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language: English
country: USA
year: 2023
form: novel
genre(s): fantasy, mystery
series: Daidoji Shin Mysteries, #4
dates read: 30.6.24-1.7.24
Josh Reynolds’s Three Oaths is the fourth of the Daidoji Shin Mysteries, following the charming and only moderately disreputable amateur investigator Daidoji Shin. Shin is asked by a friend(ish) to investigate the identity of her cousin’s fiancé, who was reportedly kidnapped by pirates the previous year, believed dead, only to miraculously reappear. the catch is that the wedding is in three days, and Akodo Minami, the bride, and the groom are all members of the Lion Clan, who have long been enemies of Shin’s clan, the Crane.
Shin takes the opportunity to arrange for Minami to appoint him as wedding planner — an activity she hates and he finds more or less invigorating — and to being asking everyone invasive questions about their lives under the pretext of ensuring that nothing untoward happens at the ceremony. (spoiler alert: something very untoward happens just before the ceremony.)
this was particularly interesting as a character study of the fiancé (both the believed-dead one and the miraculously-alive one, who may or may not be the same person), as a figure caught in a complex tangle of personal honor, personal dishonor, family loyalty, and interfamily conspiracy. while I’ve enjoyed other new canon Legend of the Five Rings books, I think it’s the Daidoji Shin Mysteries that provide the best examples of the social and political structures of the setting and what it means for characters to move through them (though Shin is hardly typical in his approach). Shin’s conversation with Minami at the beginning, in particular, was very striking, and I can imagine exactly how it would play out mechanically in the tabletop RPG, with Minami finally unmasking — quietly and shamefully — to admit that her personal feelings are driving her.
my only significant disappointment here is that I had hoped we might get more of Shin flirting with Kitsu Touma, but this is somewhat compensated for by the return of the Badger and of Arban, though the critique of Rokugani society through Arban as foreigner is muted here relative to the previous book.
moods: lighthearted, mysterious, reflective