Water Touching Stone - Eliot Pattison

Cloistered in a remote sanctuary, Shan Tao Yun has received shattering news. A teacher revered by the oppressed has been found slain. One by one, her orphaned students have followed her to her grave, victims of a child-killer harboring unfathomable motives. Abandoning his mountain hermitage, Shan embarks on a search for justice--one carved out of the treacherous borderlands that have been shaken by perilous upheaval. But now, shadowed by bizarre tales of an unleashed "demon", Shan braces himself for even darker imaginings as he stalks a killer and fights to restore spiritual balance to the ancient and tenuous splendor of Tibet.

The novel sports a practically Dickensian cast of characters, which might overwhelm the narrative by sheer numbers, yet Pattison manages to add depth to even the most minor of characters, and at the moments when the troupe threatens to become completely unwieldy, he deftly redeems the situation with moments of quiet poetry.