The Masuda Affair: An Akitada Novel (Akitada Mysteries) - Softcover

Parker, I. J.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1495311708 ISBN 13: 9781495311703

Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2014

Synopsis

While grieving the death of his small son, Akitada risks career, freedom, and family to rescue an abused child from a life of misery. The search for the boy’s family leads to a harrowing story of love, murder, and abandonment. Meanwhile, his faithful servant Tora loses his new wife to a powerful man who pursues beautiful women and will stop at nothing to posses them. The trails of both cases lead to the prostitutes and courtesans of the amusement quarter, and murder soon follows.

About this title

About the Author:

I.J. Parker was born and educated in Europe and turned to mystery writing after an academic career in the U.S. She published her short stories in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, winning the short story Shamus award in 2000. The Akitada novels, a series about an eleventh century Japanese nobleman/detective, now consists of twelve titles, with the next to be released soon. The books are available in print, audio, and electronic formats. They have been translated into twelve languages. The short stories are available in electronic format. I.J. Parker is also the author of several historical novels set during the Heike Wars in twelfth century Japan, and of a historical thriller set in eighteenth century Europe.

From Booklist:

Readers looking for a new historical mystery with a twist will find what they’re after in Parker’s latest Sugawara Akitada mystery, set in eleventh-century Japan. Akitada, a senior secretary in the Ministry of Justice, is on his way home from a case in a nearby town when he spies a small boy—emaciated, bruised, and tearful—by the side of the road. The child tugs at Akitada’s heart because his own young son died just months earlier. But no sooner has Akitada decided to take the seemingly abandoned child home with him than he is accused by the child’s parents of kidnapping. And here begins Akitada’s most bizarre case, which involves the boy, a dead geisha named Peony, the servant Tora’s mysterious disappearance, an ill-fated love affair with terrible consequences, and a dark secret kept by one of the region’s wealthiest families. With so many disparate subplots, it’s sometimes difficult to see how Parker will tie all the threads together by the end of the book, but she does so in an unexpectedly clever way. An intriguing glimpse into an ancient culture. --Emily Melton

About this edition

• Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
• Publication date: 2014
• ISBN 10: 1495311708
• ISBN 13: 9781495311703
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 2
• Number of pages: 440