Editorial Reviews

From Kirkus Reviews
Jade Palace Vendetta ($23.00; Jul.; 256 pp.; 0-688-15818-8): The second installment in Furutani's samurai trilogy (Death at the Crossroads, 1998) finds freelance warrior Matsuyama Kaze interrupting his search for his dead lord's son to save merchant Hishigawa Satoyasu from murderous banditsand then getting plenty of chances to regret the act of courage that's landed him in a stew of deception and treachery. -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Synopsis
In Jade Palace Vendetta, award-winning mystery writer Dale Furutani offers the second installment in his fascinating samurai mystery trilogy. Set in seventeenth-century Japan, the series follows the adventures of Matsuyama Kaze, a wandering samurai whose sense of honor is as keen as his sword. Kaze is a ronin, or masterless warrior, destined to wander the countryside in search of his murdered lord's kidnapped daughter.

Jade Palace Vendetta finds Kaze on the Tokaido road, in his quest for the missing child. While traveling, the samurai sees a gang of thugs attacking a helpless merchant, and comes to the merchant's defense. After pledging to act as yojimbo, or bodyguard, for the remainder of the journey, Kaze makes a terrible discovery: the merchant is the keeper of many dark secrets and the target of an official vendetta. This revelation is only the beginning of Kaze's troubles, as it soon becomes clear that in the merchant's gilded world in Kamakura, nothing is what it seems. Waylaid from the search for his lord's daughter, Matsuyama Kaze finds himself embroiled in a scheme that leads directly to the decadent secret of the Jade Palace.

Dale Furutani's samurai mysteries have been hailed as "atmospheric," "engrossing," and "magical," and his unconventional hero Matsuyama Kaze, according to Publishers Weekly, "embod[ies] with utter credibility both compassion and ruthlessness." Jade Palace Vendetta carries the beauty and danger of Feudal Japan, while telling the action-packed story of one warrior's quest for justice.

Buy this book.