» Awarded the HisLibris Award for Best Historical Novel

A Japanese crime and mystery tale by the author of El guerrero a la sombra del cerezo. A crime story with an unusual setting, in a rural Japan of suggestive landscapes and dark secrets, by an author who started the craze for samurai epics in historical fiction in Spanish.

Asaemon Hikura, master chronicler of the Sugawara clan, is called in to investigate the disappearance of five women in a village far from the capital. The locals blame the tragedy on a supernatural being they say lives in the mountains, but Asaemon knows perfectly well no demons are more ruthless than those that live among us. Along with Yumiko, a young local hunter who will serve as his guide and confidante, the samurai will undertake a desperate search for the evildoer.

In the same region, Nanami, daughter of a katana forger, will try to hide her romance with the young samurai who oversees the village.

Her relationship is against law and her parents’ wishes. When war knocks at the door, Nanami feels forced to choose between loyalty to her family and the person karma has bound her to. Her decision will unexpectedly influence the fate of the five vanished girls.