Blade of the Samurai

May 5, 2014
Spann’s second whodunit set in 16th-century Japan falls short of the standard set by her debut, Claws of the Cat (2013). Ito Kazu needs the help of his friend and fellow clansman, Matsui Hiro, a shinobi (ninja) assassin turned bodyguard. At the shogun’s palace in Kyoto, someone has fatally stabbed the shogun’s senior clerk and second cousin, Ashikaga Saburo, with Kazu’s dagger. That Kazu, ostensibly Saburo’s assistant, had been working as a spy makes his situation even more perilous. Fr. Mateo Ávila de Santos, the Jesuit priest whom Hiro protects, joins the investigation, but one of the shogun’s top aides, samurai Matsunaga Hisahide, gives the pair only three days to solve Saburo’s murder. Spann did a better job of conveying the politics of the time in the previous book, and both the intrigue and the detecting are below the level of Laura Joh Rowland’s series set in 18th-century Japan. Agent: Sandra Bond, Bond Literary Agency.

June 15, 2014
A master ninja's sleuthing skills involve him in a dangerous plot to kill the shogun. Hiro Hattori is charged with protecting the Portuguese priest Father Mateo, a Jesuit with a love for the lower castes of Kyoto and a talent for solving problems. When Shogun Ashikuga's cousin Saburo is stabbed to death at the palace, Matsunaga Hisahide and his assistant, Miyoshi Akira, want Father Mateo to find the killer. Unfortunately, they're already convinced they know who did it: Hiro's fellow ninja Ito Kazu, who's working undercover in the palace. Kazu's dagger was the murder weapon, and he's secretly come to Hiro for help. He won't tell Hiro where he was on the night of the murder, but after they concoct a tale of his being dead drunk, he returns to work, pleading innocence. The other suspects include Saburo's homely wife, who's put up with his many mistresses for the sake of her son and her position. Saburo's latest conquest is a maid at the palace with an eye for the main chance and a plausible packet of lies about the affair. The stable boy who loves her also had reason to kill Saburo. With rival warlord Lord Oda ostensibly on his way to visit, the shogun and his staff are on high alert, but that may not be enough to save the shogun from a plot within his own palace. If Hiro and Father Mateo do not name a killer, their heads will roll. Hiro and Father Mateo's second adventure (Claws of the Cat, 2013) combines enlightenment on 16th-century Japanese life with a sharp and well-integrated mystery.

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July 1, 2014

Saburo, a key official in the shogun's inner circle, has been murdered, and Matsui Hiro's good friend Ito Kazu is the prime suspect. The shogun asks Father Mateo and Hiro for help, since they solved a murder the previous year. Hiro is trained as an assassin (shinobi), and while his undercover assignment is to act as translator for Mateo, he is really a bodyguard for the Portuguese priest. Hiro and Mateo learn much about the workings of the shogunate. Problem is, many (including the victim's widow, Lady Netsuko) had reasons to despise Saburo, and the motives are both personal and political. With the threat of an invasion by Lord Oda looming, a mysterious note suggests Oda's crew might have gained information from someone within the shogun's compound. Hiro's problems increase when Mateo is seriously injured and he must work solo. VERDICT After her exciting historical mystery debut, Claws of the Cat, Spann proves she has the touch in her sophomore entry. The deceptively simple prose educates readers about 16th-century Japan, while the well-plotted story moves at ninja speed. The endearing characters fight to defend honor and truth, giving this strong YA appeal.

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June 1, 2014
The second Hiro Hattori mystery (after 2013's Claws of the Cat) finds the sixteenth-century ninjaand unofficial investigatorpresented with an interesting problem. A fellow ninja, Kazu, believes he's about to be accused of killing the shogun's cousin, but Hiro finds it difficult to prove the man's innocence when Kazu won't answer the simplest of questions, such as where he was when the victim was murdered. Hiro and Father Mateo, the visiting Jesuit priest who fills the role of sidekick (the series' premise being Hiro is Mateo's appointed ninja protector, which makes an excellent cover for Hiro to investigate crimes), work their way through a long list of suspects to find the real killer before Kazu's fate is sealed. There are already a couple of good mystery series set in feudal-era Japan, one at the beginning of the historical period and the other at the end; this one's set in between, meaning the been-there-done-that factor is reduced to background noise. A strong second entry in a very promising series.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)