In an adventure filled with highway bandits, unscrupulous politicians, and renegade monks, The Dragon Scroll introduces readers to the lively world of eleventh-century Japan and an irrepressible hero--Sugawara Akitada. On his first official assignment, Akitada--an impoverished nobleman and earnest young government clerk in the Ministry of Justice--is sent from the capital city on a nearly impossible mission to the distant province of Kazusa to discover why tax convoys are disappearing. In the politically murky world of the Japanese court, he has been set up to fail. Against the odds,...

In I. J. Parker's latest mystery set in ancient Japan, a cold and hostile land pits Akitada against his deadliest foe yet
I. J. Parker's engrossing historical novels bring eleventh-century Japan to life in all its colorful, treacherous glory. As Black Arrow opens, Sugawara Akitada assumes his new post as provisional governor of Echigo, a frigid province in the far north notorious for its hostility to outsiders. But the snow that threatens to completely isolate the region is the least of his problems-which include a local uprising, a series of brutal murders, and a mystery...

In I.J. Parker's newest mystery set in eleventh-century Japan, Akitada disguises himself as a prisoner to solve the, murder of a prince
As her audience grows with each evocative historical thriller featuring Sugawara Akitada, I. J. Parker returns with a gripping tale of political intrigue and cold-blooded murder in ancient Japan. When the exiled Prince Okisada, the most illustrious prisoner of the penal colony on Sado Island, is poisoned, Akitada is called upon by the emperor's envoys to investigate incognito. Posing as a prisoner, he discovers a deadly conspiracy, only to fall...

The latest in the "terrifically imaginative" (The Wall Street Journal) Akitada mystery series brings eleventh-century Japan to life
I. J. Parker's phenomenal Akitada mystery series has been gaining fans with each new novel. The latest, The Convict's Sword, is the most fully realized installment to date, weaving history, drama, mystery, romance, and adventure into a story of passion and redemption. Lord Sugawara Akitada, the senior secretary in the Ministry of Justice, must find the mysterious killer of a man condemned to live in exile for a crime he did not commit....