The Way of the Traitor — Laura Joh Rowland

CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

Nagasaki, 1690. An exotic, volatile city where a corrupt government fears foreign invasion like a plague and rules with an iron fist. Spies lurk in every corner waiting to accuse anyone of following the way of the traitor -- a crime punishable by death. It's the last place Sano Ichiro, the shogun's Most Honorable Investigator of Events, Situations, and People, wants to be sent.

When the mutilated body of a Dutch trader washes up on a Nagasaki shore, the samurai detective finds himself leading a murder investigation that could thrust Japan into war. As Sano digs deeper, he unwittingly stumbles upon covert operations that implicate very powerful people. Framed for treason, Sano must find the killer in order to keep a Dutch warship at bay and to prove his own innocence before his samurai head dishonorably decorates the town square.