Rating: 
Summary: best book ever
Review: simply put this is the best book ever. it is intriuging, facsinating, suspensful, fast paced, and exciting. I highly recomend it!!!!!!!!!!
Rating: 
Summary: An Excellent Mystery
Review: This is a murder mystery set in 19th century Japan. I picked it up at the library solely because of the beautiful front cover. It was intriguing to read; containing all the qualities of an American mystery but filled with numerous interesting facts concerning the Japanese culture. I found myself learning as well as being entertained by the story. My only true disappointment was discovering, after I started reading, that this book is the 9th in a series. I'm positive that I would have enjoyed the storyline more if I had read the other 8 books as much of the character background left me confused. There were often remarks concerning events in the previous books, sure to make a less observant reader wonder if they had skipped some pages. However, I do intend to look for the previous books as I found the characters intriguing, the plot filled with twists and turns, and overall, the entire book was very enjoyable. Many times, I was fooled, thinking I had figured out the mystery until finally the truth was revealed in the end. One word of warning, there are several very graphic sexual scenes. I would not recommend this to a younger reader; definitely intended for the adult audience.
Rating: 
Summary: Good story but bad history
Review: This would be a 3.5 stars. Perfumed Sleeve was my first Laura Joh Rowland's novel I read, given to me by a friend. I enjoyed the general plot, the writing was smooth and its flow nicely and overall, I liked the characters. As a murder-mystery goes, this book actually impressed me. The investigation, premise and power politics that was moving around the main character, Sano, proves to be a good page turner.However, my major gripes come with historical premise of the book which revealed the author's lack of understanding of Tokugawa politics which lead the story into the realm of historical fantasy instead of fiction. While not to nitpick but these are the list of some of the major errors:
1) The term "elder" was used to described a retired person
from active service, a honorifed title. I think the proper
term the author wanted to use was "Roju".
2) Just because you are the Shogun's favorite lover boy don't
make you his heir. In fact, in history, such lover boys are
automatically barred from such event.
3) Its sheer silliness to think that a non-Tokugawa like
Yanagisawa could even think that his boy could even be
considered to be the next Shogun.
4) Matsudaira was a name of junior branch of the Tokugawa
Clan. No Shogun, even one as befudded as the one in this
book would promote a member of a very junior branch to
such high position and risk the wrath of the three major
branches of the entire clan....Tokugawa of Owari, Mito and
Kii provinces. Not only that, no man would called the
Shogun "Honored Cousin" in front of everyone, even if that
Shogun was brain dead. Such informality simply don't exist
outside of total privacy between two men.
5) No one in his right mind, will risk destruction of his
house by open warfare. This is sheer fantasy on the
author's part. Doesn't anyone remembered the fate of the
"47 Ronins" story??
6) Finally, the author uses the words "Asakura Jinja Shrine"
couple of times in the book. In English, that would be
"Asakura Shrine Shrine" since the word "Jinja" means
shrine.
7) One last tidbit...in the beginning, the author uses the
words "Shogun" and "dictator" interchangably. A sign of
uneducated historian since an educated one knows of the
massive differences between the two. But in the end, if you accepted the historical fantasy of the book, I thought it was a highly acceptable murder-mystery and despite of my feeling about the author's historical ability, I enjoyed her writing and I am encouraged to read other books of this series.
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