An old writing adage says, “Write what you know.” I live (and write) by a personal corollary: “Write where you’ve been.” I can’t actually visit 16th-century Japan (and given the lack of indoor plumbing, I’m not entirely sure I’d want to), but fortunately, I have been able to visit a number of historical sites and…
Flask of the Drunken Master by Susan Spann is the 3rd historical detective mystery in the Shinobi Mystery Series, featuring a master ninja and a female samurai in feudal 16th Century Japan (available July 14, 2015). August 1565: When a rival artisan turns up dead outside Ginjiro's brewery, and all the evidence implicates the brewer,…
Blade of the Samurai, by Susan Spann, is the second historical detective mystery in the Shinobi mystery series, featuring a master ninja and a female samurai in feudal 16th Century Japan (available July 16, 2013). June, 1565: Master ninja Hiro Hattori receives a pre-dawn visit from Kazu, a fellow shinobi working undercover at the shogunate.…
Most Westerners think of ninjas as black-masked men with swords who appear from the shadows and strike without warning. But not all ninja assassins were male, and not all of them walked in shadow. Female ninjas, known as kunoichi, formed an important part of medieval shinobi clans. Like their male counterparts, kunoichi trained in combat,…
