Amazon.com Review
Samurai Sano Ichiro, our guide through the intricacies of life and death in 17th-century Japan in Laura Joh Rowland's evocative and accessible mysteries ( and are available in paperback) is called the Shogun's Most Honorable Investigator of Events, Situations, and People. All of these skills--plus a strong sense of survival--are needed in this story about what happens when Dutch traders arrive in Nagasaki in 1690. The foreigners are isolated in a small section of the city, and most ordinary citizens are forbidden to make contact with them--on penalty of beheading. But when the Dutch trade director is found murdered, Sano risks his neck to find the killer and satisfy his curiosity about the world outside his rigorously regimented homeland.
From Library Journal
In 1690 Japan, the ruling shogun's jealous chamberlain curtails the power of the shogun's favorite samurai detective, Sano Ichiro, by sending him to faraway Nagasaki. Sano immediately risks life and limb to discover how a Dutch trader escaped confinement and wound up murdered. Since Japanese paranoia decrees isolation of Western ''barbarians,'' strict trade regulation, persecution of Christians, and samurai adherence to code, Sano's investigation is fraught with multitudinous dangers. Anything that can happen does?deceit, arson, assault, mayhem?with constant action compensating for any lack of subtlety, depth, or originality. Exciting, exotic entertainment from the author of Bundon (LJ
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