A Field Guide to Assassins of Muromachi Street

Written by Tamara Sheehan

Hyabusa Jao has it bad. He's out of work, and his old boss is using him as a pincushion to train the new recruits. His boyfriend has some mysterious problem that everyone but Jao seems to know about, and now the Anu brothers, rival gangsters from Katawaza, are in Okatsu and walking all over the Good Men.

The Anu are looking to collect on an old debt, a debt Jao's best friend thought he'd left behind. They seem to think Akai's daughter should be working off what her father owes. Lucky for Fan, she's nowhere to be found. Trouble is, everyone seems to think Jao had something to do with her disappearance.

So all Jao has to do is get his boss off his case, save his boyfriend, and rescue the girl. It can't be that hard, can it? A Field Guide to the Assassins of Muromachi Street is a companion volume to The Mediocre Assassin's Handbook.

Sample

If he’d just let Masahiro pay his rent while he sorted himself out, he wouldn’t be here, squashed between a cart loaded with rotting garbage and a metal gate, spying on gangsters who have some sort of special dispensation to be in town.

Jao pulls back from the gate, thinking of Masahiro, who is probably still asleep in bed, and thinking of how, if Jao hurries, he can probably catch Masahiro on the way to work. Jao doesn’t know what he’d say, probably something stupid and vaguely offensive, but Masahiro would laugh and tell Jao it’s about time he agreed to let himself be looked after, and then Jao could put this whole sordid morning behind him. At least, that’s what he’s thinking when someone comes up behind him and drops a cloth bag over his head.

It’s an old millet bag, still smelling of earth and grain. There’s no point squirming around and making a fuss, Jao will just end up falling down or getting a punch in the stomach. Someone slides open the metal gate and Jao steps carefully over the track and into the inn yard. He stumbles over the step up the veranda and barks his shin on the wood, but someone catches his arm before he can fall.

“Sir,” someone says.

“Good,” says another soft voice. “Let’s have a look at Kazematsuri’s spy.”


Read A Sample

Genre: Action Adventure
Age Range: 16 and up
ISBN: 978-1-60370-908-8
192pages (trade paperback)

Booksellers and librarians, please contact Lorna Hinson at ldoone@torquerepress.com for discount and distribution information.