Blade of the Samurai: A Shinobi Mystery

by Susan Spann

Overview

June, 1565: Master ninja Hiro Hattori receives a pre-dawn visit from Kazu, a fellow shinobi working undercover at the shogunate. Hours before, the shogun's cousin, Saburo, was stabbed to death in the shogun's palace. The murder weapon: Kazu's personal dagger. Kazu says he's innocent, and begs for Hiro's help, but his story gives Hiro reason to doubt the young shinobi's claims.

When the shogun summons Hiro and Father Mateo, the Portuguese Jesuit priest under Hiro's protection, to find the killer, Hiro finds himself forced to choose between friendship and personal honor.

The investigation reveals a plot to assassinate the shogun and overthrow the ruling Ashikaga clan. With Lord Oda's enemy forces approaching Kyoto, and the murderer poised to strike again, Hiro must use his assassin's skills to reveal the killer's identity and protect the shogun at any cost. Kazu, now trapped in the city, still refuses to explain his whereabouts at the time of the murder. But a suspicious shogunate maid, Saburo's wife, and the shogun's stable master also had reasons to want Saburo dead. With the shogun demanding the murderer's head before Lord Oda reaches the city, Hiro and Father Mateo must produce the killer in time . . . or die in his place.

Susan Spann's Blade of the Samurai is a complex mystery that will transport readers to a thrilling and unforgettable adventure in sixteenth-century Japan.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781250027047
Publisher:	St. Martin's Publishing Group
Publication date:	07/15/2014
Series:	Shinobi Mysteries , #2
Sold by:	Macmillan
Format:	eBook
Pages:	304
Sales rank:	835,796
File size:	1 MB

About the Author

SUSAN SPANN is a transactional attorney focusing on publishing law and a former law school professor. She has a deep interest in Asian culture and has studied Mandarin and Japanese. Her hobbies include Asian cooking, fencing, knife and shuriken throwing, traditional archery, martial arts, rock climbing, and horseback riding. Susan keeps a marine aquarium where she raises seahorses and rare corals. Spann is a member of the Historical Novel Society and is the author of Claws of the Cat. She lives in northern California with her family.
SUSAN SPANN is a transactional attorney focusing on publishing law and a former law school professor. She has a deep interest in Asian culture and has studied Mandarin and Japanese. Her hobbies include Asian cooking, fencing, knife and shuriken throwing, traditional archery, martial arts, rock climbing, and horseback riding. Susan keeps a marine aquarium where she raises seahorses and rare corals. Spann is a member of the Historical Novel Society and is the author of Claws of the Cat. She lives in northern California with her family.

Read an Excerpt

Chapter 1

 

Hiro opened his eyes in darkness.

Night enveloped the room like a shroud, broken only by the beam of moonlight streaming through the open veranda door. The still air and the moonbeam’s angle told Hiro that dawn was still an hour away.

In most Kyoto houses an open shoji represented a dangerous oversight. For Hiro, a shinobi assassin turned bodyguard, the door was an early warning system that had just paid off.

He strained his ears, listening for the sound that woke him. He heard only silence.

A weight shifted atop Hiro’s feet as his kitten, Gato, twitched in her sleep. The shinobi found that reassuring. Gato’s ears were sharper than his own, and the cat never slept through sounds she didn’t recognize.

Hiro yawned and closed his eyes to weigh the merits of early-morning exercise against two more hours of sleep.

A board creaked outside the veranda door.

Hiro’s eyes flashed open. The kitten raised her head, ears pricked toward the sound.

The loose board sat between Hiro’s door and the one to the adjacent room, where Father Mateo slept. The Jesuit had wanted to fix the squeaky timber, but Hiro insisted the board stay loose to help the shinobi protect his Portuguese charge.

Hiro slipped out from beneath his quilt and pulled on a pair of baggy trousers. As he tied the ankle straps to keep his cuffs from tangling in a fight, he listened for the second creak that would tell him when the intruder stepped off the board.

He heard nothing.

A surge of adrenaline loosened Hiro’s muscles. Only another shinobi could move with sufficient stealth to prevent the board from creaking a second time.

He wasted no time wondering why an assassin had come. Hiro’s clan, the Iga ryu, had ordered him to defend the Jesuit’s life at any cost, and Hiro would not allow himself to fail. He grabbed a dagger from his desk and scurried up the built-in shelves on the southern wall of the room. He was glad he had reinforced them to hold his weight.

The wall ended at rafter height, leaving plenty of space for a man to crouch beneath the peaked thatch roof. Hiro crawled onto the nearest rafter and glanced over the wall into Father Mateo’s room. The Jesuit slept soundly.

A shadow blotted out the moonlight as a human form appeared in Hiro’s doorway. The intruder paused only a moment, then stepped inside.

Gato arched her back and hissed before vanishing into the shadows.

The assassin wore a cowl that hid his face. He moved across the floor with an inward twist of the toes that Hiro recognized as a hallmark of the Iga ryu.

This killer had not come for the Portuguese priest.

Hiro gripped his dagger and readied himself to jump. As he drew a final, preparatory breath he caught the faint but unmistakable scent of expensive wintergreen hair oil.

Betrayal seared through Hiro’s mind like flame. Only one Iga shinobi used that scent, and until this moment Hiro had considered the man a brother.

Plunging a knife into Kazu’s heart would hurt Hiro almost as much as suicide.

Almost, but not quite.

Hiro leaped from the beam as, below him, Kazu whispered, “Hiro? I need your help.”

It was too late to arrest the fall. Hiro flung his arm to the side to stop the knife from striking a fatal blow.

Kazu jumped away, stumbled, and pitched forward onto the futon.

Hiro landed in a silent crouch, knife ready. He would give Kazu a chance to explain, but didn’t let down his guard.

Kazu raised his empty hands. “Hiro, wait! It’s me.”

“I almost killed you,” Hiro hissed. “What were you thinking, coming here unannounced and at this hour?”

Kazu pushed his cowl back onto his shoulders. His worried eyes reflected the moonlight.

“There’s been a murder at the shogunate.”

“The shogun?” Hiro’s expression softened as he realized why Kazu had taken the risk.

Shogun Ashikaga supported the Jesuits’ presence in Kyoto, despite his opponents’ demands that he expel the Portuguese missionaries or execute them as spies. The shogun’s death would threaten both Father Mateo’s life and Hiro’s assignment to protect the priest.

“Not the shogun,” Kazu whispered, “his cousin, Saburo.”

“Your supervisor?” Hiro’s gratitude splintered into anger. He barely managed to keep his voice a whisper. “Have you lost your senses? You risk exposing us both by coming here.”

“Please.” The catch in Kazu’s voice reminded Hiro that Kazu had only twenty years to Hiro’s twenty-five, and although the younger shinobi had come to Kyoto first, Hiro had been an assassin for years before Kazu even received his first official orders—an assignment to spy within the Ashikaga shogunate.

“Someone murdered Saburo with my dagger,” Kazu continued. “The shogun will think I killed him.”

“That doesn’t excuse your acting like a fool.” Hiro inhaled slowly to calm his fury. It didn’t work. “Have you forgotten your training completely? If something compromises your cover, you leave Kyoto. Even a novice knows not to put others at risk.”

“I’m sorry.” Remorse flooded Kazu’s voice. “I panicked.”

“Why come here?” Hiro asked. “Why not run?”

“I couldn’t leave the city. No one passes the outer barricades at night without a travel pass and a good excuse.” Kazu raised his hands, palms up. “I don’t have either.”

Kazu’s fear didn’t soothe Hiro’s anger. Still, the damage was done, and further scolding would not undo it. The shinobi code required Hiro to help a clansman in need unless doing so would compromise his mission. Since Kazu’s arrest might expose both men as shinobi, the choice seemed clear.

“Are you sure no one followed you?” Hiro asked.

Kazu nodded.

“Then tell me what happened, in detail—but first, get off my futon.”

 

Copyright © 2014 by Susan Spann

Editorial Reviews

07/01/2014
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.

Library Journal

05/05/2014
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. (July)

Publishers Weekly

An outstanding historical mystery set in Japan during the shogunate…What adds to the enjoyment of the history is a most elegant mystery that grows out of the politics of the time… All this is told in stripped down prose as we edge carefully through the thickets of confusion and emerge on to the plain of revelation as the killer is unmasked and uncertainty over the threat to the shogun is resolved. ” —San Francisco Book Review

“The second Hiro Hattori mystery (after 2013's Claws of the Cat) finds the sixteenth-century ninja—and unofficial investigator—presented with an interesting problem…A strong second entry in a very promising series.” —Booklist

“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.” —Kirkus Reviews

“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.” —Library Journal

From the Publisher

2014-06-02
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.

Kirkus Reviews