Year of the Demon Paperback by Steve Bein

Product Details

• Publisher: Ace (2014-09-02)
• Language: English
• Paperback: 528 pages
• ISBN-13: 9780451465207
• Item Weight: 249.48 grams
• Dimensions: 6.75 x 4.19 x 1.38 cm

Detective Sergeant Mariko Oshiro has been promoted to Japan’s elite Narcotics unit—and with this promotion comes a new partner, a new case, and new danger. The underboss of a powerful yakuza crime syndicate has put a price on her head, and he’ll lift the bounty only if she retrieves an ancient iron demon mask that was stolen from him in a daring raid. However, Mariko has no idea of the tumultuous past carried within the mask—or of its deadly link with the famed Inazuma blade she wields.
 
The secret of this mask originated hundreds of years before Mariko was born, and over time the mask’s power has evolved to bend its owner toward destruction, stopping at nothing to obtain Inazuma steel. Mariko’s fallen sensei knew much of the mask’s hypnotic power and of its mysterious link to a murderous cult. Now Mariko must use his notes to find the mask before the cult can bring Tokyo to its knees—and before the underboss decides her time is up....
 

About the Author

Steve Bein teaches Asian philosophy and Asian history at the State University of New York - Geneseo. He holds a PhD in philosophy, and his graduate work took him to Nanzan University and Obirin University in Japan, where he translated a seminal work in the study of Japanese Buddhism. His short fiction has been published in Asimov's, Interzone, Writers of the Future, and has been anthologized for use in college courses alongside the works of such figures as Orson Scott Card, Larry Niven, Isaac Asimov, and H.G. Wells. His Novels of the Fated Blades include Daughter of the Sword, Year of the Demon, and Disciple of the Wind.