Download or read book The Pillow Book of Lady Wisteria written by Laura Joh Rowland and published by Minotaur Books. This book was released on 2007-04-01 with total page 372 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In The Pillow Book of Lady Wisteria, Laura Joh Rowland once again has written a book in which "an exotic setting, seventeenth-century Japan, and a splendid mystery...make for grand entertainment" (New York Daily News). In the carefully ordered world of seventeenth-century Japan, the Yoshiwara pleasure quarter is a place where men of all classes can drink, revel, and enjoy the favors of beautiful courtesans. But on a cold winter's dawn, Sano Ichiro--the shogun's Most Honorable Investigator of Events, Situations, and People--must visit Yoshiwara on a most unpleasant mission. Within a house of assignation reserved for the wealthiest, most prominent men, a terrible murder has occurred. In a room that reeks of liquor and sex, the shogun's cousin and heir, Lord Mitsuyoshi, lies dead, a flowered hairpin embedded in his eye, in the bed of the famous courtesan, Lady Wisteria. The shogun demands quick justice, but Sano's path is blocked by many obstacles, including the disappearance of Wisteria and her pillow book, a diary that may contain clues. The politics of court life, the whims of the shogun, and interference by his long time rival, Edo's Chief Police Commissioner Hoshina, also hinder Sano in his search for the killer. Sano's wife, Lady Reiko, is eager to help him, but he fears what she may uncover. When suspicion of murder falls upon Sano himself, he must find the real murderer to solve the case and clear his name.

Download or read book The Fire Kimono written by Laura Joh Rowland and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2008-11-11 with total page 316 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Japan, March 1700. Troops ambush and attack Lady Reiko, the wife of Sano Ichiro, the samurai detective who has risen to power and influence. The troops who have attacked Reiko appear to belong to Sano's enemy, Lord Matsudaira, who denies all responsibility. But if the rivals are not to blame, who is?

Download or read book Bundori written by Laura Joh Rowland and published by Villard. This book was released on 2011-11-23 with total page 412 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The sequel to the acclaimed novel Shinju again features detective Sano Ichiro as he trails a serial killer stalking feudal Japan. In 1689, an all-powerful shogun controls the state, surrounded by bitter machinations and political intrigues. When an ancient tradition suddenly and brutally reappears, Sano risks everything to bring the killer to justice. “Bundori is terrific. . . . So good you won’t want to put it down, even to get off a plane. . . . [Laura Joh] Rowland hits her stride as a writer who can deal equally well with the pacing of plot and the nuances of character development. . . . Rowland clearly knows how to build suspense and action, a talent that she demonstrates with great skill.”—New Orleans Times-Picayune “Bundori is one of those mysteries in which the itch to find out whodunit recedes before the pleasure of prowling through a different world.”—Washington Post Book World “Sano may carry a sword and wear a kimono, but you’ll immediately recognize him as an ancestor of Philip Marlowe or Sam Spade.”—Denver Post “A colorful pictorial style that conveys . . . excitement and . . . danger.”—The New York Times Book Review

Download or read book The Dragon King s Palace written by Laura Joh Rowland and published by Minotaur Books. This book was released on 2007-04-01 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Once again, Laura Joh Rowland's dazzling combination of history and storytelling draws us into a sumptuous and treacherous world, in The Dragon King's Palace. On a whim of the shogun's mother, a procession has left the sweltering heat of Edo, bound for the cooler climate of Mount Fuji. Among her traveling companions are Reiko, the beautiful wife of Sano Ichiro, the shogun's Most Honorable Investigator of Events, Situations, and People; Reiko's friend Midori, nine months pregnant; and Lady Yanagisawa, the deranged wife of the shogun's powerful second-in-command. None of them look forward to the trip. But their troubles have only begun when their procession is stopped suddenly on a deserted road. The entire retinue is viciously slaughtered and the four women are bound and taken away, imprisoned by a mysterious kidnapper. Sano now finds himself faced with the most important case of his career. The shogun demands quick action, and under the threat of death, Sano is forced to work with his bitter enemies---Chamberlain Yanagisawa and Police Commissioner Hoshina. The women are in imminent danger, and the delivery of a ransom note only complicates matters---forcing both Sano and Reiko to take desperate measures.

Download or read book The Wisteria Society of Lady Scoundrels written by India Holton and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2021-06-15 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A New York Times Notable Book of 2021 “The kind of book for which the word “rollicking” was invented.”—New York Times Book Review A prim and proper lady thief must save her aunt from a crazed pirate and his dangerously charming henchman in this fantastical historical romance. Cecilia Bassingwaite is the ideal Victorian lady. She's also a thief. Like the other members of the Wisteria Society crime sorority, she flies around England drinking tea, blackmailing friends, and acquiring treasure by interesting means. Sure, she has a dark and traumatic past and an overbearing aunt, but all things considered, it's a pleasant existence. Until the men show up. Ned Lightbourne is a sometimes assassin who is smitten with Cecilia from the moment they meet. Unfortunately, that happens to be while he's under direct orders to kill her. His employer, Captain Morvath, who possesses a gothic abbey bristling with cannons and an unbridled hate for the world, intends to rid England of all its presumptuous women, starting with the Wisteria Society. Ned has plans of his own. But both men have made one grave mistake. Never underestimate a woman. When Morvath imperils the Wisteria Society, Cecilia is forced to team up with her handsome would-be assassin to save the women who raised her--hopefully proving, once and for all, that she's as much of a scoundrel as the rest of them.

Download or read book Peony in Love written by Lisa See and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2011-05-04 with total page 399 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Peony has neither seen nor spoken to any man other than her father, a wealthy Chinese nobleman. Nor has she ever ventured outside the cloistered women's quarters of the family villa. As her sixteenth birthday approaches she finds herself betrothed to a man she does not know, but Peony has dreams of her own. Her father engages a theatrical troupe to perform scenes from The Peony Pavilion, a Chinese epic opera, in their garden amidst the scent of ginger, green tea and jasmine. 'Unmarried girls should not be seen in public,' says Peony's mother, but her father allows the women to watch from behind a screen. Here, Peony catches sight of an elegant, handsome man and is immediately bewitched. So begins her unforgettable journey of love, desire, sorrow and redemption.

Download or read book Black Lotus written by Laura Joh Rowland and published by Minotaur Books. This book was released on 2002-03-15 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In September of 1693, the Black Lotus Temple, spiritual center for hundreds of Buddhist nuns, monks, priests, and orphans, is burned to the ground leaving three dead and one orphan running for cover. Veteran samurai-detective Sano Ichiro, the Most Honorable Investigator of Events, Situations and People, is called on to investigate the incident. He quickly discovers that despite appearances, the victims did not die in the fire: they were brutally murdered before the fire even began. With a triple homicide on his hands, Sano's search for a killer leads him to Haru, the orphan girl found at the scene of the crime. But Sano's wife Reiko, investigating the case against Sano's wishes, is convinced of Haru's innocence. Reiko's investigation leads her behind the walls of the Black Lotus Temple. It is within these walls that she discovers a sect involved in extortion, prostitution, and hedonistic rituals. Could one of the sect's members be the killer? Will Reiko risk her marriage to Sano in order to prove Haru's innocence? Set in the luscious finery of the samurai court of medieval Japan, this latest installment in the best-selling series by Laura Joh Rowland, is filled with shocking surprises and suspense as readers are once again allowed access into the world of Sano Ichiro.

Download or read book The Pillow Book written by Peter Greenaway and published by Dis Voir Editions. This book was released on 1996 with total page 136 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Script of Greenaway's 1995 film, The pillow book, which was made as an homage to the 10th century story by Sei Shōnagon entitled Makura no sōshi, on which it is loosely based.

Download or read book The Samurai s Wife written by Laura Joh Rowland and published by Minotaur Books. This book was released on 2000-04-25 with total page 565 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A compelling murder mystery set in seventeenth-century Japan, filled with finely drawn characters and suspenseful plot twists, Laura Joh Rowland's The Samurai's Wife is a novel as complex, vivid, and artful as the glorious, lost world it portrays. Far from the Shogun's court at Edo, Most Honorable Investigator Sano Ichiro begins the most challenging case of his career. Upon the insistence of his strong-willed and beautiful wife Reiko, Sano arrives with her at the emperor's palace to unmask the murderer--who possesses the secret of kiai, "the spirit city," a powerful scream that can kill instantly. A high Kyoto official is the victim. Treading carefully through a web of spies, political intrigue, forbidden passions, and intricate plots, Sano and Reiko must struggle to stay ahead of the palace storm--and outwit a cunning killer. But as they soon discover, solving the case means more than their survival. For if they fail, Japan could be consumed in the bloodiest war it has ever seen...

Download or read book Unbinding The Pillow Book written by Gergana Ivanova and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2018-11-06 with total page 247 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An eleventh-century classic, The Pillow Book of Sei Shōnagon is frequently paired with The Tale of Genji as one of the most important works in the Japanese canon. Yet it has also been marginalized within Japanese literature for reasons including the gender of its author, the work’s complex textual history, and its thematic and stylistic depth. In Unbinding The Pillow Book, Gergana Ivanova offers a reception history of The Pillow Book and its author from the seventeenth century to the present that shows how various ideologies have influenced the text and shaped interactions among its different versions. Ivanova examines how and why The Pillow Book has been read over the centuries, placing it in the multiple contexts in which it has been rewritten, including women’s education, literary scholarship, popular culture, “pleasure quarters,” and the formation of the modern nation-state. Drawing on scholarly commentaries, erotic parodies, instruction manuals for women, high school textbooks, and comic books, she considers its outsized role in ideas about Japanese women writers. Ultimately, Ivanova argues for engaging the work’s plurality in order to achieve a clearer understanding of The Pillow Book and the importance it has held for generations of readers, rather than limiting it to a definitive version or singular meaning. The first book-length study in English of the reception history of Sei Shōnagon, Unbinding The Pillow Book sheds new light on the construction of gender and sexuality, how women’s writing has been used to create readerships, and why ancient texts continue to play vibrant roles in contemporary cultural production.

Download or read book The Shogun s Daughter written by Laura Joh Rowland and published by Minotaur Books. This book was released on 2013-09-17 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Laura Joh Rowland's thrilling series set in Feudal Japan is as gripping and entertaining as ever with The Shogun's Daughter. Japan, 1704. In an elegant mansion a young woman named Tsuruhime lies on her deathbed, attended by her nurse. Smallpox pustules cover her face. 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 on his regime. There will be no grandchild to leave 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 a 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.

Download or read book The Disappearance at P re Lachaise written by Claude Izner and published by Macmillan + ORM. This book was released on 2010-09-14 with total page 333 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fin de siècle Paris: the world of Verlaine and Zola, Renoir and Toulouse-Lautrec; a time of anarchists, scientists, and occultists, when can-can skirts were raised at the Moulin Rouge and fortunes were lost on the Panama Canal. Armand de Valois was one of these latter unfortunates, stricken by yellow fever at the site of his ruin. When his widow Odette disappears into his tomb in the Père-Lachaise cemetery and never returns, her maid Denise fears the worst. Alone in the great metropolis, Denise knows just one person she can go to for help: Odette's former lover, Victor Legris. When the frightened girl turns up at his bookshop, Victor feels there must be a simple explanation for Odette's disappearance. But it soon becomes apparent that something sinister lies behind events at the Père-Lachaise. When Denise turns up drowned in the Seine, and Odette's corpse is found buried in an overgrown backyard, Victor throws himself into his second investigation, aided by his trusty assistant Joseph and much to his lover Tasha's chagrin. Once again, Paris and its denizens come alive, and events of world and local history give the mystery a thrilling backdrop. From the the Bois de Vincennes to the streets of Saint-Germain, from trams to carriages, from artists' lofts to coffee bars, diligently researched and tightly plotted, The Disappearance at Père-Lachaise immerses readers in a fascinating mystery in the glorious City of Light.

Download or read book Rashomon Gate written by Ingrid J. Parker and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2002-07-31 with total page 360 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Award-winning writer Parker brings ancient Japan to life in a tale of blackmail and murder among high-ranking nobles. 10 illustrations.

Download or read book The Assassin s Touch written by Laura Joh Rowland and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2006-10-31 with total page 356 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: DEADLY SECRET It is a lost art, passed down by the ancients in great secrecy: Dim-mak. It is death, by the lightest touch of a finger. Sano Ichiro, tenuous in the new regime as the shogun's second-in-command, does not have the luxury of skepticism?another senior official is dead, a fingerprint lightly glazed into his skin. DEADLY CRIMESano's wife Reiko has an investigation of her own: a beautiful, proud, and hopelessly poor woman has confessed to murdering her family. Yet the pieces do not fit, and as Reiko looks deeper into the woman's life as a hinin?a moral outcast, shunned by the world?inexplicable connections appear between her investigation and Sano's. DEADLY TOUCHAs Reiko's questions spiral her further into the squalor of life as a hinin, Sano and Hirata?his most loyal samurai?pursure their prey, uncovering an intricate tapestry of betrayal woven into the highest levels of the new regime. But they are no match for the one who has mastered dim-mak, a warrior who will strike all those who cross him or his path?even Reiko. "Sano may carry a sword and wear a kimono, but you'll immediately recognize him as an ancestor of Philip Marlowe or Sam Spade." --The Denver Post

Download or read book The Iris Fan written by Laura Joh Rowland and published by Minotaur Books. This book was released on 2014-12-09 with total page 351 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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. Japan, 1709. The shogun is old and ailing. Amid the ever-treacherous intrigue in the court, Sano Ichiro 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 Ienobu 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.

Download or read book The Concubine s Tattoo written by Laura Joh Rowland and published by Minotaur Books. This book was released on 2007-04-01 with total page 390 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A richly crafted novel set in seventeenth-century Japan, Laura Joh Rowland's The Concubine's Tattoo unfolds with all the excitement of a superb murder mystery and a sweeping, sensuous portrait of an exotic land. Sano Ichiro, the Shogun's most honorable investigator, is summoned to the imperial palace to find the murderer of Harume, a young concubine poisoned while applying a lover's tattoo. Sano's new bride, Reiko, insists on helping him with the case. Reiko's samurai blood and warrior's skill alarm her new husband, who expected a docile wife. But Reiko is only the first of many surprises... As subtle as the finest lacquered screen, as powerful as the slash of a sword, The Concubine's Tattoo vividly brings to life a story of murder, jealousy, sexual intrigue, and political storms that keeps us under its spell until the final, shattering scene.

Download or read book The Ronin s Mistress written by Laura Joh Rowland and published by Minotaur Books. This book was released on 2011-09-13 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Ronin's Mistress is a brilliant new twist on the fabled tale of the 47 Ronin, from Laura Joh Rowland--an author with "a painter's eye for the minutiae of court life [and] a politician's ear for intrigue." (The New York Times). Japan, 1703. On a snowy night, 47 warriors murder the man at the center of the scandal that turned them from samurai into masterless ronin 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 Ichiro, demoted from Chamberlain to his old post as Most Honorable 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.