Matcha Rice Pudding | Betrayal at Iga

Welcome to the TLC Book Tours stop for Betrayal at Iga by Susan Spann, the 5th book in the Shinobi Mystery series! I started the Shinobi Mysteries on book 3...and I've been hooked ever since. At the end of The Ninja's Daughter, Hiro, Father Mateo, Ana, and Gato have made haste out of Kyoto, and this novel picks up as they enter the village in which Hiro grew up and trained amongst the many shinobi that inhabit it.

Udon w/ Grilled Fish & Scallions | The Ninja's Daughter

Today I'm happy to be hosting another Shinobi Mysteries book tour stop, this one featuring the latest book in the series by Susan Spann called The Ninja's Daughter. I was first introduced to Spann's writing when I hosted a stop for book three in the series last summer, and couldn't wait to read the latest installment in this series that takes place in 16th century Japan.

While this is a mystery series, Spann seems to focus on an aspect of Japanese culture and weave it into each story, infusing them with a bit of history (which I love)—this one being Japanese theater, the previous being the production of sake. Our main characters, as always, are Father Mateo, a Portuguese Jesuit priest and his "translator" and protector Hattori Hiro, a shinobi assassin.

Whole Roasted Trout w/ Sake and Plums inspired by Flask of the Drunken Master

I'm so excited to be hosting a tour stop for Susan Spann's latest release in her Shinobi Mystery series today. I'll admit, it was initially the title that drew me in: Flask of the Drunken Master. I hadn't read (or even heard of) the books before, but I'm a huge kung-fu fan, and Drunken Master is one of my favorite kung-fu flicks, so I couldn't wait to read the book. Now, there's actually no kung-fu involved in the book, and it's set in Japan, not China...fortunately, that didn't stop me from enjoying every minute of it!

So, I mentioned that this book is actually part of a series; it's book three. I ordered the first two books in the series with the intention of reading them before this one, but time got away from me and I didn't get the chance. Now that I've read Flask of the Drunken Master, I can't wait to go back and get caught up with the first two books, but my experience wasn't lacking for not having read them already. It can stand on it's own if you want to dive right in.

Flask is a mystery set in Japan in the year 1565. Our main characters are the Hiro, a translator who, unbeknownst to most, is actually a shibobi (ninja), and Portuguese Jesuit Father Mateo. Together they are working to prove sake brewer Ginjiro innocent of the crime of murder, and find the real killer before he is executed for the crime.