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Tokyo’s only female detective fights to keep her city safe in the third novel in the fantasy series that “combines the best parts of police procedurals, buddy-cop films, historical fantasy, and intrigue-laden adventure.”*

After a deadly terrorist attack in Tokyo, Detective Sergeant Mariko Oshiro urges her commanding officers to arrest an insane zealot who was just released from police custody. When her pleas fall on deaf ears, she loses her temper and then her badge.
 
Armed with only her cunning and her famed Inazuma blade, Mariko must work outside the system to stop the terrorist. But going rogue draws the attention of the Wind—an underground syndicate that has controlled Japanese politics for centuries, using mystical relics to achieve their nefarious ends.
 
Now, Mariko is left with a perilous choice: join an illicit insurgency to thwart a deadly villain, or remain true to the law. Either way, she cannot escape her sword’s curse. As sure as the blade will bring her to victory, it also promises to destroy her…

Steve Bein teaches philosophy at Texas State University. He has a PhD in philosophy, and his graduate work took him to Japan, where he translated a seminal work in the study of Zen Buddhism. He holds black belts in two American forms of combative martial arts and has trained in about two-dozen other martial arts. 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 Fated Blades novels include Disciple of the Wind, Year of the Demon, and Daughter of the Sword.