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| The Concubine's Tattoo (Sano Ichiro Novels) | 
 enlarge | Author: Laura Joh Rowland
Publisher: St. Martin's Paperbacks
Category: Book
List Price: $6.99
Buy Used: $0.01
You Save: $6.98 (100%)
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Avg. Customer Rating:  43 reviews
Sales Rank: 376754
Media: Mass Market Paperback
Edition: 1st
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 376
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 6.7 x 4.2 x 1.1
ISBN: 0312969228
Dewey Decimal Number: 813
EAN: 9780312969226
ASIN: 0312969228
Publication Date: April 15, 2000
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: Help save a tree. Buy all your used books from Green Earth Books. Read -> Recycle -> Reuse!
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| Customer Reviews:
 Tedious July 20, 2001
5 out of 8 found this review helpful
I picked up this book because it promised to be a cunning whodunit set against the exotic backdrop of medieval Japan. Sadly, it is neither. The novel reads like a children's book (albeit a perverse one), with cardboard cutout characters and jaded plot devices instead of the "superb mystery" laid out in a "richly crafted novel" I had hoped for. Worse, it is about as evocative of medieval Japan as a Holstein is of Secretariat. Yes, there are lots of italicized Japanese words for things and a great many unfamiliar names, but replace the horses with cars and "Sano" and "Reiko" with "Sam" and "Rita", and I defy you to to prove to me the novel isn't set in Chicago. All right, I exaggerate, but if a little hyperbole keeps you from spending your money on this book, it's all to the good. If you want to read some really absorbing historical fiction, try Michener. If you want a good mystery, check out Raymond Chandler. There are so many good authors out there; don't waste valuable reading time on this tedious book.
 Great Environment but Not Fully Realized Characters June 12, 2006
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
I ran the Mensa Feudal Japan group for over 10 years, and have loved the Japanese culture since childhood. I was thrilled to pick up The Concubine's Tattoo - the fourth in a series about 1600s-era detective Sano Ichiro and his brand new wife, 20 year old Reiko. I wasn't expecting real historical accuracy - just a fun afternoon read with mystery and romance.
On the historical side, Rowland gets many things right and several things wrong. That's to be expected from most books, and I won't let that bother me too much. They're a bit heavy on the tea ceremony for this period. The story is set in 1690 Japan - but they're reading Dream of the Red Chamber which is a Chinese masterpiece written in the 1700s. In any case, most people don't read casual one-afternoon mysteries in order to learn deep historical lessons, so that is fine.
On the other hand, when I read historically based novels -whether it's in England of the 1200s or Italy in the 1400s, I expect the characters and culture to be authentic. That's generally why I'm reading those stories, to lose myself in "another time". It was really hard, therefore, to get a handle on the characters that populate this particular world. Ichiro, the lead character, is 31 and a detective in high Japanese society. Suddenly through the course of this story he "becomes aware" - in a week or so - of all the plights of Japanese women, on how evilly they're held down by society. None of his previous 31 years had made him think of this? He has the same startling revelations about 'eta' - the outcast of Japanese culture.
Many of the quotes and situations in the book are deliberately set up for modern audiences to gasp in outrage, thinking "how could they treat a woman like that!" I'm trying to think of a modern day situation that people wouldn't immediately try to shoot holes in. OK, what if we assumed that 100 years in the future, that "kids" could not vote or marry until age 25 and any sexual or drinking activity by them was considered evil child abuse. Now let's say that a book written then was set in modern times (i.e. 2006). This book had parents who were aghast that their 22 year old son was having wine with dinner and had a girlfriend who he slept with. It just wouldn't make sense. It would, in fact, be quite odd for the time. There are LOTS of things we consider normal now, that simply weren't considered normal at other times. To force a couple in Japan to have "modern day sensibilities" to suit a modern audience is betraying the whole reason you set a book in another time period.
I'm not saying I dislike female characters. Far from it!! I *love* female characters, especially female strong characters. There were tons of strong female characters in Japanese history! Certainly women did many things - they weren't just all prostitutes and feeble housewives, as the book sometimes says. What makes it worse is that the female character in the book is a ninny virgin 20 year old who possesses little common sense. She's supposedly well educated and trained in patience and law - but her technique is just to harass the person in front of her until she gets her way. If I was her guardian, I wouldn't have let her out to help with a dangerous mission, whether she was female OR male. The way that she interacts with her new husband - going from demanding to petulant to "you must be my constant assistant" in such a short period of time is really quite unbelievable.
We get the same problem of unbelievability from other characters. The Shogun and his mom are cardboard cutouts of 'brainless rulers who you have to humor'. Other characters exist to serve a purpose, most of them presenting a specific stereotype. In a parallel problem, there is a huge fascination on the part of the author with physical beauty. People with physical beauty are praised and loved. People without physical beauty are evil and beat on. It's thought of as "tragic" when a woman, once beautiful with make-up and hair care, has to "go natural" and be herself. Several characters are described as "no longer attractive" because they're no longer under age 30.
I'm not squeamish about sex, and I understand that some soldiers in Japanese history were homosexuals. Heck, some soldiers in Roman history were homosexuals, some in Greek history were .... you can find prostitutes and affairs and sexual toys in any culture in the world, in any time frame. However, this book goes a BIT overboard. I think the author was trying to toss in every strange Japanese sex practice she could think of in order to liven up the story. Sure, they story involves the Shogun's official prostitutes - concubines. Yes, it involves a Shogun who likes boys. But does EVERY single character we run into have to have a bizarre sexual fetish? We're talking about a general cross section of Japanese society here; the novel wasn't about the "sex addicts group" and their weekly tell-all sessions. It got a bit much.
I don't mean to pick on the series too much here. I own the books, obviously I enjoyed them enough to read and re-read them. There is a lot of great detail in here, a lot of clear imagery that is very moving. I enjoy the poetry and the environment that has been created. I just wish the characters themselves had been more robust and three dimensional. Again, I don't mind occasional historical inaccuracies; it just happens. However, when the entire basis for characters is completely out of "time appropriateness" and when a large number of characters seem to be two dimensional, that does bother me in a book. It turns the book from one I can really savor into a quick page-turner to zip through on a rainy afternoon.
Another goodie by Mrs. Rowland! July 9, 2000
4 out of 7 found this review helpful
What I want to know is why are some of these reviewers panning this book because it contains sexual abuse and acts? The title of this book is "The CONCUBINE'S Tattoo" for crissakes! What do you expect to read from a book involving CONCUBINES? You don't see people innocently renting the the movie "Die Hard" and then turn around and slam it only because it contains violence, do you? And about the child abuse, we can't deny that sick and twisted acts such as this happen and weren't questioned in those days. Touchy subjects such as child abuse, racism, and violence shouldn't be censored from, nor require some ridiculous warning labels for books that are catered to mature readers in the first place. Just stop reading if you are that sensitive to such issues. Now that I got that out of the way, I just want to say how much I love Rowland's work. She's one of those authors who's work I would pick up from the shelf just because her name is on it! I don't know if every historical account in this book is accurate (and I don't care because if I were searching for accuracy, I would go to a nonfictional history book), but it is certainly fun to read a mystery that doesn't take place in cliche' moderen day streets of Manhattan/Los Angeles/any trendy city. Why didn't I give it five stars? I felt that the previous books "Shinju" and "Bundori" were a lot stronger and rank surpreme to "The Concubine's Tattoo". Also, I miss Sano's previous love interest, Aoi. I can't wait to see what that lowdown slime of a villian, Chamberlain Yanagisawa is going to do next to my favorite detective in the upcoming "The Samurai's Wife". I will be first in line for that one!
Abusive sex and phony plot devices make this loathesome. March 25, 1999
4 out of 30 found this review helpful
I would not give this book even one star if any lower rating were possible. Anyone who, like me, is a survivor of child sexual abuse, needs to know that this book contains graphic descriptions of abusive sexual assaults of children. Worse, such acts are presented as societal norms. The antagonist, who was abused himself as a child, continues the cycle of violence and abuse on his 14 year old boy lover. To present circumstances such as this in a manner written to be sexually stimulating to the reader, as the author does, makes me thoroughly revolted.On a technical side, the cliff scene is massively contrived, as Reiko whips out a dagger she's conveniently forgotten until now. Utterly phony. The author also uses turns of phrase that are 100% modern North American, and totally at odds with the purported setting of 17th century Japan. People in that time period might talk about why a crime was committed, but they would not phrase it as "motive and opportunity." That rings false, as if the character isn't really 17th century Japanese, but only someone pretending to be. And the pretense is unconvincing. Unlike Ellis Peters, who handles other century settings skillfully and convincingly in her Brother Cadfael mysteries (and has a lyrical way with language besides,) Rowland both fails on accuracy and disgusts on abusiveness. What a waste of paper is the Concubine's Tattoo.
An intriguing historical mystery April 25, 2004
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
This is the fourth book in the Sano Ichiro series, and probably the best of the three that I've read. Ichiro is ordered by the Shogun to investigate the death of his favorite concubine, and it soon becomes clear that the death is a result of poison. As always in this series, Ichiro is playing a delicate game trapped between the weak and stupid Shogun and his powerful enemy Chamberlain Yanigasawi. Yanigasawi is the Shogun's lover and favorite, but, since the Shogun trusts Ichiro, can only act against Ichiro in ways the Shogun doesn't notice. Since the Shogun is less than observant, that still leaves him with quite a few options.The book stands well on its own; I think it woud be unnecessary to read the earlier installments of the series before reading this one. This book adds the character of Ichiro's wife, Reiko, who is eager to take her own role in Ichiro's investigations. The presence of Reiko adds interesting complications and allows the Ichiro character to develop further, but from my own limited knowledge of the period, I doubt that either her independence, her Nancy Drew spunkishness, or Ichiro's relatively easy acceptance of it are at all realistic. The plot involves a good deal of sex, some of it kinky, as other readers have observed. I found it all appropriate - there is no explicit content just thrown in for its own sake without furthering the story - but it may be too much for some readers. The mystery is done well, with several vivid characters introduced as suspects, and Ichiro facing a dangerous dilemma when the evidence seems to point to the Shogun's mother, who it would certainly be fatal to accuse. Several readers have commented on the historical realism of the setting. It is always risky to read historical novels and expect to get real history, and this series is no exception. At one point in this book, the Shogun is portrayed reading the classic chinese novel, "The Dream of Red Mansions". That book in fact wasn't written until over half a century after this story takes place. I suspect that Rowland intended an earlier classic novel of chinese decadence and erotica, the Ch'in P'ing Mei. If a person like myself, with no special knowledge of the period in question, can spot a careless blunder like that, how many inaccuracies would a real expert catch? Probably quite a few - for instance, one reviewer of this series has stated that the teahouses which play a prominent role in this and other installments, while very popular in later Japan, wouldn't have existed at the time this story is set in.
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