Synopses & Reviews
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, submissive wife and a month's holiday to celebrate their union. However, the death of the shogun's favorite concubine interrupts the couple's wedding ceremony and shatters any hopes the samurai detective had about enjoying a little peace with his new wife.
After Sano traces the cause of Lady Harume's death to a self-inflicted tattoo, he must travel into the cloistered, forbidden world of the shogun's women to untangle the complicated web of Harume's lovers, rivals, and troubled past, and identify her killer. To make matters worse, Reiko, his beautiful young bride, reveals herself to be not a traditional, obedient wife, but instead, a headstrong, intelligent, aspiring detective bent on helping Sano with his new case. Sano is horrified at her unladylike behavior, and the resulting sparks make their budding love as exciting as they mystery surrounding Lady Harume's death. Amid the heightened tensions and political machinations of feudal Japan, Sano faces a daunting complex investigation.
As subtle as the finest lacquered screen, as powerful as the slash of a sword, Laura Joh Rowland's The Concubine's Tattoo vividly brings to life a story of murder, jealousy, sexual intrigue, and political storms that keeps is in its spell until the final, shattering scene.
Review
"[Rowland] expertly invokes an exotic world--in its difference and brooding darkness--that can be confused with no other."--
The Times-Picayune"Rowland has a painter's eye for the minutiae of court life, as well as a politician's ear for intrigue, so the sleuthing is conducted amid sumptuous scene of imperial excess and under the watch of imperious villains."--The New York Times Book Review
Synopsis
Only a handful of thrillers -- like Gorky Park, The Alienist, or Laura Joh Rowland's own debut novel, Shinju, set in 17th-century Japan -- can bring an entire world to life. In her dazzling new novel, Rowland gives us her most complex and compelling story yet.
The wedding of Sano, the shogun's Most Honorable Investigator, is interrupted by the murder of a beautiful concubine, poisoned by the ink in an exotic tattoo. As Sano's investigation draws him into the forbidden world of the shogun's women, he must also begin to learn about his own new wife -- who is, according to tradition, as unknown to him as the name of the killer, and who has a decidedly untraditional determination to help in her husband's work.
Synopsis
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, submissive wife and a month's holiday to celebrate their union. However, the death of the shogun's favorite concubine interrupts the couple's wedding ceremony and shatters any hopes the samurai detective had about enjoying a little peace with his new wife.
After Sano traces the cause of Lady Harume's death to a self-inflicted tattoo, he must travel into the cloistered, forbidden world of the shogun's women to untangle the complicated web of Harume's lovers, rivals, and troubled past, and identify her killer. To make matters worse, Reiko, his beautiful young bride, reveals herself to be not a traditional, obedient wife, but instead, a headstrong, intelligent, aspiring detective bent on helping Sano with his new case. Sano is horrified at her unladylike behavior, and the resulting sparks make their budding love as exciting as they mystery surrounding Lady Harume's death. Amid the heightened tensions and political machinations of feudal Japan, Sano faces a daunting complex investigation.
As subtle as the finest lacquered screen, as powerful as the slash of a sword, Laura Joh Rowland's The Concubine's Tattoo vividly brings to life a story of murder, jealousy, sexual intrigue, and political storms that keeps is in its spell until the final, shattering scene.
About the Author
LAURA JOH ROWLAND is the author of the Sano Ichiro mysteries, which have twice been named Best Mysteries of the Year by Publishers Weekly. She lived through a natural disaster when Hurricane Katrina nearly destroyed her house in New Orleans, and now lives in New York City.