Happy Days!
It's started, the best time of the year for the hard-working author: The first reviews are coming in.
Usually PUBLISHERS WEEKLY is the earliest. In this instance, I was blessed with a short review in THE DAILY BEAST last week. But now PUBLISHERS WEEKLY has arrived with a starred review:
The Convict's Sword: A Mystery of Eleventh-Century Japan I.J. Parker. Penguin, $15 paper (416p) ISBN 978-0-14-311579-3
In Parker's compelling fifth mystery set in feudal Japan (after 2007's Island of Exiles), Sugawara Akitada, now a senior secretary in the ministry of justice, suffers guilt over his failure to fulfill his promise to Haseo, a recently deceased convict who saved his life in an earlier book, to exonerate him. As Akitada makes some small progress toward finding the truth about the five-year-old murders Haseo was blamed for, he must also clear his own retainer, Tora, of the murder of a blind street singer. His inquiries on both fronts come at a time of increasing tension with his wife, Tamako, and as an outbreak of smallpox disrupts the capital city, Heian-Kyo. A capricious and unreliable boss, Soga, adds to his woes. Besides smoothly mixing action and deduction, Parker gives her protagonist an emotional depth that raises her to the front rank of contemporary historical writers, including Laura Joh Rowland, the author of a similar series set in 17th-century Japan (The Fire Kimono, etc.). (Aug.)
Usually PUBLISHERS WEEKLY is the earliest. In this instance, I was blessed with a short review in THE DAILY BEAST last week. But now PUBLISHERS WEEKLY has arrived with a starred review:
The Convict's Sword: A Mystery of Eleventh-Century Japan I.J. Parker. Penguin, $15 paper (416p) ISBN 978-0-14-311579-3
In Parker's compelling fifth mystery set in feudal Japan (after 2007's Island of Exiles), Sugawara Akitada, now a senior secretary in the ministry of justice, suffers guilt over his failure to fulfill his promise to Haseo, a recently deceased convict who saved his life in an earlier book, to exonerate him. As Akitada makes some small progress toward finding the truth about the five-year-old murders Haseo was blamed for, he must also clear his own retainer, Tora, of the murder of a blind street singer. His inquiries on both fronts come at a time of increasing tension with his wife, Tamako, and as an outbreak of smallpox disrupts the capital city, Heian-Kyo. A capricious and unreliable boss, Soga, adds to his woes. Besides smoothly mixing action and deduction, Parker gives her protagonist an emotional depth that raises her to the front rank of contemporary historical writers, including Laura Joh Rowland, the author of a similar series set in 17th-century Japan (The Fire Kimono, etc.). (Aug.)
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Comment by Pepper Smith on June 18, 2009 at 6:10am
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Oh, very nice! I'll bet that last sentence really has you floating high! Congratulations!
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