Tuesday, July 26, 2016

Book review: The Ninja's Daughter, by Susan Spann

“Last night I killed a girl and left her body by the river.”

Such a shocking confession from a young man would normally compel an immediate response, but Hattori Hiro foresees only trouble if the Portuguese priest he’s been hired to protect, Father Mateo, agrees to get involved.

The year is 1565 in Kyoto, Japan. By this 4th volume in Susan Spann’s mystery series, Hiro and Father Mateo have become known for their crime-solving skills, to Hiro's dismay. Father Mateo’s willingness to help people in need interferes with Hiro’s duties as a covert shinobi (highly-trained ninja spy): “Investigations attracted more attention than he liked.”

Jiro, the merchant’s apprentice who sought the priest’s help, doesn’t actually know if he was the girl’s killer. He had drunk too much sake and woke up to find his would-be lover dead. Although 16-year-old Emi had told him she was a teahouse entertainer, she was really an actor’s daughter. Her low social status makes her death unimportant: the authorities won’t investigate what happened to her.

Father Mateo bristles at this injustice and determines to uncover the truth. After he meets Emi’s family, Hiro finds himself compelled by professional and family loyalty to do the same.

Hiro and Father Mateo make a resourceful team; their partnership works well for their detection and also contributes to readers’ knowledge about the historical setting. Hiro acts as the Jesuit’s Japanese translator (although his fluency is excellent) but in this strict feudal society, Hiro’s role as a cultural translator is equally valuable.

Their investigation takes them from the banks of the Kamo River, whose wooden bridges are guarded by fierce armored samurai, to the inner workings of nō theatre, which has its own social hierarchy. As Hiro explains the finer aspects of Japanese culture to his companion/friend, readers are clued in as well.

This is an era when it pays to be especially careful, with the country in turmoil as rival daimyo vie for power after the shogun’s death. Father Mateo is being pressured to leave Kyoto for his own safety, which adds to the tension. The situation is amusingly lightened on occasion through the comments of the household’s maid, Ana, and the presence of Gato, their cat.

The Ninja’s Daughter is a complex and well-balanced mystery, with enough background included for series newbies and plenty of enticement to continue with the next book. It also comes with an undeniably powerful, setting-appropriate ending.

The novel is published by Seventh Street in trade paperback and ebook on August 2nd (230pp).  Follow the rest of the tour at Historical Fiction Virtual Book Tours.


6 comments:

  1. Ooh, this sounds really interesting - I love the setting! I may have to check this series out. :)

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    1. The setting is great. You learn a lot about Japanese culture, but the info is always smoothly integrated.

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  2. I have the first in the series, "Claws of the Cat," on my TBR list and am looking forward to it - looks like I'm getting behind! Thanks for the review.

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    1. I'm also behind and need to do some catching up. I jumped onto the blog tour because it's a series I've been meaning to read for a while. There are some hints about what happened in the last book, but it doesn't give away how the earlier crimes were solved (I've read some mysteries that do that, and it makes it hard to read them out of order).

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  3. I've not read any novels set in Japan since James Clavell's Shogun back in the 1970s. Time I remedied that though I'm not sure if I want to follow a new series. The Ninja's Daughter looks interesting enough to tempt me!

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    1. It's been a couple of years since I've read anything set in Japan. Most recently was probably Memoirs of a Geisha, and before that, Lian Hearn's Blossoms and Shadows, which I didn't like as much as her Otori series. With this series, if my experience with this book is any indication, you could start at any point.

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