Mulberry Jam

Review

Rating: 7

This is the second in a series of historical mysteries set in shogun-era Japan in the late seventeenth century. The first book is Shinju, which I read last month. As mysteries I’d say the books are satisfactory, but as historical novels, I give them ten out of ten. In my twenties I studied Japanese history and language, and I spent several months traveling in Japan back in the 1980s. The atmosphere and cultural setting of these stories is wonderfully evocative and seems very true to what I know of Japanese culture and mores.