This is James Clavell's tour-de-force; an epic saga of one Pilot-Major John Blackthorne, and his integration into the struggles and strife of feudal Japan. Both entertaining and incisive, "Shogun" is a stunningly dramatic re-creation of a very different world. Starting with his shipwreck on this most alien of shores, the novel charts Blackthorne's rise from the status of reviled foreigner up to the heights of trusted advisor and eventually, Samurai. All as civil war looms over the fragile country.
Added by: Kahena | Karma: 11524.33 | Fiction literature | 31 December 2011
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Shogun
This is the saga of Pilot-Major John Blackthorne, and his integration into the struggles and strife of feudal Japan. Starting with his shipwreck, the novel charts Blackthorne's rise from the status of reviled foreigner up to the heights of trusted advisor and eventually, Samurai.
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.
Rowland once again delivers a mystery laden with details of period and place, with strong portrayals of palace intrigue in 17th-century Japan. Sano Ichiro has risen to the rank of Most Honorable Investigator for the shogun in 1690 Japan. As his fourth adventure (after 1997's The Way of the Traitor) begins, he is marrying the beautiful Lady Ueda Reiko. The wedding is interrupted by the sudden death of Hamune, one of the shogun's concubines, the victim of poisoned ink that Hamune used to give herself an intimate tattoo. Sano's investigation requires extraordinary skill and care, for failure in a case involving the shogun's household could mean his death.
