Laura Joh Rowland


Laura Joh Rowland is a detective/mystery author best known for her series of historical mystery novels set in the late days of feudal Japan, mostly in Edo during the late 17th century. Her protagonist is Sano Ichirō.
Rowland is the daughter of Chinese and Korean immigrants. She grew up in Michigan and was educated at the University of Michigan, where she graduated with a B.S. in Microbiology and a Masters in Public Health. She lived through a natural disaster in 2005 when Hurricane Katrina nearly destroyed her house in New Orleans, and now lives in New York City.

Sano Ichiro

The novels deal with the experiences of Sano Ichiro, a samurai and minor official who, by the end of the first novel, became the trusted chief investigator for the fifth Tokugawa shōgun, Tokugawa Tsunayoshi, and by the tenth novel, was promoted to a very high office.
Throughout the stories, Sano constantly had to deal with his problems following the code of bushido while serving both justice and his master, the Shogun; and with his wife, Ueda Reiko, who frequently involves herself in Sano's investigations. Sano experiences great pressure as he is faced with death if he does not fulfill his obligations to the shōgun as well.
Rowland takes some literary license with known figures, creating fictionalized versions of Tokugawa Tsunayoshi, Emperor Higashiyama in The Samurai's Wife, and Yanagisawa Yoshiyasu. Objective historical details, however, are credibly accurate.

List of novels

  1. Shinjū
  2. Bundori
  3. The Way of the Traitor
  4. The Concubine's Tattoo
  5. The Samurai's Wife
  6. Black Lotus
  7. The Pillow Book of Lady Wisteria
  8. The Dragon King's Palace
  9. The Perfumed Sleeve
  10. The Assassin's Touch
  11. The Red Chrysanthemum
  12. The Snow Empress
  13. The Fire Kimono
  14. The Cloud Pavilion
  15. The Ronin's Mistress
  16. The Incense Game
  17. The Shogun's Daughter

  18. Annotations

  1. The Secret Adventures of Charlotte Brontë. Overlook Press; 2008.
  2. Bedlam: The Further Secret Adventures of Charlotte Brontë. Overlook Press; 2010.
  3. The Ripper's Shadow: A Victorian Mystery. Crooked Lane Books; 2017.
  4. A Mortal Likeness: A Victorian Mystery. Crooked Lane Books; 2018.