This is the 13th book in the Sano Ichiro series. A human skeleton is found when a tree near a Shinto shrine is knocked down. In the city troops attack Reiko, Sano's wife and they wore the crest of Lord Matsudaira which is Sano's greatest enemy. Lord Matsudaira's family compound is attacked with a...
I've read four of Rowland's Sano Ichiro series and this is the best one so far. Rowland incorporates the legend of the 47 ronin and creates an intriguing mystery against the backdrop of the Tokugawa Shogunate at the dawn of the 18th century. Yanasigawa and the recently demoted Sano find themselve...
I'm really confused on what I want to award this book. I'm wavering between three and four stars, and I wish I could just make it easier and give it 3.5, but Goodreads won't let me. I want to give it the higher number because it's as well written and tightly plotted as any of the previous books i...
Bundori is the next book after Shinju (set three months later), where Sano has risen to the post of sosakan-sama, the shogun's special investigator. He is still the outsider, as he does not have the background or family connections that his peers do. He is still learning of his duties when he i...
Laura Joh Rowland recreates the Edo era in Japanese history with the kind of machinations and political intrigue that one would expect in one of Sharon Kay Penman’s historical novels based in Medieval England. Then, she manages to weave the intricate pas de deux of a married couple where both par...
The Sano Ichiro mysteries take place during the Tokugawa Shogunate and this time Sano receives a posthumous request from an old enemy to have his death investigated just in case he was murdered. At the same time there's a power struggle to control the weak-willed Shogun and both factions want San...
I picked up the Concubine's Tattoo over the holidays with the plan of reading the next of the Sano Ichiro mysteries soon. With the start of the New Year, I delved into the book and found myself drawn forward. I was not disappointed.The book begins in Edo, days after Sano Ichiro's return from Naga...
I picked this up based solely on the blurb on the cover: "Think James Clavell meets Raymond Chandler." It turned out to be accurate, but also made my expectations too high for what this book turned out to be. I absolutely adore Clavell, and Joh Rowland goes so far as to use many, many of the same...
Sano and Reiko become soul partners, committing to each other in ways which were impossible in feudal Japan. The events of this story are not completely implausible, but the action allowed in the relationship between the two spouses is purely contemporary, impossible. I read this story in Janua...
It's fun to read historical fiction set in places you only know a little about, and the author does seem to have done her research. However, the mystery is I suppose competent enough, but more workmanlike than anything else, and the characters are acceptable but uninspired.The setting here is eng...
HIstorická detektivka z období éry 徳川 (tokugawa). Jde o první knihu ze série příběhů, kde vystupuje Sano Ičiró, jehož policejní kariéru mapují další knihy z této série.Sano je ve svém úřadě jen několik dnů a hned je nucen se úředně vypořádat se šinjú (smíšená sebevražda). Snad aby ukázal, že nové...