[Sugawara Akitada 05] • The Hell Screen

**A tangled web of deceit strikes very close to home in this new mystery of ancient Japan featuring Sugawara Akitada**

Eleventh-century Japan is the expertly realized setting for I. J. Parker's ingenious mystery series featuring sleuth Sugawara Akitada. In *The Hell Screen* , Akitada is on his way to the bedside of his dying mother when bad weather forces him to take refuge in a temple whose central treasure is a brilliantly painted hell screen. Perhaps its violent imagery influences his dreams: that night he is awakened by a scream. It's only after Akitada returns to a scene of domestic unhappiness and scandal that the significance of that cry becomes clear. For while he slept, a woman was murdered, and now he must find her killer.