The Samurai Detectives: Volume 1: The classic samurai adventure and multi-million-copy Japanese bestseller | 
pickI loved this book! Sword-and-Sleuthing should definitely be a genre ?
The initial 30-or-so pages are rather dense in exposition and set up, but after that, the story moves along smoothly. It's actually "stories", as it's fairly episodic rather than being a single overarching plot, but there's a through line that develops nicely.
Elderly (he's a year younger than me! ?) samurai, Akiyama Kohai gives off Yoda vibes, being a diminutive ⬇️
Next up: Set in the 10th shogunate, 1737-1786, The Samurai Detectives is a historical crime novel starting when a young swordmaster, Akiyama Daijiro, declines a dishonourable offer to work as an enforcer by breaking someone's arms. Seeking to discover the conspirators, Akiyama recruits his retired samurai father and Mifuyu, a female warrior, who find themselves drawn to Edo, and the city's political intrigue and criminal underworld!
A few bits I picked up today #BookHaul
• The Elizabethan World View is a study of how the universe was understood by the immediately pre-enlightenment English.
• Poisonous Plants in Great Britain is what it says it is! ☠️🪴☠️
• The Samurai Detectives is a 1973 Japanese crime novel set in the Tokugawa Shogunate, and the first English translation in a series.
• Japanese Tales of Fantasy and Folklore is what it says it is! 👺🦊👹
His son, Daijiro has his own adventures, & the supporting cast of samurai comrades & antagonists, corrupt and honourable politicians are engaging.
There's also a gender nonconforming female samurai, & an accepting depiction of same-sex lovers, which is a refreshing contrast to the more typically homophobic Western genre fiction of the same era, the early '70s. ⬇️ 4d
(Discreet #CatsOfLitsy 🐾) (edited) 4d