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The Incense Game (2012)

by Laura Joh Rowland(Favorite Author)

3.79 of 5 Votes: 5

ISBN

0312658532 (ISBN13: 9780312658533)

languge

English

genre

Fiction

publisher

Minotaur Books

series

Sano Ichiro

review 1: I ordered this book due to a recommendation of new mysteries either on Oprah or B&N. What a disappointment. after putting my rating on Goodreads, I saw the book was #16 in a series on the detective Sano. I will not be reading the 15 before this or the 17th. one of my difficulties with this book was that the descriptions of the destruction from the earthquake was repeated over and over from different characters. The characters may have been different but the descriptions were eerily the same. what a space filler. I also did not get any sense of the time period. I could not tell if it was 1700 or 1900 or 2000 except that they rode horses a lot. It also seemed that there were sentences thrown in as an explanation of how the society was at the time that were terribly ou... moret of place. ie Incest was commonplace as was adult sex with children. REALLY. sorry I just didn't buy it. oh, the book I bought, not the story.......
review 2: About 5 chapters in, I was fidgeting in my chair and sweat was beading on my upper lip. I thought, oh dear, this is a book about Feudal Japan. I don't really enjoy books on Feudal Japan. Then I looked at the cover again and saw the tagline below the title "A novel of feudal Japan." Ooops. I had been so drawn in by the lovely woman on the cover and the title "The Incense Game" that I failed to really pay attention. I wanted, after all, to know what the heck the incense game was. As it turns out, we hear very very little about the game itself. Still not sure, even after finishing this book that I have any idea what that is...hmmm. I slogged through this book, slow as a sloth. I really struggled with the characters. We had Yanagisawa and Yoshisato and Yoritomo and Yokichicka...that just in ONE family. Phew. I suspect that in Japanese these are all very distinct like John, Joe and James...but boyo, they sounded all about the same to me. It was tough. I thought seriously about quitting and then somewhere discovered that i had actually stumbled into a rather good story of intrigue. It was 1703 after a terrible earthquake and tsunami devastated Edo, which we now know as Tokyo. Think big bad Godzilla destroys all cites, and streets kind of destruction. Inside the root of this story we experience a childish and ridiculously selfish despot the Shogun, and the resulting courage or deviousness of those in his service. Three women are mysteriously killed by the freakin' incense game, and it is made to look like it occurred as part of the earthquake. Threats everywhere. Espionage. Covert investigations. Threats of mutiny. Treason. Starving and suffering people everywhere. The dead and sewage and falled down buildings everywhere. We dont know who is lying, who is cheating, who to trust, sympathize with or despise. Lots of depth of relationships, and children, secret magical rituals in the woods, ancient spirits, tattoos, card-sharking, looting, tent jails, horses, coolio mutant ninja warrior outfits, padded cotton coats that make everyone look fat fat fat...And the next thing i knew i could not put it down and could not wait to see how it ended. I was pleased with the cleverness of the murder mystery completion, but groaned when I came to the last 2 paragraphs and realized there would be a sequel. ああくそ...方法はありません (translate: oh shit, nooooo way.) less

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