Sugawara Akitada Short Stories/Novellas

It’s the time of the Kamo festival and the imperial horserace. The winner, Wataru, is widely considered the luckiest of men until he finds his beautiful new bride decapitated in his bed. His futile claims of innocence send nobleman-sleuth Akitada hot on the trail of a particularly vengeful killer. (This is a famous tale of Japanese literature recast as a mystery story).

Sugawara Akitada, junior clerk in the Ministry of Justice, attempts in vain to convince his boss that a murder has occurred when the minister's neighbor claims a shape-shifting fox has attacked him.

A maid has disappeared, and her parents want blood money from her employer. Akitada, much against his will, has been ordered to investigate rumors that a water sprite residing in a nearby pond is to blame.

In this short story, a homeless woman has been driven into the streets by the man who claims to be her husband. Akitada solves a clever case of switched identities.

In this Shamus award story, the young Akitada becomes a detective when a father asks him to find his missing daughter. The young woman has been murdered and the suspect is a convenient peddler, but Akitada is not satisfied with that answer.

Eleven stories about crime and detection in eleventh century Japan are arranged chronologically. Sugawara Akitada, a court official, solves murder cases with clues like moon cakes, Chinese lutes, feral cats, and incense. Murder happens even on traditional holidays and in sacred places. An accidental meeting between a recently dismissed clerk and a father searching for his daughter, starts Akitada on his life-long search for justice. It takes him from palaces to the rice paddies of poor farmers. Evil, he discovers, is found everywhere and in unexpected places; it resides in learned men, beautiful women, humble servants, and devout monks. Death also arrives in many forms, during a go game, or while burning incense at an altar. It may even be the result of a tragic mistake.

Murder doesn’t take holidays, and neither does Akitada. In this collection of three tales, Akitada solves crimes on New Year’s Day, during the O-bon festival of the dead, and on the occasion of the Tanabata festival celebrating the meeting of celestial lovers. As a bonus, a chapter describes the Kamo festival from RASHOMON GATE. These exotic whodunits mix detection with the customs of a fascinating culture.

Sugawara Akitada, a young official in the imperial government of Japan, frequently manages to anger his superiors, the police, and his acid-tongued mother with his interest in crime. In this book, he confronts three particularly repulsive criminals and takes considerable personal risks. He solves the murder of bride in “Death and Cherry Blossoms,” accuses his cousin of poisoning a maid in “The Incense Murders,” and rescues Tora from a murder charge in “Instruments of Murder”.

This is a “wintry” tale in which Akitada clears a “cold case” murder of a young woman who died decades earlier. During the religious observance of annual confessions, an elderly man asks Akitada to solve the old crime because he fears he may be the killer. As it turns out, he isn’t the only one who was involved in her death. The story is very loosely based on the ancient tale “The Three Priests”, which was also rewritten by the famous Japanese author Akutagawa.