I. J. Parker

Intended to become the emperor's concubine, she died at the bottom of a cliff near Prince Atsuhira's private villa. The palace covered up the scandal. Months later, Akitada is drawn into the case when his best friend is accused of treason. Atsuhira, his alleged co-conspirator, refuses to defend himself. The mystery of the lady's death unravels slowly, bringing danger to Akitada, whose household is already threatened when an ill-fated relationship...

After the loss of his wife and newborn son, Akitada returns home, ostensibly to care for his motherless children, but really to withdraw from the world into his grief. When his friends and family join in an effort to draw him out of his seclusion by tempting him with a mystery, he responds halfheartedly until he becomes intrigued by the young woman's alleged suicide and the slipshod way in which the police investigated. But more serious problems arise:...

An unexpected and dubious promotion sends Akitada to Kyushu, an outpost where illegal trade with China breeds treason and murder. Leaving behind his family, he faces obstruction and hostility at his new post and learns his predecessor, a man of expensive tastes, has disappeared under suspicious circumstances. As Tora and Saburo delve into the underworld of Hakata, Akitada tracks a ruthless traitor. The brutal murder of the Chinese wife of a doll maker...

The capital is plagued by unexplained fires, and panic threatens to break out, but Akitada has his own problems to worry about. His ailing wife expects a child and he loses his job to a political appointee. When he tries to confront the nobleman who is responsible for his dismissal, he ends up suspected of his murder. With no income and a growing family to support, Akitada desperately plunges into the investigation of this crime and a search for...

Akitada is on his way to the bedside of his dying mother when bad weather forces him to take refuge in a temple whose central treasure is a brilliantly painted hell screen. Perhaps its violent imagery influences his dreams: that night he is awakened by a terrible scream. It's only after Akitada returns to his family and a scene of domestic unhappiness and scandal that the significance of that cry becomes clear. For while he slept, a woman was murdered,...

On his first official assignment, Sugawara Akitada is sent on a nearly impossible mission to the distant province of Kazusa to discover why tax convoys are disappearing. In the politically murky world of the Japanese court, he has been set up to fail. However, the ever-resourceful Akitada, his elderly servant, Seimei, and his impudent bodyguard, Tora, are determined to fulfill their mission and discover the truth in a town of dangerous secrets.