The Lacquer Screen is a gong'an detective novel written by Robert van Gulik and set in Imperial China (the early decades of the Tang dynasty).

It is a fiction based on the real character of Judge Dee (Ti Jen-chieh or Di Renjie), a magistrate and statesman of the Tang court, who lived roughly 630–700 AD.

In 663, Judge Dee is the young magistrate in the fictional Chinese town of Peng-lai.

With the senior magistrate Teng convinced he is going insane, a wealthy banker in town appears to kill himself, though it might be murder.

Judge Dee and his servant Chiao Tai disguise themselves to go undercover and join a gang of robbers to solve the case.