People are often surprised (and sometimes, a little skeptical) to discover that my mystery novels feature a detective team composed of a master ninja and a Portuguese Jesuit priest.
Japan was almost entirely closed to Westerners (really, to all outsiders) for much of its history, but opened to Portuguese Jesuits and traders for a short time during the 16th and 17th centuries. (Shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu severely restricted foreigners’ interactions with Japan again, beginning in 1609).
If you’d like to know more about Jesuits in Japan, or why I chose a Jesuit priest as my ninja detective’s partner in crime-solving, click over to Harvee Lau’s Book Dilettante, where I have a guest post on The Cross and the Sword: Jesuits in Medieval Japan.