JAPAN TIMES reviews MASUDA AFFAIR

[I. J. Parker]

While traveling alone on horseback through a gloomy forest near Lake Biwa, northeast of Kyoto, Justice Ministry official Sugawara Akitada suddenly comes upon a filthy, shivering urchin who appears to be deaf and mute.





In the previous installment of I.J. Parker's ongoing saga, Akitada's young son Yori had perished in an epidemic, and out of a sense of desolation, perhaps coupled with guilt, he pulls the waif onto his horse and takes him to lodgings in nearby Otsu.

Unfortunately Akitada's act of kindness earns him nothing but troubles from some of the devious locals, who are not the least bit intimidated by his aristocratic ranking and position in the Kyoto bureaucracy.

As the plot develops, Akitada's one-man investigation draws him toward Otsu's powerful and menacing Masuda clan, and related to this, suspicions over the alleged suicide of the waif's mother, Peony, and by extension, the circumstances of the boy's parentage.

Not only is Akitada beset by local troublemakers; to make matters worse, he's badly let down by his scrappy assistant, the loyal but unpredictable Tora — who has married but not yet informed his master. Akitada fumes over what he mistakenly thinks is Tora's usual tomcatting, when in fact Tora is frantically searching for his expectant bride, who may be in danger because she knows too much about the duplicitous Masudas.

The Masuda Affair is constructed with a complex plot that requires the protagonist to solve several interlinked puzzles. It's almost as good as Parker's previous, and in my opinion her best work, "The Convict's Sword" (2009). In that book, set in a nightmarish Kyoto being ravaged by a smallpox epidemic, Akitada puts obligation ahead of his own family as he doggedly searches for the identity of a man who'd been sent into exile on Sado Island on trumped up charges of parricide, and who had died saving Akitada's life.

Anyone familiar with the Judge Dee novels of the late Dutch diplomat Robert van Gulik, will be right at home with Parker's historical mysteries featuring a righteous Asian official and his fiercely loyal retainers — with the venue moved from 7th century Tang China to 11th century Japan.

[Grant McKenzie]

Very, very cool. Congrats!

[I. J. Parker]

Thanks, Pepper. I think he did. He's reviewed my books all along, and frequently he gets involved in the literary antecedents of the books and says very little about quality. He is a big fan of Robert van Gulik, so it's understandable. But since THE CONVICT'S SWORD, he has noted my contributions, and I'm immensely flattered.

[Pepper Smith]

Nice! Sounds like the reviewer really liked it!