The Ronin's Mistress
From an author with "a painter's eye for the minutiae of court life [and] a politician's ear for intrigue," a retelling of the revenge tale of the 47 Ronin (The New York Times).
Japan, 1703. On a snowy night, forty-seven 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.
"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
- Pages
- 424
- First published
- September 13, 2011
- Language
- English
- Edition
- Ebook
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Shelved by 1 Litcadian
Reviews
- adventurousemotionalmysteriousreflectivetenseMedium-paced
Started January 27, 2025 · Finished February 7, 2025
Picked this one up without knowing the rest of the series bc 'Imperial investigator tries to solve the 47 Ronin' is an idea that absolutely slaps. It was pretty good and I'm certainly interested in reading more, but some of the occasional western-conservative vibe of the morality (mainly around homosexuality) annoyed at times. Possibly this is better executed in other installments. I did like that while all the women were pretty messy and often holding their own prejudice, the narrative did a pretty good job not shaming any of them. There were also just...a lot of women in this, and they all got a lot of page time interacting with each other in various permutations, which is always nice. (A lot of my stars come from this bc I kept expecting it to swing the other way but no!) I do have to say I could have done without the Generic Asian Mysticism TM but possibly it will annoy less if I start from earlier and let it build. It kind of came out of nowhere and I was like okay I guess we're reading auras now, sure whatever. Also in a formatting senses I don't like italicized honorifics but I think this is just prose fiction publishers being behind on their style guides.