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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 Yoshisato, the...

Sano Ichiro, the Shogun's Most Honorable Investigator of Events, Situations, and People, has his doubts about the partnership that he and his spirited new wife, Reiko, have forged: While he can't help recognizing that her help on his cases can be invaluable, he sometimes longs for a more traditional wife. Still, when a botched case and the resulting loss of face send Sano to the Imperial city to find a killer whose methods are as terrifying as they are elusive, Sano needs the talents of his wife more than ever to inflitrate the emperor's inner circle. Rowland's series "positively smokes...

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 undiminished.

Then a harrowing, almost inconceivable crime takes place. In his own palace,...

July 1698. Sano Ichiro, the samurai detective who has risen to become the shogun's second-in-command, is investigating rumors of a plot to overthrow the ruling regime. When the investigation brings Sano's deputy Hirata to Lord Mori's estate, he is shocked to find Lord Mori murdered and grotesquely mutilated in his own bed, and Sano's pregnant wife, Reiko, lying beside him. The only solid clue is a chrysanthemum soaked in blood.

Reiko's account of her actions is anything but solid. She insists that she went undercover to Lord Mori's estate in order to investigate claims that he...

An RT Book Review Magazine Reviewers' Choice Award Winner

In the wake of a terrifying earthquake, Sano Ichiro races to solve a crime that could bring down the shogun's regime

Japan, 1703. A devastating earthquake has left the city of Edo in shambles--even the shogun's carefully regulated court is teetering on the brink of chaos. This is no time for a murder investigation. But when Sano discovers the bodies of two young sisters buried beneath the rubble, he suspects that incense poisoning, not the earthquake, killed them. Worse yet, their father, a powerful nobleman,...

The Pillow Book of Lady Wisteria by Laura Joh Rowland

In the carefully ordered world of seventeenth-century Japan, the Yoshiwara pleasure quarter is a place where men of all classes can drink, revel, and enjoy the favors of beautiful courtesans. But on a cold winter's dawn, Sano Ichiro--the shogun's Most Honorable Investigator of Events, Situations, and People--must visit Yoshiwara on a most unpleasant mission.

Within a house of assignation reserved for the wealthiest, most prominent men, a terrible murder has occurred. In a room that reeks of liquor and sex, the...

In September of 1693, the Black Lotus Temple, spiritual center for hundreds of Buddhist nuns, monks, priests, and orphans, is burned to the ground leaving three dead and one orphan running for cover. Veteran samurai-detective Sano Ichiro, the Most Honorable Investigator of Events, Situations and People, is called on to investigate the incident. He quickly discovers that despite appearances, the victims did not die in the fire: they were brutally murdered before the fire even began.

With a triple homicide on his hands, Sano's search for a killer leads him to Haru, the orphan girl...

The Ronin's Mistress is a brilliant new twist on the fabled tale of the 47 Ronin, from Laura Joh Rowland--an author with "a painter's eye for the minutiae of court life and] a politician's ear for intrigue." --The New York Times Book Review

Japan, 1703. On a snowy night, 47 warriors murder the man at the center of the scandal that turned them from samurai into masterless ronin two years before. Clearly this was an act of revenge--but why did they wait so long? And is there any reason they should not immediately be ordered to commit ritual...

Japan, 1701. A terrified woman is brutally attacked amid a swirling storm of clouds. Meanwhile, at Edo Castle, samurai detective turned chamberlain, Sano Ichiro, is suspicious of his old rival, Yanagisawa, who has been oddly cooperative since returning from exile. But just as Yanagisawa's true motives begin to emerge, Sano's estranged uncle comes to him for help: His daughter has disappeared, and he begs Sano and his wife, Reiko--who once suffered through the kidnapping of their own son--to find her before it is too late.

Publishers Weekly calls Laura Joh Rowland's The...

Japan, March 1700. The strife between Sano Ichiro, the samurai detective who has risen to power in the shogun's court, and his enemies has escalated to the brink of war.

When a long-buried skeleton with mysterious links to the shogun suddenly comes to light, Sano and his wife, Reiko, who defies social conventions by joining in his investigations, must confront dangerous secrets. What was Sano's own mother doing on the night when a burning kimono ignited a blaze that nearly destroyed the city? The shogun gives Sano and Reiko just three days to find out--or risk losing not only their...