Ingrid J Parker Inc : 15 books

Fifteen years after the brutal murder of an imperial prince, the crime casts its shadow on Akitada’s family. The case is cold and the assassin dead, but his young wife’s brother wants to marry the assassin’s daughter, and Akitada is expected to clear his name. Worse, in doing so he must either...

The capital is plagued by unexplained fires, and panic threatens to break out, but Akitada has his own problems to worry about.  His ailing wife expects a child and he loses his job to a political appointee. When he tries to confront the nobleman who is responsible for his dismissal, he ends up suspected...

Still grieving the death of his small son, Akitada risks career, freedom, and family to rescue an abused child from a life of misery.  The search for the boy’s family leads to a harrowing story of love, murder, and abandonment.  Meanwhile, his faithful servant Tora loses his new wife to a powerful...

When an imperial princess disappears from the Ise shrine, Akitada, new governor of Mikawa Province, has barely had time to settle there with his family before he is dispatched by imperial order on a secret assignment to find her.The world Akitada finds at Ise turns out to be anything but spiritual....

From the Shamus Award winning author comes a new mystery set in Imperial Japan.In the autumn of 1033, Sugawara Akitada spends his last year as governor of Mikawa Province amidst reports of piracy and concerns about an uprising. He grieves over his troubled marriage and worries about the murder...

Deeply distressed by his wife's adultery, Akitada returns to the capital to patch up his marriage and to help Superintendent Kobe with a case of poisoning. But before he can deal with either, the prime minister orders Akitada to save his dyinbg brother who is plagued by a vengeful spirit from his...

On a visit to a remote mountain region with his children, Akitada hopes to find some peace after the break-up of his marriage. Instead they become involved almost immediately in the random violence that plagues the peasants of the valley. Farmers are murdered, rice stores are burned, and young girls...

In this Shamus-Award-winning short story, the young Akitada becomes a detective when a father asks him to find his daughter. To Akitada’s dismay, the young woman has been murdered and the suspect is a convenient peddler. But this seems all wrong, and Akitada persists in his search for the real killer though it involves great risks to himself. 

Eleven stories about crime and detection in eleventh century Japan are arranged chronologically for  Sugawara Akitada's career. They include diverse cases with clues from moon cakes and Chinese lutes to feral cats and incense competitions and feature traditional holidays of the period. An...

A.D. 1030.  Senior Secretary Sugawara Akitada is recovering from a knife wound and still reeling from the loss of his wife. When the Council of State orders an investigation of the claims of two warring temples, he is sent to Otsu to clear up the matter. As it happens, Akitada’s best friend Kosehira...

Intended to become the emperor’s concubine, she died at the bottom of a cliff near Prince Atsuhira’s private villa.  The palace covered up the scandal.  Months later, Akitada is drawn into the case when his best friend is accused of treason.  Atsuhira, his alleged co-conspirator, refuses to defend...

Murder doesn’t take holidays, and neither does Akitada.  In this small collection of three short stories, Akitada solves crimes on New Year’s Day, during the O-bon festival of the dead, and on the occasion of the Tanabata festival celebrating the meeting of celestial lovers.  As a bonus, a chapter...

On a journey to Naniwa to unmask officials who are selling information to pirates, Akitada witnesses the recovery of a body from the river.  The image of the drowned child prostitute follows him as his own problems and disasters multiply.  Someone is sabotaging his investigation. His young clerk disappears,...

After a posting to the northern provinces, Akitada hurries to the deathbed of his mother in the capital. On the road, he spends the night in a monastery where he sees a painted hell screen.  The realistic depictions of tortured men, women, and children haunt his dreams until he wakes to a scream. ...