Amazon.com Review
Samurai sleuth Sano Ichiro has a very personal motive in determining who killed the shogun's heir apparent with a hairpin: he's trying to save himself from being executed for the crime.
The Pillow Book of Lady Wisteria introduces readers into Yoshiwara, the well-ordered but cruel pleasure quarter of 17th-century Edo (Tokyo), where the corpse of Lord Mitsuyoshi is found sprawled on a bed. The woman with whom he'd spent his final hours, a top-ranking courtesan known as Lady Wisteria, has disappeared, along with her private journal, which might supply clues to her complicity in this slaying. In the absence of both, and with the capricious old shogun ordering that Mitsuyoshi's family not be quizzed about his death, Sano is left to look for assassins among the courtesan's attendants and prominent clients. Meanwhile, Sano's enemies vie for credit in solving the murder (even if they must pin it on Sano), a woman's headless body is found wearing Wisteria's kimono, and Sano's amateur investigator wife, Reiko, threatens to discover the link between her samurai and the enigmatic prostitute.
Laura Joh Rowland cooks up wonderfully knotty plots. Yet it's her renderings of Sano's world--with its Machiavellian politics, exotic fashions, and hierarchical communities--that make her series particularly interesting. Although this seventh installment lacks the cinematic violence of its immediate predecessor, __, it still makes you glad to be observing shogunate Japan from afar. --J. Kingston Pierce
From Publishers Weekly
Delicate prose and a plot full of the overtones and undercurrents that shade real life push Rowland's latest historical beyond the standard whodunit. In 17th-century Japan, Sano Ichiro the shogun's "Most Honorable Investigator of Events, Situations, and People" has had little time to recover from the disturbing events recounted in Black Lotus (2001) when he's called on to solve a murder of deep political consequence. The shogun's cousin and probable heir has been slain in the bedchamber of Lady Wisteria, a high-priced courtesan, who has gone missing. Every step Sano takes brings the possibility of personal ruin, as the shogun's favor is fickle and Sano has powerful, sly political enemies. Self-doubt and mistrust of others are souvenirs of the insidious black lotus case, which continually plagues Sano and those close to him; he doesn't have all of his emotional strength and his enemies are beginning to act more openly. When the murder case stalls, more subtle mysteries capture the reader's attention. How will Sano regain the upper hand against his enemies, or at least hold his ground? How will he get back in the shogun's good graces when all his suspects are being put to death for other crimes? Will he and his wife regain their trust of each other and themselves? All the animosity and fear in this seamless work is put forth in demure language that perfectly suits the culture Rowland portrays. This character- and atmosphere-driven work is sure to expand Rowland's already large fan base.
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