1. Shinju
Edo, 1689. Newly appointed magistrate Sano Ichiro is ordered to accept the apparent ritual double suicide of Yukiko, the daughter of a wealthy family, and Noriyoshi, a low-born artist. The official explanation is forbidden love, but inconsistencies at the scene persuade Sano that both victims were…
2. Bundori
Edo, 1689. Severed heads are displayed as bundori, battlefield trophies, and the victims prove to be descendants of warriors connected to the murder of a powerful lord more than a century earlier. Sano Ichiro is ordered to stop the killings before panic and accusations divide the…
3. The Way of the Traitor
Nagasaki, 1690. Sano Ichiro arrives in Japan’s tightly controlled international port, where Dutch merchants are confined to their island settlement and every exchange with foreigners is treated as a potential act of treason. When a Dutch trader is found murdered, Sano is assigned a case that…
4. The Concubine’s Tattoo
Sano Ichiro’s wedding to Ueda Reiko is interrupted by the death of Lady Harume, a favoured concubine of the shogun. The apparent cause is poison introduced through an intimate tattoo, forcing Sano into the secluded women’s quarters of Edo Castle, where rank, jealousy and secrecy govern…
5. The Samurai’s Wife
Sano Ichiro and Reiko travel from Edo to Kyoto after a senior court official dies from what witnesses describe as a lethal kiai, a warrior’s concentrated shout. The imperial palace is divided by spies, aristocratic rivalries and resentment of Tokugawa authority, making every possible explanation politically…
6. Black Lotus
Edo, September 1693. Fire destroys the Black Lotus Temple, leaving three bodies and an orphaned girl named Haru apparently responsible for the disaster. Sano discovers that the victims were murdered before the building burned, turning a religious tragedy into a triple homicide. Reiko believes Haru is…
7. The Pillow Book of Lady Wisteria
Edo, December 1693. Lord Mitsuyoshi, the shogun’s heir, is found stabbed through the eye in a Yoshiwara house of assignation. The courtesan Lady Wisteria, who spent the night with him and once had a relationship with Sano, has vanished together with the private journal that may…
8. The Dragon King’s Palace
In June 1694, Reiko, her pregnant friend Midori, the shogun’s mother and Lady Yanagisawa are abducted while travelling towards Mount Fuji. The women are confined in a ruined palace by a captor whose demands are connected to events long buried by powerful families. The shogun orders…
9. The Perfumed Sleeve
Senior Elder Makino Narasada dies after leaving instructions that Sano Ichiro must investigate if his death appears natural. The evidence suggests assassination, but Makino’s position within the Council of Elders means that every suspect belongs to a faction capable of destabilising the shogunate. Reiko works undercover…
10. The Assassin’s Touch
Edo, May 1695. A senior official dies during a horse race with a single glazed fingerprint on his skin, reviving stories of dim-mak, a secret method of killing through a precisely placed touch. As further officials are threatened, Sano and Hirata investigate whether the deaths are…
11. Red Chrysanthemum
Edo, July 1698. Lord Mori is found murdered and mutilated in his bed, with the pregnant Reiko lying beside him and a blood-soaked chrysanthemum at the scene. She claims she entered the estate to investigate allegations that Mori abused and killed boys, but physical evidence appears…
12. The Snow Empress
Japan, 1699. Sano’s young son disappears during an Edo moon-viewing festival, and a political rival suggests that the child has been taken to Ezogashima. Sano and Reiko travel north, where Lord Matsumae is holding local people hostage until the murder of his mistress is solved. Sano…
13. The Fire Kimono
Edo, March 1700. A skeleton uncovered beneath a fallen tree is identified as a cousin of the shogun who vanished during the Great Fire of Meireki in 1657. Evidence links the death to Sano’s mother and to the legend of a burning kimono blamed for the…
14. The Cloud Pavilion
Japan, 1701. Sano’s estranged uncle asks him to find a daughter who has disappeared after a brutal attack. The search leads Sano and Reiko towards a secluded bamboo structure known as the Cloud Pavilion and to other women whose suffering has been concealed by families anxious…
15. The Ronin’s Mistress
Japan, 1703. Forty-seven masterless samurai kill Kira Yoshinaka in revenge for the death of their lord, Asano Naganori. The act appears to fulfil the demands of loyalty, yet the warriors waited almost two years before striking and now face an order to commit ritual suicide. Sano…
16. The Incense Game
Edo, 1703. A destructive earthquake has reduced neighbourhoods and government buildings to rubble, leaving the shogun’s regime vulnerable to disorder. Beneath a collapsed house, Sano finds two young sisters whose deaths were caused by poisoned incense rather than the disaster. Their powerful father threatens political retaliation…
17. The Shogun’s Daughter
Japan, 1704. Tsuruhime, the shogun’s daughter, dies of smallpox after the earthquake that has already weakened Edo. With no grandchild to inherit, the ageing shogun recognises Yoshisato, a young man raised as Yanagisawa’s son, as his own heir. Sano suspects that the claim is a political…
18. The Iris Fan
Japan, 1709. Sano has been reduced to patrol duty, his marriage to Reiko is damaged and his enemies Yanagisawa and Lord Ienobu have formed an unexpected alliance. When the ageing shogun is stabbed inside his palace with an iron-ribbed iris fan, Sano is restored as chief…