I'm really confused on what I want to award this book. I'm wavering between three and four stars, and I wish I could just make it easier and give it 3.5, but Goodreads won't let me.

I want to give it the higher number because it's as well written and tightly plotted as any of the previous books in Rowland's long running Sano Ichiro series. The depictions of Feudal Japan are as vivid and colorful as ever, and they evoke the same mixture of intrigue, fascination, and disgust that her novels always have. There's a sense that Sano's conflicts with the corrupt Chamberlain Yanagisawa are going to come to a head soon, and we see Sano and Reiko's relationship begin to heal after the rift created between them during the Black Lotus investigation in the previous novel.

The reason I want to give it Three Stars, however, is the fact that the formula is beginning to wear a little thin by the time this book, the seventh in the series, comes to a close. The murder in this book, that of the shogun's heir-apparent just feels rehashed. The story follows the same pattern we've seen before: Sano investigates, finds his path blocked by corruption in the highest echelons of government and his conflicts with others who vie for the Shogun's fickle favor, and struggles with his sense of duty to his lord versus his need to see justice fulfilled. Unsurprisingly, Sano's enemies in the Shogun's court eventually force him into a do-or-die situation, where his very life depends on solving the case. This is the exact same basic plot we've seen in previous books. There's a very powerful foreboding of something serious happening soon in the clashes between Sano and his enemies in the court, as well as the continuation of Yanagisawa's manipulations with the Shogun, but this sense of anticipation does little to carry the novel through the same paths that are now well-trod in Rowland's Feudal Japan. What keeps the formula from growing noticeably stale in previous outings is that each book carries with it a new and fascinating glance at some aspect of Feudal Japanese society or culture, whether it be religious life (as in the previous outing, Black Lotus), the curious insular world that the Emperor lives in (The Samurai's Wife) or the closed world of the Western traders in Japan (Way of the Traitor). This has relatively little of that. It promises to focus exclusively on the Yoshiwara Pleasure Quarter, an enclave where prostitution is legal and women are sold into a life of it, but there is truly little here that hasn't been covered in-depth across the previous six novels.

It was an enjoyable book, as Rowland's Sano Ichiro books genuinely are. Unfortunately, it truly does feel like a "middle book" in the series: old plots are wrapped up and new ones are hinted at, but it doesn't stand as substantial on its own. ( )

Sano Ichiro, Most Honourable Investigator of Events, Situations, and People, awakens from a turbulent dream into a real-life nightmare. Lord Matsudaira Mitsuyoshi, the shogun's cousin and heir, has been murdered after a night of debauchery in the city's pleasure quarter..."

Lots of twists and turns and red herrings along with an interesting look at life in feudal Japan. ( )