telling. As new bits of information emerge, new questions come too, making the grave robbers understand that the truth is as elusive as any tomb treasure, with a secret as deadly as any monster that lurks within a grave.

The adventure and suspense of this Chinese saga continues at high speed through six volumes that will keep readers on edge until the very last page. The Grave Robbers’ Chronicles is a series that combines horror and humor to create a story that is completely original and thoroughly irresistible.

“It’s another kind of world,” Uncle Three warns his team of grave robbers before they enter the Cavern of the Blood Zombies.

But not even he knows that once inside this deadly cave, he and his companions will be attacked by creatures whose job is to ensure that nobody leaves this place alive. Blood zombies and corpse-eating insects are only part of the danger; hallucinations pit one grave robber against another. When one of them dies, he becomes the biggest threat of all—how can the team kill a former friend in self-defense, even if he has become a monster himself?

Within this cave of twisting tunnels and alluring tombs the grave robbers find a treasure that will change their lives and lead them into even greater danger, one small object that links the deadly cavern to an undersea world of mystery and menace.

In a world of Angry Seas, Hidden Sands, the grave robbing team of Fats. Panzi, Qilin, and Uncle Three’s nephew lose their leader and any trust they may have had in Uncle Three. They gain a new colleague, a beautiful and headstrong woman who is out for blood, and find clues that suggest Uncle Three could be a liar and a murderer. Caught in a trap of shifting rooms that destroy their sense of direction, and pursued by monsters as tenacious as they are homicidal, the grave robbers know time is running out as quickly as the air in their oxygen tanks. Is there a way out of the undersea tomb that has them ensnared, and will they find it in time?

Uncle Three’s nephew has had enough. His uncle has disappeared and there’s strong evidence that he might be a killer. His nephew is more than willing to take up the life of an honest man—until an old friend reappears.

Lao Yang has been in prison for years and emerges with an improbable story of buried treasure far beneath the earth that is guarded by a Bronze Tree of Death. Assuring his old friend that wealth beyond imagination awaits them, he makes him an offer that can’t be refused. In this tomb of treasures lies an answer to what has become of Uncle Three.

This is impossible for a dutiful nephew to ignore and once again he plunges into subterranean peril. Soon he and Lao Yang learn they aren’t the only grave robbers in search of the bronze tree—and the two of them are definitely out of their league. Shapes shift, identities change, and just how good a friend is Lao Yang anyway?

After coming close to death, Uncle Three’s nephew is lured back into the world of corpses, monsters, and treasure by an enigmatic message from his uncle. With Panzi, Fats, and Qilin, he travels to the Chinese-Korean border in the company of a blind brigand who is as menacing as he is elderly and commands a group of men who will kill without hesitation. Guided by a villager who is not as innocent as he seems, the grave robbers enter a mountainous world of avalanches, glaciers, and ice caves, in search of the Palace of Doom.

What they find is a horrible connection to the cavern of blood zombies, the undersea tomb, and perhaps even the subterranean bronze tree. Their quest becomes one from which none of them can turn away, even if they manage to find their way out of the mountain tunnels and the mysterious valley that holds the Soldiers of the Dead.

When Uncle Three’s nephew comes into possession of videotapes, he never expects that he will appear on one of them. The image of himself crawling on his hands and knees in a room he has never seen before horrifies him and leads him to an abandoned house in a strange city, looking for the man who could be his body double. Instead he finds Qilin, a notebook written by the long-lost Wen-Jin, and a new expedition into the Gobi Desert.

Reunited with their grave robbing companions, Fats and Panzi, Qilin and Uncle Three’s nephew also find themselves back in the company of beautiful and treacherous Ning. Their choice is to join forces with a woman who might kill them or face certain and immediate death in the desert—or in the rainforest beyond. Will they find Wen-Jin there? Is she still alive? And if she is, can she be trusted? The answers to these questions are as invisible and as persistent as the Deadly Desert Winds.

Lost in an eerie stone city in the middle of a serpent-ridden swamp, the grave robbers chase a figure that might be Wen-Jin but who can tell? What is certain is that a mysterious force that Wen-Jin’s notebook refers to as It is more powerful than any human could ever be, and It can take on the shape of anybody, even one of the grave robbing comrades.

Is It the power behind the invisible voices that call the grave robbers as they make their way through the swamp? Is It directing the deadly serpents who have a diabolical skill in collecting bodies for purposes of their own? Is It perhaps Wen-Jin herself or is It Uncle Three?

And as the grave robbers slowly confront the horror of the truth that they have been looking for, will the Graveyard of a Queen become the place of their graves too?

A riveting blend of horror, humor, history, and high adventure, the six volumes of The Grave Robbers’ Chronicles have jumpstarted imaginations and turned dreams into nightmares all across the globe. Originally published in China where author Xu Lei is now known as the Middle Kingdom’s Stephen King, the saga has been translated into Thai as well as English and has readers throughout Canada, Vietnam, Singapore, Taiwan, Australia, India, Brazil, Europe, and the Middle East.

Filled with historical facts as well as imaginative plot twists, The Grave Robbers’ Chronicles is an exciting way to launch an exploration into Chinese culture. As the story tightens its noose of suspense, it also provides an impetus to visit Chinese museums around the world to see the treasures that propelled Uncle Three, his nephew, Qilin, Panzi, and Fats into a life of crime and danger.