For Seikei, the adopted son of the famous samurai Judge Ooka with a knack for solving mysteries, a trip home to see his real family isn’t cause to celebrate. His brother has become mixed up with local criminals who use the family’s tea shop as a front for a smuggling operation. His sister, meanwhile, has fallen in love with an apprentice to a puppet master who stands accused of murder. Somehow, Seikei senses the two are connected. His loyalties divided between his new family and his old, Seikei must find the real killer before it is too late. Set against the eerie backdrop of the old Japanese puppet theaters, where life-sized marionettes were controlled by black-cloaked men, Edgar Award-winners Dorothy and Thomas Hoobler render their most satisfying mystery to date.
Demons are all around us—most of them are relatively harmless, like the ones that go bump in the night or make you stub your toe. But some are dangerous—some can kill. Since he was orphaned as a boy, Nat has been trained by his aged mentor Daliwahl to be a demonkeeper, controlling a menagerie of demons in their old, rickety house in Seattle. But now Dahliwahl is gone and Nat is on his own. Keeping demons isn’t a very social activity, and when Nat goes on a date with Sandy, a junior librarian’s assistant, it’s a disaster in more ways that one—while Nat’s out, a very scary demon called the Beast escapes. Can Nat get the Beast back to the house and make things right with Sandy—and do it all by himself? With its fast-paced action, slapstick humor, and a winning, unlikely hero, Demonkeeper is a high-spirited romp that will keep readers glued to the page.