Rapt - Attention and the Focused Life

A wise research psychiatrist once told me that he had identified life's greatest problem: How to balance self and others, or your need for independence with your need for relationship? Since writing Rapt, I've come to believe that we now face a fundamental psychological challenge of a different sort: How to balance your need to know—for the first time in history, fed by a bottomless spring of electronic information, from e-mail to Wikipedia--with your need to be?

Dragon's King Palace

In Rowland's eighth engrossing 17th-century Japanese mystery (after 2002's The Pillow Book of Lady Wisteria), Sano Ichiro, the shogun's Most Honorable Investigator of Events, Situations and People, is roused in the middle of the night when the shogun's mother and Sano's wife, Reiko, are kidnapped en route to Mount Fuji and their escort slaughtered. The crisis is exacerbated by the identities of the two other abductees: the wife of Sano's primary rival, the chamberlain Yanagisawa, the real power behind the shogun; and the pregnant wife of Sano's chief assistant.

Perfumed Sleeve

In Rowland's ninth absorbing historical set in 17th-century Japan (after 2003's The Dragon King's Palace), Sano Ichiro, the shogun's special criminal investigator, must once again navigate treacherous political waters to solve a puzzling murder. Sano finds himself retained by a corpse when the valet of one of the country's leading figures, councilman Makino Narisada, delivers a posthumous request from his master. Narisada asks Sano to examine the circumstances of his own death.

The Assassin's Touch

At the start of Rowland's assured 10th historical set in 17th-century Japan (after 2004's The Perfumed Sleeve), Sano Ichiro, now the shogun's chamberlain and second-in-command, returns to his previous role of criminal investigator after the country's top spy, Ejima Senzaemon, drops dead on his mount during a horse race. Sano quickly finds that Senzaemon was just the latest senior official to die without warning. With the assistance of Hirata, his longtime assistant, the chamberlain uses his highly irregular sources to get on the trail of a martial-arts master using the legendary dim-mak, or touch of death.

Howard Carter - The Path to Tutankhamun

In November 1922 a momentous discovery, unlike any other before or since, changed our understanding of the ancient world. However, until now the marvelous story of Carter’s quest for Tutankhamun and its culmination in his unearthing of the intact, treasure-filled tomb has been told without a reliable account of the man behind the discovery and the myths that have surrounded it. Carter's legendary discovery in the Valley of the Kings and his painstaking clearance of the intact royal burial are the topic of this definitive biography.