Laura Joh Rowland – författare

It's Japan, March 1700. The strife between Sano Ichiro, the samurai detective who has risen to power in the shogun's court, and his enemies has escalated to the brink of war. When a long-buried skeleton with mysterious links to the shogun suddenly comes to light, Sano and his wife, Reiko, who defies social conventions by joining in his investigations, must confront dangerous secrets. What was Sano's own mother doing on the night when a burning kimono ignited a blaze that nearly destroyed the city? The shogun gives Sano and Reiko just three days to find out - or risk losing not only their position at court but their families' lives.

Japan, 1703. On a snowy night, forty-seven fiercely determined warriors murder the man at the centre of the scandal that turned them from samurai into masterless r No. nin two years before. Clearly this was an act of revenge - but why did they wait so long? And is there any reason they should not immediately be ordered to commit ritual suicide? Sano Ichir No., demoted from Chamberlain to his old post as Most Honourable Investigator of Events, Situations, and People, has mere days to solve the greatest mystery of samurai legend - while his own fortunes hang in the balance.

In the wake of a terrifying earthquake, Sano Ichir No. races to solve a crime that could bring down the shogun's regimeJapan, 1703. A devastating earthquake has left the city of Edo in shambles - even the shogun's carefully regulated court is teetering on the brink of chaos. This is no time for a murder investigation. But when Sano discovers the bodies of two young sisters buried beneath the rubble, he suspects that incense poisoning, not the earthquake, killed them. Worse yet, their father, a powerful nobleman, threatens to topple the vulnerable regime unless Sano agrees to track down his daughters' killer. With the help of his wife, Reiko, and his chief retainer, Hirata, Sano begins a secret investigation that jeopardizes his whole family. And with Hirata mysteriously neglecting his duties and an old foe plotting to overthrow Sano and the shogun himself, the shockwaves from the earthquake are only the beginning.

Japan, 1704. In an elegant mansion a young woman named Tsuruhime lies dying of smallpox, attended by her nurse. Incense burns, to banish the evil spirits of disease. After Tsuruhime takes her last breath, the old woman watching from the doorway says, "Who's going to tell the Shogun his daughter is dead?" The death of the Shogun's daughter has immediate consequences for his regime. There will be no grandchild to inherit the kingdom. Faced with his own mortality and beset by troubles caused by the recent earthquake, he names as his heir Yoshisato, the seventeen-year-old son he only recently discovered was his. Until five months ago, Yoshisato was raised as the illegitimate son of Yanagisawa, the shogun's favorite advisor. Yanagisawa is also the longtime enemy of Sano Ichiro. Sano doubts that Yoshisato is really the Shogun's son, believing it's more likely a power-play by Yanagisawa. When Sano learns that Tsuruhime's death may have been murder, he sets off on a dangerous investigation that leads to more death and destruction as he struggles to keep his pregnant wife, Reiko, and his son safe. Instead, he and his family become the accused. And this time, they may not survive the day.

Japan, 1709. The shogun is old and ailing. Amid the ever-treacherous intrigue in the court, Sano lchiro has been demoted from Chamberlain to a lowly patrol guard. His relationship with his wife Reiko is in tatters, and a bizarre new alliance between his two enemies Yanagisawa and Lord lenobu has left him puzzled and wary. Sano's onetime friend Hirata is a reluctant conspirator in a plot against the ruling regime. Yet, Sano's dedication to the Way of the Warrior-the samurai code of honor - is undiminished. Then a harrowing, almost inconceivable crime takes place. In his own palace, the shogun is stabbed with a fan made of painted silk with sharp-pointed iron ribs. Sano is restored to the rank of chief investigator to find the culprit. This is the most significant, and most dangerous, investigation of his career. If the shogun's heir is displeased, he will have Sano and his family put to death without waiting for the shogun's permission, then worry about the consequences later. And Sano has enemies of his own, as well as unexpected allies.As the previously unimaginable death of the shogun seems ever more possible, Sano finds himself at the center of warring forces that threaten not only his own family but Japan itself. Riveting and richly imagined, with a magnificent sense of time and place, The Iris Fan is the triumphant conclusion to Laura Joh Rowland's brilliant series of thrillers set in feudal Japan.

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 first novel, Shinju. The killings are made known when the severed heads of the victims are put on public display, in the manner of an ancient custom known as bundori, or war trophy. The victims are descendants of warriors who, more than a century earlier, were involved in the murder of a powerful warlord. As the killings continue, Sano, though hampered in his investigation by his devotion to the warrior-code of bushido and its precepts of silent obedience and service, suspects three of the most powerful men in the Shogunate, including Chamberlain Yanagisawa. Also complicating Sano's quest for the truth is a female ninja in Yanagisawa's power; aiding it are an eager young officer in the Tokyo police and a quirky old morgue attendant.

Seventeenth-century Tokyo is the setting for Rowland's first book in a murder mystery series featuring Sano Ichiro the Senior Police Commander in the district of Edo. Ichiro is a samurai whose academic background puts him at odds with most of his peers.When beautiful, wealthy Yukiko and low-born artist Noriyoshi are found drowned together in what seems to be a shinju, or ritual double suicide, everyone believes the cause was their forbidden love. Everyone, that is, but Sano Ichiro.Despite the official verdict and being warned off by his superiors, the shogun's Most Honourable Investigator of Events, Situations and People suspects this double death was not only a tragedy - it was murder. Risking his family's good name and his own life, Sano will search for the killer across every level of society, determined to find answers to a mystery no one else seems to want solved . . .

Amid the political machinations of feudal Japan, Sano faces a daunting, complex investigation.Twenty months spent as the shogun's most honourable investigator of events, situations and people have left Sano weary. He looks forward to the comforts of his arranged marriage and month's holiday to celebrate the union with his new wife. However, the death of the shogun's favourite concubine interrupts the couple's wedding ceremony as Sano is recalled to perform his duty.After Sano traces the cause of Lady Harume's death to a self-inflicted tattoo, his must travel into the cloistered world of the shogun's women to untangle the complicated web of Harume's lovers, rivals and troubled past, and identify her killer.