Hiro Hattori

Hello, FIRES OF EDO !

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Hello, FIRES OF EDO !

Edo, February 1566: When a samurai’s corpse is discovered in the ruins of a burned-out bookshop, master ninja Hiro Hattori and Jesuit Father Mateo must determine whether the shopkeeper and his young apprentice are innocent victims or assassins in disguise. The investigation quickly reveals dangerous ties to Hiro’s past, which threaten not only Edo’s fledgling booksellers’ guild, but the very survival of Hiro’s ninja clan. With an arsonist on the loose, and a murderer stalking the narrow streets, Hiro and Father Mateo must save the guild—and themselves—from a conflagration that could destroy them all.

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Happy Release Day, GHOST OF THE BAMBOO ROAD!

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Today marks the release date for the seventh Hiro Hattory mystery – with my favorite cover to date. This time, Hiro and Father Mateo find themselves facing their strangest killer yet . . . When a vengeful spirit terrorizes a mountain village, Hiro and Father Mateo must save the villagers from the phantom’s wrath. January 1566: En route to Edo, Master ninja Hiro Hattori and Portuguese Jesuit Father Mateo spend the night in a rural mountain village whose inhabitants live in terror of a legendary vengeful ghost. When the innkeeper’s wife is murdered and Father Mateo’s housekeeper, Ana, is blamed

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Koyasan! A Return To The Scene Of The Crime

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Tomorrow morning (July 3 in Japan, though it’s only dawning July 2 in the U.S. now) I’m traveling to Koyasan (Mount Koya), in Wakayama Prefecture — one of Japan’s most sacred peaks and the setting for my newest Hiro Hattori mystery, Trial on Mount Koya, which releases July 3. As part of my ongoing project to climb 100 of Japan’s most famous peaks in a single year, I’ll be climbing and hiking on and around Mount Koya on July 3 and 4, to celebrate the release of this new novel.

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Beyond the Trope: Ninjas and Japan!

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Curious about ninjas–either the real, historical ones or the fictional ones that appear in my Hiro Hattori mystery novels? I recently had the opportunity to talk about ninjas, fiction, and my upcoming mystery, BETRAYAL AT IGA, with one of my favorite podcasts: Beyond the Trope. Check out the podcast here, and when you finish take a look at the archives for more fantastic podcast content!

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Back from Left Coast Crime!

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The blog was more silent than usual last week; I was finishing up a project and out of town for the Left Coast Crime conference – a fantastic West Coast mystery convention, organized by volunteers, that takes place in a different location every year. This year’s conference, “Honolulu Havoc” — took place at the Hilton Hawaiian Village Resort in Waikiki (O’ahu, Hawaii) Later that morning, I spoke on the Historical Mystery panel with Rebecca Cantrell, Ovidia Yu, Ann Parker, and fantastic moderator Noel Hynd: Later in the weekend, I moderated a panel on Religion in Crime Fiction, attended even more

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How to Hunt a Shogun

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How do you stop a plot to kill a man who’s been dead for five hundred years? In my case, it required a map, a tour guide, and a ninja. My second Hiro Hattori novel (Shinobi Mystery), Blade of the Samurai, involved a plot to assassinate the 13th Ashikaga Shogun, Japan’s military leader from 1546 to 1565. In the novel, the shogun’s cousin is stabbed to death inside the shogun’s palace, and master ninja Hiro Hattori (along with his Portuguese Jesuit sidekick, Father Mateo) must find the killer and stop the plot – or face execution in the killer’s place. Writing historical mysteries

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Fact from Fiction: Shinobi vs Ninja

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At signings, I’m often asked why I refer to my ninja detective, Hattori Hiro (or Hiro Hattori to those who put surnames last), as a “shinobi” instead of a “ninja.” The answer is simple: the two are one and the same. Many Japanese words are written using Kanji, or characters, originally borrowed from Chinese. In Japanese, the word many English speakers pronounce as “ninja” looks like this: The Chinese pronunciation of those characters is “nin sha” – from which the English language derives the word “ninja.” That pronunciation is used in Japan, but more often, the Japanese pronounce those characters

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