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DEATH AT THE CROSSROADS
First in the Samurai Mystery Trilogy
Published by
William Morrow
Dale describes how
he came to write the Samurai Mystery Trilogy:
 The
idea for this trilogy was conceived while I was sitting
in a 17th century Japanese farmhouse in the Sankei-en
Garden in Yokohama. I was sipping a steaming cup of
green tea and marveling at floorboards worn glass smooth
by centuries of bare feet crossing them. It occurred to
me that in fiction about ancient Japan, the people who
lived in that farmhouse were often just stage props to
some greater pageantry, such as the fight to become the
Shogun. Yet they also had stories to tell, and I decided
to tell at least some of them through the vehicle of a
mystery trilogy.
Having
chosen the actors, my next decision was to select the
time of the action. To most Japanese, the year 1603 has
a familiarity to it like the year 1776 has to Americans.
1603 is the year Ieyasu Tokugawa declared himself to be
Shogun of Japan, and it marked a turning point in
Japanese history. For the next 250 years, Japanese
culture, politics and the social order were regulated by
the oppressive hand of the Tokugawa Shogunate. This
period has been covered by many works of fiction and
non-fiction, but I was interested in the hinge of
history; that brief period when an entire nation was in
the midst of a pervasive and profound change, before the
Tokugawa Shogunate had extended its tentacles into every
aspect of Japanese life.
My
intent is to write this trilogy as entertainment. To the
best of my ability, I've tried to be accurate in my
rendition of Japanese life in 1603, but I've obviously
had to take some liberties in the interest of creating a
work of fiction. This series is a bit more hard-edged
than my Ken Tanaka series (no pun involving swords
intended!), because the age was a turbulent and violent
one. Despite that, I've tried to inject humor, memorable
characters and atmosphere into the book. I hope you
enjoy it.
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Review from Publisher's
Weekly...
The Anthony and Macavity
Award-winning author of Death in Little Tokyo (1996) and The
Toyotomi Blades (1997) moves back in time with his third
mystery, a quietly reflective historical puzzler set in
early-17th-century Japan. Matsuyama Kaze is a ronin--an
unaffiliated, wandering samurai--whose personal history is
gradually revealed as he investigates the murder of an
unidentified man whose corpse is left near a remote mountain
village. Interrupting his mission to find the missing daughter
of his Lord and Lady, whose deaths came in the revolt that led
to the oppressive centuries-long rule of the Tokugawa Shogunate,
Matsuyama gradually weaves himself into the fabric of daily life
in the region. He exercises his samurai skills in martial arts,
in cultivated patience and in cunning intelligence through which
he understands the obvious and hidden links among the local
peasants, the petty village officials, its Lord and the band of
local outlaws whose power has recently increased. Furutani
surely and gradually creates an atmospheric setting in this
increasingly compelling story, casting in the hero's role a
figure who manages to embody with utter credibility both
compassion and ruthlessness. This is the first tale in a
projected trilogy, and readers will look forward to the second
installment.
Review from the Los
Angeles Times...
Dale Furutani's first two
crime novels, "Death in Little Tokyo" and "The
Toyotomi Blades," were entertaining contemporary tales
about Ken Tanaka, a hapless amateur private eye who stumbles
into murder. Furutani's new one, "Death at the Crossroads:
A Samurai Mystery" (Morrow, 210 pages, $22), is a more
ambitious work, a tale set in 1603 Japan- a turning point in
Japanese history, according to the author, when the new shogun,
Tokugawa Ieyasu, began a period of oppression that lasted 250
years.
"Crossroads"
protagonist is Matsuyama Kaze, a ronin (a samurai without a
master) on a (three-book) quest to find his lord's daughter,
abducted during the siege of their castle. Here, his search is
sidetracked by a corpse he discovers at the crossroads in the
title. The search for the killer is properly intriguing, and,
when you add the fascinating background, distinctive characters,
unusual culture and unique hero, you have a sure cure for
readers sick to death of standard mystery fare.
Each chapter in Death
at the Crossroads is introduced by an original haiku,
which comments on the story or the upcoming events. Here is a
collection of these haikus.
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Deep mist hides in the
mountains. A rabbit crouches
under the dampness.
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Monkeys marching all
in a row. Fierce martial faces.
What fine samurai!
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A spider sits and
waits in an iridescent
web. Poor little moth!
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A warm fire with a
kettle bubbling over it.
It's good to have friends.
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A butterfly roosts.
Unexpected elegance
on a bobbing leaf.
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Dark night, ghostly moon.
A leaf flutters to the ground.
Demons on the road.
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My footprints on a
Black sand beach. A rising tide
Erases the past.
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The past calls to the
present. A memory of
the young bird's first song.
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An apparition
Echoes the sounds of the past.
Past becomes present.
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Caterpillar
spins a cocoon. What knowledge
from a fuzzy head!
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Tear drip like blood on
a ghostly face. Obakes
dwell inside my soul.
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Hanging between earth
and eternity, I grab
for earth and for life.
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Love knows many names.
Alone in the darkened woods,
all names sound silent.
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Lies men tell women.
Lies women tell men. Somewhere
precious truth must live.
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Young buds don't always
grow in sunshine. Sometimes they
must survive winter.
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Shadows where there is
no light. Demons appear to
prick at our conscience.
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The Cock thinks the sun
exists to serve its crow. We
think we serve our heart.
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Gray of steel, not fog.
Life seen through cunning old eyes.
Fearsome grandmother!
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A dead chick that had
no chance to preen or fly south.
Life's a precious gift.
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Strange beast, with no eye
to perceive unripened fruit.
Some destroy the young.
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Red Fuji, caught in
the caressing rays of the
budding scarlet sun.
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Graceful elegance
Was no buffer from my death.
Even flowers die.
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