GOLDSEA | ASIAN BOOKVIEW | FICTION
Samurai's Wifeby Laura Joh Rowland
St Martin's Press, New York, 2000, 261 pp, $23.95
A very non-traditional wife helps her samurai sleuth husband seek a killer in the imperial city. A murder mystery set in 17th century Japan.
EXCERPT:
from the attic of a shop in Edo's Nihonbashi merchant district, Sano Ichiro, the shogun's sosakan-sama -- Most Honorable Investigator of Events, Situations, and People -- conducted a secret surveillance. He and his chief retainer, Hirata, peered through the window blinds. Below them lay Tobacco Lane, a street of tobacco shops and warehouses, restaurants and teahouses. As the summer twilight deepened, the peaked roofs turned to dark silhouettes against a rosy sky. Tobacco Lane, recently bustling with daytime commerce, was now a corridor of blank facades, its storefronts hidden behind sliding doors. Lanterns burned over gates at either end of the block. Across the city echoed the usual evening music of dogs barking, horses' neighs, the clatter of night-soil carts, and tolling temple bells. The only sign of activity came from the Good Fortune Noodle Restaurant, a tiny establishment wedged between two shops across the street. Lamplight striped its barred windows. Smoke wafted from the kitchen.
"Dinner's long past," Sano said, "but I smell fish cooking over there."
Hirata nodded. "She's definitely expecting someone."
"Let's just hope it's our man," Sano said.
Nearby, Sano's wife Reiko, stood amid bales of fragrant tobacco. Her pastel summer robes glowed in the faint light from the window and open skylight. Twenty-one years old, with eyes like bright black flower petals and long, lustrous air worn in a knot, she was small and slender. Since her marriage last autumn, Sano had defied convention by permitting Reiko to help with his cases. Even though both of them knew that a proper wife should be waiting for him at home, he'd learned that Reiko could question witnesses and uncover evidence in places where a male detective couldn't go. Now here to witness the climax of this investigation, Reiko joined Sano at the window. She tensed, listening, her lovely delicate oval face alert.
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