Death's Kiss: Legend of the Five Rings: A Daidoji Shin Mystery

Today’s post is on Death's Kiss: Legend of the Five Rings: A Daidoji Shin Mystery by Joshua Reynolds . It is 352 pages long and is published by Aconyte. The cover has Shin and Kasami on it with Shin covering his face with his fan. As it is the second volume in the series you need to have read the first novel to understand the world, characters, and story. The intended reader is someone who likes fantasy mystery novels. There is very mild foul language, no sex, and mild violence in this novel. The story is told from third person close of different characters moving as the story needs. There Be Spoilers Ahead.

 

From the back of the book- Daidoji Shin, former louche layabout turned amatuer investigator, and his long-suffering bodyguard, Kasami, are called away from the comforts of the City of the Rich Frog and into Unicorn lands to investigate a seemingly open-and-shut case of murder.

Of course, it can’t be that straightforward…

A condemned woman’s life is at stake, and the outcome may lead to war between two noble families. Saving a life has far deeper consequences than Shin could imagine, like drawing the attention of a sinister sedition organization with little tolerance for a dilettante detective.

Solving a murder is the beginning of Shin’s investigation, but it’s the conspiracies that get you killed…

Review- A wonderful second volume following Shin and Kasami. Shin is called to come and try to sort out what really happened to try and stop a war between two vassal families. Of course the second he gets there, he knows that there is something more going on and the mystery is very nice and twisty. As this is a take on Sherlock Holmes we need to have a big criminal organization that wishes to overthrow the government. Reynolds has settled into this world and characters, making this volume even more enjoyable than the first novel and I really loved the first one. If you read the first novel, do yourself a favor and read the second so that maybe we can get a third novel! That would be great, more Shin!

I give this novel a Five out of Five stars. I get nothing for my review and I bought this novel with my own money.