I. J. Parker

When an old friend asks Sugawara Akitada to investigate a colleague's blackmail, Akitada takes leave of his stultifying job for a temporary post at the Imperial University. There he finds gossip and rivalry abounding. A young girl is murdered. An old man mysteriously vanishes, and the Emperor declares it a miracle. Plunging into a labyrinth of conspiracy among the court's most esteemed nobles, Akitada must step carefully while gathering clues to the...

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,...