In an adventure filled with highway bandits, unscrupulous politicians, and renegade monks, The Dragon Scroll introduces readers to the lively world of eleventh-century Japan and an irrepressible hero—Sugawara Akitada. On his first official assignment, Akitada—an impoverished nobleman and earnest young government clerk in the Ministry of Justice—is sent from the capital city on a nearly impossible mission to the distant province of Kazusa to discover why tax convoys are disappearing. In the politically murky world of the Japanese court, he has been set up to fail. Against the odds, the ever-resourceful Akitada, his elderly servant Seimei, and his impudent bodyguard Tora are determined to fulfill their mission and discover the truth in a town of dangerous secrets.

In I.J. Parker's newest mystery set in eleventh-century Japan, Akitada disguises himself as a prisoner to solve the, murder of a prince As her audience grows with each evocative historical thriller featuring Sugawara Akitada, I. J. Parker returns with a gripping tale of political intrigue and cold-blooded murder in ancient Japan. When the exiled Prince Okisada, the most illustrious prisoner of the penal colony on Sado Island, is poisoned, Akitada is called upon by the emperor's envoys to investigate incognito. Posing as a prisoner, he discovers a deadly conspiracy, only to fall into the hands of brutal guards and disappear. It falls to Tora, Akitada's devoted assistant, to begin his own dangerous search of the island for his lost friend and the truth.

When an imperial princess disappears from Ise Shrine, Akitada, newly made governor of Mikawa Province, is dispatched by imperial order on a secret mission to trace her.The world Akitada finds at Ise turns out to be anything but spiritual. The pilgrimage town is a murky, dangerous place where no one can be trusted and where someone wants him gone. Gangs of robbers work the roads, and two youngwomen are murdered within days of each other. Although Akitada's purpose becomes known, putting his life in danger, he persists with the unlikely help of a dwarf. Meanwhile, Tora and Saburo, left to look after the new province in their master's absence, get involved in local crime and jeopardize Akitada's new appointment.In spite of all the odds, success is almost in sight, when a monster storm strikes the coasts of Ise and Mikawa.