The Pillow Book of Lady Wisteria (St. Martin's Minotaur mystery) - Hardcover

Rowland, Laura Joh

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0312282621 ISBN 13: 9780312282622

Publisher: St Martin's Press, 2002

Synopsis

Samurai Sano Ichiro and his wife Reiko, are hot on the heels of a mysterious courtesan in bestselling novelist Laura Joh Rowland's latest historical thriller. In the carefully ordered world of 17th century Japan, the Yoshiwara pleasure quarter is home to women who have been sold to brothels as punishment for their crimes. It is here that the shogun's dashing young cousin and heir apparent is found dead - stabbed through the eye with a long hairpin - in the bed of a beautiful courtesan named Lady Wisteria. When both Lady Wisteria and her private journal - or pillow book - turn up missing, Sano Ichiro, the shogun's Most Honourable Investigator of Events, Situations and People, is called upon to solve the crime and find the lady, a job that is complicated slightly by the fact that Sano had a brief affair with her some years ago. Against his better judgement Sano accepts the help of his fiery, young wife, Reiko, in exploring the surprisingly dangerous world of the pleasure quarter as he seeks to unmask a killer.

About this title

Review:

"Like the big, sprawling novels of James Clavell, the Sano Ichiro mysteries are full of captivating detail, with lively characters and solid stories."-"Booklist " "Delicate prose and a plot full of the overtones and undercurrents that shade real life push Rowland's latest historical beyond the standard whodunit."--"Publishers Weekly"

From the Back Cover:

In feudal Japan, passion and secrets lead to murder. . .

From A Remote, Exotic World. . .
Sano Ichiro, Most Honorable Investigator of Events, Situations, and People, awakens from a turbulent dream into a real-life nightmare. Lord Matsudaira Mitsuyoshi, the shogun's cousin and heir, has been murdered after a night of debauchery in the city's pleasure quarter...

Comes A Danger All Too Close To Home. . .
The matter requires Sano's personal attention-more personal than Sano at first imagines. For he soon discovers that Mitsuyoshi's companion for the evening was none other than the alluring Lady Wisteria, a woman whom Sano himself once knew intimately before he was married to his beloved wife, Reiko. But the memory of Wisteria still stirs him, and it is with both dismay and relief that he learns she has vanished along with her pillow book, a diary that may contain valuable clues. The circumstances trouble him, as does the possibility that he and Wisteria might meet again with dangerous consequences. . .

"Like the big, sprawling novels of James Clavell, the Sano Ichiro mysteries are full of captivating detail, with lively characters and solid stories."
-Booklist

"Delicate prose and a plot full of the overtones and undercurrents that shade real life push Rowland's latest historical beyond the standard whodunit."
--Publishers Weekly

About this edition

• Publisher: St Martin's Press
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 0312282621
• ISBN 13: 9780312282622
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 256