TRIAL ON MOUNT KOYA

Fiction

A crown of living fire

TRIAL ON MOUNT KOYA

A Hiro Hattori Novel

By Susan Spann

256 pp. Seventh Street Books

Reviewed by Eric Petersen

Mistress of historical mystery Susan Spann is back with the sixth entry (the previous two entries, Betrayal at Iga and The Ninja’s Daughter, are also reviewed on this site) in her Shinobi Mystery series set in a most unusual time and place and featuring a most unusual pair of sleuths.

The time and place is 16t^th-century Japan, and the sleuths are Hiro Hattori, an honorable samurai and deadly shinobi (ninja) warrior, and Father Mateo, the Portuguese Jesuit priest for whom Hiro has been hired by an unknown party to serve as a bodyguard and translator.

The non-religious Hiro is impressed by the foreign priest’s intelligence and courage, while Father Mateo is impressed by the shinobi warrior’s wisdom, compassion, and devotion to honor and justice. The two men have become close friends and acquired a well deserved reputation for solving baffling murders and bringing killers to justice.

Trial On Mount Koya is a little different than the previous Shinobi mysteries, as it’s an homage to one of the greatest mystery novels of all time, Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None (1939).

It opens with Hiro Hattori and Father Mateo, accompanied by their feisty elderly housekeeper / cook Ana and their pet cat Gato, journeying to the Myo-in Shingon Buddhist temple on Mount Koya – a place of peace that’s about to become the scene of a violent nightmare.

Having already left Ana at the nyonindo (women’s hall) on the mountain, the two men are headed for the main temple (where women are not allowed) and trying to reach it before a snowstorm strikes. They have come on a secret mission from Hiro’s cousin, Hanzo Hattori – leader of the shinobi clans of Iga province. They must give a message to Ringa, one of the priests there.

With a clan war looming since the sudden death of the Shogun – who has yet to be replaced – Hanzo installed one of his secret agents, Ringa, as the temple’s guardian, assigning him the task of training the priests in the martial arts for self defense. While living at the temple, moved by the peace and beauty of the faith, Ringa became a Shingon priest himself.

Posing as religious pilgrims, Hiro and Father Mateo are allowed to enter the temple, though the priests are suspicious of the Jesuit, believing that Christian priests are out to destroy Buddhism and convert all of its practitioners to their faith. Father Mateo convinces them that he respects their faith. He really does have an interest in Buddhism.

The two men make contact with Ringa and, as the snowstorm pounds Mount Koya, settle in for a good night’s sleep. They’re suddenly awakened by a commotion. Ringa has been murdered, his savagely stabbed corpse posed prominently in the yard, in a scene right out of Dante:

Directly in front of the temple gates, three blazing wooden stakes sent tongues of fire into the freezing air. The flames burned wildly, flapping like banners in the frigid winds that swept the yard.

Ringa sat cross-legged on the ground, his upper body leaning back against the lower portion of the stakes so it appeared he wore a crown of living fire. One of his eyes was closed, the other open, staring lifelessly ahead. His right hand held a sword. The left one gripped a coil of rope.

Anan, the temple’s abbot, immediately recognizes the ghastly scene as a depiction of Fudo-Myo-o, one of the thirteen Shingon Buddhist deities of the afterlife. After he and Father Mateo thoroughly examine the crime scene and the victim’s body, Hiro suspects skulduggery related to the brewing clan war. Ringa was an Iga spy posing as a priest, so perhaps an enemy agent is also among the priests at Myo-in – or among the pilgrims.

It would make sense for the assassin to stage Ringa’s murder to look like the work of a madman. But, when the abbot and another priest meet the same fate, Father Mateo suspects that’s not the case. As he and Hiro begin their investigation, they find that some of the priests harbor dark secrets and some of the religious pilgrims are not what they seem.

The gruesome body count continues, and the two sleuths realize that someone in this snowbound temple full of suspects is a homicidal maniac fulfilling an insane agenda with ruthless efficiency, determined to sacrifice every priest at Myo-in to the Shingon Buddhist kings of Hell.

Hiro Hattori is stunned when Father Mateo comes up with a desperate solution to this horrific situation – setting a trap for the killer, with himself as the bait…

A meticulously researched, highly atmospheric, addictive page turner, Trial on Mount Koya is both a first-rate entry in the Shinobi Mystery series and a fantastic tribute to the grand dame of mystery. This Susan Spann at her best! Highly recommended!

Eric Petersen is an administrator and blogmaster for the Internet Writing Workshop, an international, online writer’s group run out of Penn State University. You can reach him by e-mail at EricPetersen1970@hotmail.com