This story is set in Japan, 1698. Sano Ichiro may be a samurai sleuth and the shogun's trusted advisor, but his growing power at court makes him – and his family – a target for treachery. And this time gruesome discovery brings especially tough questions. Lord Mori, heir to the shogun, is found grotesquely mutilated and murdered – with Sano's pregnant wife, Reiko, lying beside him naked and covered in blood. Sano seeks the truth behind the Rashomon-like accounts of the murder, the stakes are almost unbearably high, and the only piece of evidence is a white Chrysanthemum – stained red with blood.