Sano Ichiro Mysteries by Laura Joh Rowland

Shinju
It is winter 1689 in Edo, the city that would one day become Tokyo. The bodies of a beautiful noblewoman and a male commoner, bound together, are dragged from the murky Sumida River: a typical shinju, a ritual double suicide committed by a pair of star-crossed lovers. But when Sano Ichiro, a teacher, samurai, and reluctant police officer, begins a routine investigation, he comes to suspect murder. Disobeying direct orders to close the case discreetly, he pursues elusive answers from the ornate mansions of the highest born daimyos, to the gaudy pleasure quarters of the lowest classes, from a cloistered mountaintop convent to a horrid prison where death is a blessing. He risks his family's good name and his own life to solve a crime that nobody wants solved. As he unravels the twisted story behind the deaths, he stumbles upon a trail of deceit and assassination that threatens the very underpinnings of the shogun's Japan.

A very interesting series. I know very little about this time period of Japan when the Shoguns still existed. Lots of descriptions of battles and life as a samurai as well as how political the cast system was during that time. One incorrect move and you could be demoted or put to death. Can't wait to read more in this intriguing series.

Bundori
Samurai sleuth Sano Ichiro must track down, virtually single-handedly, a serial killer who is at work in the region and whose motivation is complex, related to events of 129 years prior. This serial killer is stalking Edo, Japan's feudal capital, as he risks everything to bring to justice a murderer who not only kills but publicly displays his "bundori," or trophies--severed heads. The detective's job is complicated by court intrigue, increasingly so as his clues point toward suspects of influence.

Chamberlain Yanagisawa Yoshiyasu, makes it plain to Sano (though not to their common lord) that he intends to thwart the investigation at every turn, overriding the shogun's command that the Edo police assist Sano and setting Aoi, the mystic and chief shrine commander, to spy on Sano. Acting on information supplied by his friends, chief archivist Noguchi Motoori and Edo Morgue superintendent Dr. Ito Genboku--and by the equivocal Aoi as well--Sano traces the executions to a century- old military intrigue. But what is he to do when his field of suspects is narrowed down to Edo's foremost merchant, the Captain of the Guard, a legendary (and formidably protected) concubine, and the treacherous chamberlain himself?

Will he be able to live by Bundori in which if the real killer is Yoshiyasu he must kill him and then kill himself?

Way of the Traitor
Concubine's Tattoo
Samurai's Wife
Black Lotus
Pillow Book of Lady Wisteria
Dragon King's Palace
Perfumed Sleeve
Assassin's Touch
Red chrysanthemum
snow Empress
Fire Kimono
Cloud Pavillon