Status Updates From The Hell Screen (Sugawara A...

Quite an intense murder mystery steeped in the culture of its time, medieval Japan. It’s like being there.

How could she understand that he felt mostly hatred for his own mother? “She poisoned everything she touched. My life, Yoshiko's, Akiko's also! She would have poisoned yours, too, and our son's! I am glad it is over!" He laughed. "Finally it is over!" Looking around at his father's room, he shouted, "They are both gone! Gone! The house is ours! Our lives are our own! We can finally find peace and happiness..."

I put my mind at ease with this kind of a book in particular. Not because it’s a murder mystery but because it immerses me in the world of medieval Japan, the world of the samurai and, sometimes, the warrior monks. Parker writes with the flow of the stream in a Japanese garden. Or the roiling clouds of a coming storm over the land.