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Laura Joh Rowland's thrilling series set in Feudal Japan is as gripping and entertaining as ever with The Shogun's Daughter. Japan, 1704. In an elegant mansion a young woman named Tsuruhime lies on her deathbed, attended by her nurse. Smallpox pustules cover her face. Incense burns, to banish the evil spirits of disease. After Tsuruhime takes her last breath, the old woman watching from the doorway says, "Who's going to tell the Shogun his daughter is dead?" The death of the Shogun's daughter has immediate consequences on his regime. There will be no grandchild to leave the kingdom. Faced with his own mortality and beset by troubles caused by the recent earthquake, he names as his heir Yoshi...
With a triple murder on his hands, Sano's search for a killer leads to a clash of wills with Reiko, his headstrong wife. September, 1693, and a cottage belonging to the Black Lotus Temple, spiritual centre for hundreds of Buddhist nuns, monks, priests and orphans, is burned to the ground, leaving three dead. Samuri-detective Sano Ichiro quickly discovers the victims did not die in the fire; they were brutally murdered before the fire began. His investigation of the incident leads him to Haru, an orphan girl found at the scene of the crime. But Reiko, investigating the case against Sano's wishes, is convinced of her innocence. But will Reiko risk her marriage to Sano in order to prove Haru could not be the multiple murderer?
When beautiful, wealthy Yukiko and low-born artist Noriyoshi are found drowned together in a shinju, or ritual double suicide, everyone believes the culprit was forbidden love. Everyone but newly appointed yoriki Sano Ichiro. Despite the official verdict and warnings from his superiors, the shogun's Most Honorable Investigator of Events, Situations, and People suspects the deaths weren't just a tragedy -- they were murder. Risking his family's good name and his own life, Sano will search for a killer across every level of society -- determined to find answers to a mystery no one wants solved. No one but Sano... As subtle and beautiful as the culture it evokes, Shinju vividly re-creates a world of ornate tearooms and guady pleasure-palaces, cloistered mountaintop convents and dealthy prisons. Part love story, part myster, Shinju is a tour that will dazzle and entertain all who enter its world.
In 1690 Nagasaki, the body of a Dutch trader washes up on the coast where foreign "barbarians" are lodged and guarded. Japan's preeminent detective-samurai, Sano Ichiro, risks his honor and his life to find the killer.
A compelling murder mystery set in seventeenth-century Japan, filled with finely drawn characters and suspenseful plot twists, Laura Joh Rowland's The Samurai's Wife is a novel as complex, vivid, and artful as the glorious, lost world it portrays. Far from the Shogun's court at Edo, Most Honorable Investigator Sano Ichiro begins the most challenging case of his career. Upon the insistence of his strong-willed and beautiful wife Reiko, Sano arrives with her at the emperor's palace to unmask the murderer--who possesses the secret of kiai, "the spirit city," a powerful scream that can kill instantly. A high Kyoto official is the victim. Treading carefully through a web of spies, political intrigue, forbidden passions, and intricate plots, Sano and Reiko must struggle to stay ahead of the palace storm--and outwit a cunning killer. But as they soon discover, solving the case means more than their survival. For if they fail, Japan could be consumed in the bloodiest war it has ever seen...
Setting out for London to clear her name when she is falsely accused of plagiarism, Charlotte Brontë inadvertently stumbles on a murder scene and becomes involved in a chain of events that forces her to confront past demons while following a trail of clues.
Riveting and richly imagined, with a magnificent sense of time and place, The Iris Fan is the triumphant conclusion to Laura Joh Rowland's brilliant series of thrillers set in feudal Japan. Japan, 1709. The shogun is old and ailing. Amid the ever-treacherous intrigue in the court, Sano Ichiro has been demoted from chamberlain to a lowly patrol guard. His relationship with his wife Reiko is in tatters, and a bizarre new alliance between his two enemies Yanagisawa and Lord Ienobu has left him puzzled and wary. Sano's onetime friend Hirata is a reluctant conspirator in a plot against the ruling regime. Yet, Sano's dedication to the Way of the Warrior—the samurai code of honor—is undiminishe...
The Perfumed Sleeve is the ninth book in Laura Joh Rowland's mystery series set in feudal Japan featuring Sano Ichiro. November 1694. The streets of Edo are erupting in violence as two factions struggle for control over the ruling Tokugawa regime. One is led by the shogun's cousin, Lord Matsudaira, and the other by the shogun's second-in-command, Chamberlain Yanagisawa. Each side pressures Sano Ichiro, the shogun's most honorable investigator, to join its ranks. When one of the shogun's most trusted advisers is found dead, Sano is forced to honor a posthumous request for a murder investigation. Senior Elder Makino believed that his death would be the result of assassination rather than natur...
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"Elegantly told and interspersed with delicious bits of history" (Kirkus Reviews), Laura Joh Rowland's The Assassin's Touch is a mystery set in feudal Japan you won't want to miss! May 1695. During a horse race at Edo Castle the chief of the shogun's intelligence service, Ejima Senzaemon, drops dead as his horse gallops across the finish line—the fourth in a recent series of sudden deaths of high-ranking officials. Sano Ichiro is ordered to investigate, despite his recent promotion to chamberlain and his new duties as the shogun's second-in-command. Meanwhile, Sano's wife, Reiko, is invited to attend the trial of Yugao, a beautiful young woman accused of stabbing her parents and sister to ...