Flower Master - Softcover

Rei Shimura, a twentysomething Japanese American antiques dealer, returns for a third outing in Sujata Massey's series set in Japan (Zen Attitude, The Salaryman's Wife). In The Flower Master, Rei's former boyfriend has left Japan, and her antiques business is only slightly more successful than her love life. Then she's dragooned by her aunt Norie into enrolling at a famous Tokyo ikebana school. Rei's not a natural at the ancient art of flower arranging, but she has a talent for sleuthing, which comes in handy when the head teacher at the Kayama School is found dead--with a pair of flower shears exactly like the ones Norie gave her lodged in her neck.

Rei's efforts to find the killer and unravel the secrets entwining her Tokyo family with the Kayamas move the action along, but the real mystery is whether the budding romance between the California girl who can't quite find her place in the tradition-bound society of modern Japan and the handsome environmental activist slated to take over as iemoto (headmaster) of the school will flower into lasting love. Intrigue and multiple murders spice the romance, along with a fascinating explication of ikebana's enduring history. Rei is a lively protagonist who brings the reader along for an entertaining and subtle lesson in Japanese culture as well as in the dangers involved in digging up buried family skeletons. --Jane Adams

Sujata Massey was born in England to parents from India and Germany.She studied writing at Johns Hopkins University and worked as a reporter for the Baltimore Evening Sun before moving to Japan, whre she taught English and began writing mystery fiction.The Rei Shimura series starts with The Salaryman's Wife, which won the Agatha Award for best first novel of 1997, and continues with Zen Attitude, and Edgar and Anthony nominee, and The Flower Master.At present Sujata Massey lives with her family in Baltimore and travels to Japan to research future Rei Shimura novels.