The Assassin's Touch

May 1695. During a horse race at Edo Castle the chief of the shogun's intelligence service, Ejima Senzaemon, drops dead as his horse gallops across the finish line—the fourth in a recent series of sudden deaths of high-ranking officials. Sano Ichiro is ordered to investigate, despite his recent promotion to chamberlain and his new duties as the shogun's second-in-command.

Meanwhile, Sano's wife, Reiko, attends the trial of Yugao, a beautiful young woman accused of stabbing her parents and sister to death. The woman has confessed, but the magistrate believes there is more to this case than meets the eye. He delays his verdict and asks Reiko to prove Yugao's guilt or innocence.

As their investigations continue, both Sano and Reiko realize that the man he is trying to hunt and the woman she is desperate to save are somehow connected. A single fingerprint on Ejima's temple puts Sano on the trail of an underground movement to overthrow the regime, and in the path of an assassin with a deadly touch.

Praise for Laura Joh Rowland's Sano Ichiro series:

"Sano may carry a sword and wear a kimono, but you'll immediately recognize him as an ancestor of Philip Marlowe or Sam Spade." — Denver Post

"Rowland has a painter's eye for the minutiae of court life, as well as a politician's ear for intrigue." — The New York Times Book Review"Nearly impossible to put down." — The Washington Post Book World

"A tour de force of imagination." —Robert Harris, author of Fatherland