The Fire Kimono

Many will listeners will remember Bernadette Dunne's work on MEMOIRS OF A GEISHA, which serves her well in creating the setting of seventeenth-century Japan in this historical mystery, part of a series. The intrigue continues between Sano Ichiro, whom the shogun earlier raised to the rank of chamberlain, and his longtime rival, Lord Matsudaira. Sano's wife and detective partner, Reiko, is also involved in the story. Dunne tells this story in graceful and genteel tones. The characters represent a broad spectrum--from toddlers to octogenarians, as well as both genders. Dunne creates unique personas for each, providing continuity in an otherwise winding narrative that alternates between the present and scenes that occurred 43 years earlier. M.R. (c) AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine

Starred review from September 1, 2008
Set in 1700, Rowland's outstanding 13th Sano Ichiro mystery (after 2007's The Snow Empress
) finds Sano, whom the shogun raised to the rank of chamberlain several books back, waging a fierce struggle with his chief rival, Lord Matsudaira. The stakes are raised at the outset when Matsudaira's forces almost succeed in killing Sano's wife and occasional sleuthing partner, Reiko. The chamberlain soon suspects that someone else may have been behind the attack, but soon he faces a more daunting task—proving his mother innocent of the murder of one of the shogun's cousins, who vanished during the great fire that destroyed much of Edo and whose skeletal remains were just uncovered by chance. Sano must now question everything he thought he knew about his mother, with his own family facing execution should she be found guilty. Rowland has given her hero his greatest challenge yet in this suspenseful look at feudal Japan.