Akitada Mysteries

On a journey to Naniwa to unmask officials who are selling information to pirates, Akitada witnesses the recovery of a body from the river. The image of the drowned child prostitute follows him as his own problems and disasters multiply. Someone is sabotaging his investigation. His young clerk disappears, Akitada is attacked by thugs, and armed men brutalize his family in the capital. When Tora joins his master in Naniwa, they both fall into the hands of the pirates and must fight a battle to the death to escape. Yet ultimately it is the tragic story of the dead girl that will haunt Akitada most.

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 sets into motion events that leave a trail of bodies. Worse, as the number of unexplained deaths mounts, Tora also disappears. Untangling the skeins of intrigue, Akitada follows leads from the seductive attention of a beautiful courtesan to the secretive business world of Chinatown and discovers that doing his duty has an even higher price than expected.

On the eve of the Tanabata Festival, a warrior rides into a family gathering to slaughter the members of a high-ranking family and their guests. Akitada, whose best friend is among the victims, searches for a shadowy killer who may be part of a secret conspiracy against the emperor himself. In his determination, he defies orders, involves his friends and his sister, and puts his family in danger. Meanwhile, his faithful retainer Tora risks life and limb in a world of thugs and prostitutes to solve the bloody murder of a schoolmaster's wife. Both will suffer the consequences of pursuing ruthless adversaries who are determined to ruin or kill them.

If ever Akitada needed luck, it is now! Things are not going well for him. His new boss is out to get him, his daughter is in love with the wrong man, his ex-wife's affairs come again to haunt him, and he fears he is too old and too poor to deal with any of it. Then his old friend dies suddenly from a case of indigestion that looks suspiciously like murder and the problems escalate into the deadly violence of two ruthless killers. He has to save not only his career and his reputation, but his life.