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 (Bundori and Shinju 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 Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Booklist
Too many period mysteries often seem like history lessons clumsily disguised as novels. On the other hand, there is Rowland's Sano Ichiro series, starring the greatest detective in Japan (circa 1690): well constructed, superbly written, and very entertaining. Some novelists who write about Japan--James Clavell, for instance--overwhelm the reader with detail. This third Ichiro novel, in which Sano investigates the murder of a Dutch merchant, is full of information about life in Japan during the samurai era, but--as in the films of the great Japanese director Akira Kurosawa--the information flows naturally from the story and never once intrudes on it. Like Lindsay Davis' novels about Marcus Didius Falco, the Roman private eye--or, indeed, like Umberto Eco's classic, The Name of the Rose Rowland's novel is, above all, an excellent whodunit. Highly recommended for all mystery fans. David Pitt


From Kirkus Reviews
Packed off to a routine inspection of remote Nagasaki by a jealous chamberlain bent on curtailing his access to his lord, samurai detective Sano Ichir is hardly off the boat when trouble strikes. Jan Spaen, the Dutch East India Company's missing director of trade, is found dead on a chilly beach, and his restless companions aboard a Dutch ship riding in the harbor have to be pacified while Sano investigates his murder. His superiors on Nagasaki--Governor Nagai and Ohira Yonemon, chief officer of the island compound of Deshima--want to disarm the Dutch, but Sano, made uneasy by the unfair treatment of the foreign barbarians and drawn by his budding friendship with the ship's surgeon, allows them to keep their weapons--a serious mistake, he realizes, when the evidence points to a Japanese killer and the Dutch commander threatens to attack the city, starting a full- scale war, unless Sano brings him the head of the killer within two days. Meantime, though, Sano's unearthed a smuggling ring whose leaders seem to be the city fathers, who promptly frame him for smuggling, arrest him, and remove him from the investigation. Will Sano finally be hamstrung by the conflicting demands of his roles as detective, avenger, diplomat, vassal, and man of honor? Of course, he won't. But tension rides high as Rowland (Bundori, 1996, etc.) takes every clich‚ of the One Just Man genre--the civic conspiracy, the prostitute in love, the impossible deadline, the massacre of innocents, the man on the run--and refracts them all through the code of Bushido. -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.


Book Description

A volatile, corrupt city threatened by toreign invasion and ru by an iron-fisted government, Nagasaki is the last place Sano Ichiro wants to be, Unfortunately, the shogun's Most Honorable Investigator of Events, Situations, and People has been banished there by a wicked adversary in the shogun's court.

Surrounded by spies, Sano must tread carefully. When the body of a Dutch trader washes ashore, he finds himself leading an investigation that could push Japan into war -- even as it thrusts his life into the hands of powerful enemies. Sano has to unmask a killer and prove his innocence, or his samurai head, and maybe his country, will fall.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

The year is 1690, and the place is Nagasaki - a city where superstition, politics, and greed reign supreme. It is here that the mutilated body of Jan Spaen, a prominent Dutch trader and one of the few Westerners in Japan, washes ashore. With few leads and too many enemies, Sano Ichiro finds himself in the midst of a dangerous search for an elusive killer. With every clue, the investigation pulls him further into a tangled web of deception and samurai lore. Nothing is as it seems, and no one can be trusted. Racing against the clock, Sano must find the murderer, for at stake is not only his noble warrior status, but his very life.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

In the port of Nagasaki in the year 1690, the prosperous Japanese power elite is doing quite well from trade, although the arrival of the Dutch makes everyone nervous. To diminish the possibility of attack, the Dutch are confined to a small section of the city and local citizens are told that contact with foreigners is a treasonable offense. Into this poisonous atmosphere steps Samurai Sano Ichiro, the shogun's Most Honourable Investigator of Events, Situations, and People. While gathering information about the disappearance of Jan Spaen, the Dutch Trade Director, the steadfast and competent Sano, last seen in Shinju, believes he's being set up for a fall by a highly placed enemy, a possibility foreshadowed by the beheading of a traitor in the opening pages. When Spaen is found murdered, Sano suspects the murderer is a local, and, even though it means adding to an atmosphere already thick with tension, the Samurai can't let the truth go. He must employ all his skills to maintain balance as tries to bring the killers to justice while saving his own neck, struggles to remain loyal while satisfying his own curiosity about the outside world, and determines if justice is worth the price even as he pays it. As the Dutch declare their insistence that the killer be found by training their ship's guns on the city, Sano's predicament intensifies. The collision of East and West is compelling, but Rowland's bland prose and disappointingly predictable solution ill serve her story's central conflict. (June)

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 doesdeceit, arson, assault, mayhemwith constant action compensating for any lack of subtlety, depth, or originality. Exciting, exotic entertainment from the author of Bundon (LJ 2/1/96).

Kirkus Reviews

Packed off to a routine inspection of remote Nagasaki by a jealous chamberlain bent on curtailing his access to his lord, samurai detective Sano Ichir is hardly off the boat when trouble strikes. Jan Spaen, the Dutch East India Company's missing director of trade, is found dead on a chilly beach, and his restless companions aboard a Dutch ship riding in the harbor have to be pacified while Sano investigates his murder. His superiors on Nagasaki—Governor Nagai and Ohira Yonemon, chief officer of the island compound of Deshima—want to disarm the Dutch, but Sano, made uneasy by the unfair treatment of the foreign barbarians and drawn by his budding friendship with the ship's surgeon, allows them to keep their weapons—a serious mistake, he realizes, when the evidence points to a Japanese killer and the Dutch commander threatens to attack the city, starting a full- scale war, unless Sano brings him the head of the killer within two days. Meantime, though, Sano's unearthed a smuggling ring whose leaders seem to be the city fathers, who promptly frame him for smuggling, arrest him, and remove him from the investigation. Will Sano finally be hamstrung by the conflicting demands of his roles as detective, avenger, diplomat, vassal, and man of honor?

Of course, he won't. But tension rides high as Rowland (Bundori, 1996, etc.) takes every cliché of the One Just Man genre—the civic conspiracy, the prostitute in love, the impossible deadline, the massacre of innocents, the man on the run—and refracts them all through the code of Bushido.