Recently married samurai detective Sano Ichiro, the shogun's Most Honorable Investigator of Events, Situations, and People, is struggling to come to terms with the unusual partnership that he and his beautiful, intelligent wife, Reiko, have forged. When Reiko insists upon joining in her husband's dangerous investigations, Sano is torn between pride and dismay at his very untraditional wife. But after Sano's rival Yanagisawa sabotages his plan to capture a long-sought criminal and usurps the credit for solving the case, Sano needs all the help he can get to regain the shogun's favor.Sent into virtual exile to investigate a high-level murder in Miyako, the Imperial City fifteen days' journey away from the shogun's court, Sano undertakes a desperate search for a killer whose method is as terrifying as it is elusive: Only the most powerful warriors possess the secret of kiai, "the spirit cry" that can kill a man with a scream. Surrounded by treachery and mounting danger, Sano and Reiko must find safe passage through the mazes of court intrigue - before the repercussions of the violence in Miyako reach all the way to the shogun himself. Read Less