This story is set in Japan, 1698. Sano Ichiro may be a samurai sleuth and the shogun's trusted advisor, but his growing power at court makes him – and his family – a target for treachery. And this time gruesome discovery brings especially tough...
Far from the shogun's court at Edo, Most Honourable 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...
Samurai Sano Ichiro and his wife Reiko, are hot on the heels of a mysterious courtesan in bestselling novelist Laura Joh Rowland's latest historical thriller. In the carefully ordered world of 17th century Japan, the Yoshiwara pleasure quarter is...
It is June 1694, and Reiko, the beautiful wife of Sano Ichiro; Reiko's friend, Midori; the shogun's mother; and Lady Yanagisawa, wife of the shogun's powerful second-in-command, are kidnapped en route to Mount Fuji and imprisoned in the tower of...
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...
Twenty months spent as the shogun's sosakan-sama – most honorable investigator of events, situations, and people – has left Sano Ichiro weary. He looks forward to the comforts that his arranged marriage promises: a private life with a sweet,...
Someone has set fire to a cottage on the premises of the prestigious Black Lotus Temple in 1691, Japan, killing three sect members. Veteran samurai-detective Sano Ichiro, the Most Honourable Investigator of Events, Situations and People, is...
It is 1537 and Thomas Cromwell has ordered that all monasteries should be dissolved. Cromwell's Commissioner is found dead, his head severed from his body. Dr Shardlake is sent to uncover the truth behind what has happened. His investigation forces...
The year is 1540. Shardlake has been pulled, against his better judgement, into defending Elizabeth Wentworth, charged with murdering her cousin. He is powerless to help the girl, yet she is suddenly given a reprieve – courtesy of Cromwell. The...
From Publishers Weekly
Brutal murders linked to an ancient betrayal send late 17th-century Tokyo into a panic. They also spell big trouble for the Shogun's special investigator, Sano Ichiro, in this sequel to Rowland's well-received first novel,...