CLAWS OF THE CAT is one of those books you wish you’d written, but grudgingly know you’d never come up with the premise.

Related: Author to Author with Susan Spann

Author Susan Spann takes us to imperial Japan in 1565. The Jesuits, in the form of Portuguese priest Father Mateo, have a toehold in Kyoto, from which he has the approval of the regional shogun, or warlord, to conduct missionary work. A shinobi, a covert agent trained in stealth—read ninja—has been assigned to protect him.

Hiro Hattori, from the distant city of Iga, is the shinobi. Hiro’s point of view, and whispered backstory, guides us through this exciting journey. The cracks in feudal Japan are beginning to show, yet society is still delicately balanced with rules and norms.

A teahouse “entertainer” girl, Sayuri, who has converted to Christianity, is found with a dead client. Father Mateo comes to see what he can do for this member of his nascent flock. Although Sayuri was found with blood on her kimono, she insists she woke to find the client’s throat slashed and the room bloody. The dead man’s enraged son, a local policeman, is entitled by law to execute his father’s killer. He gives Father Mateo two days to prove the girl is not the killer and find the real one; if the priest cannot the son will kill both the girl and the priest.

Hiro is bound to by oath to protect the priest. In only 48 hours, he must find a brutal killer, a task made even more difficult by his lack of authority, the uncooperative attitude of the teahouse owner, and the societal conventions which rule conversations, even those about murder.

All of Hiro’s training and resources are put to use. He and Father Mateo, both engaging characters who have achieved understanding and friendship in the two years they have been thrown together, play off each other as they question those who might have something to do with the murder. Clues lead in all directions. Why did the teahouse owner secretly burns her ledgers? Why did the dead man’s daughter, a female samurai, inherit everything instead of her brother, as would be normal? Why did the dead man seek to become Sayuri’s “patron” at the teahouse, i.e. take her as his mistress, when his brother wanted to buy her contract from the teahouse and marry her? What did the dead man’s death have to do with a rice trader who visited the teahouse yet also sought to buy guns from a Portuguese trader?

The misleading clues mount up, yet Hiro leads us through the maze as only a ninja can. He knows that “a shinobi’s first and greatest defense is misdirection” and that it works both ways. Spann effortlessly brings us into Hiro’s world of both violence and grace where katana swords and ritual burial armor coexist with the intricate art of flower arranging. The details reflect rigorous research, down to the measure of a room based on the number of tatami mats and the cadence of the characters’ speech. You can almost smell the cherry blossoms.

The ending is terrific. Hiro is able to pick out the anomalies and solve the case. Justice is meted out, Japanese-style. Just enough of Hiro’s backstory is there, too, like breadcrumbs along the path, to entice the reader on to more of this absorbing, authentic, and superbly written series.

In A MADRAS MIASMA, New Zealand author Brian Stoddart takes us to India in 1920 with an extraordinary sense of place and time. India is on the brink of explosion and the murder mystery is another lit fuse on the powder keg.

Related: Author to Author with Brian Stoddart

British colonial authorities have created a culture unto themselves, with few ties back to the sceptered isle and unique social norms. Indian society is stratified and divided over continued loyalty to Britain. Discontent and political unrest simmers below the surface.

Enter Superintendent Christian Le Fanu, Indian Police Service in Madras (today’s Chennai), who stands on both sides of the deepening divide. He’s British, yet has no ties back to England where his soon-to-be-ex-wife has fled. A combat veteran of WWI, he now has an aversion to blood. A long-time resident of India, he’s part of the British ruling class but not in it. He doesn’t live in the British enclave part of town, his familiarity with Indian ways got booted him out of the golf club, he gives his Muslim Indian sergeant real responsibility, and he is secretly sleeping with his Anglo-Indian housekeeper. Roisin is smart and attractive but her mixed ethnicity makes her a pariah.

Le Fanu and Sergeant Habi investigate the murder of a young British woman whose body is dumped in a polluted canal. She’s identified as one of the “fishing fleet,” young women who come to India from Britain “fishing” for a husband. She and another woman made the rounds of parties where they met diplomats, military officers, and the upper crust of colonial society. The autopsy reveals that the woman had sex and took morphine before death.

The investigation proceeds as a series of interviews conducted with excruciating British politeness. In between, Le Fanu has to placate the higher-ups, including the impeccably drawn martinet Arthur Jepson, who habitually cracks his riding crop against his shoe. The secondary characters are historical figures, accounting for all the surnames starting with “W.”

Le Fanu’s murder investigation implicates senior British figures in Madras. At the same time, an Indian demonstration prompts British troops to fire into the crowd, killing many. The political fallout from the massacre shakes the entire British ruling structure in India, making Le Fanu’s own position precarious. He’s an appealing man in a sea of political operators, but his enemies know there are chinks in his armor and they are ready to exploit them.

MIASMA is a meticulously researched historical mystery. In many ways, it reminded me of Ken Follett’s THE KEY TO REBECCA set in WWII Egypt; the crowded, noisy and politically precarious setting, the rigidity and stuffiness of British colonial rule, a British officer who has sympathy toward the local population and rides a motorcycle.

No Nazi spies in 1920, of course. Stoddart stays authentic to the world he’s pulled us into, with villains whose moral codes have been replaced by a sense of abiding privilege.

THE TRESPASSER by Tana French is the 6^th novel in the chronicles of the fictional Dublin Murder Squad. Each is narrated by a different member of the squad, whose private life is somehow linked to—and tragically impacted by—the central crime. When in Dublin last year, I visited legendary bookstore Hodges Figgis and found a whole section devoted to Irish crime novels, in which French’s books held pride of place. THE TRESPASSER shows why.

Related: Book Review: In The Woods by Tana French

The narrator this time is Antoinette Conway, the sole female detective on the fabled Squad and I couldn’t help noticing the similarity to Detective Emilia Cruz in Acapulco. Both are tough, athletic, determined, and the target of their male colleagues. Neither have ever met their father. To round off the similarities, Conway is half Latino.

But unlike Emilia Cruz, Conway’s mood is sour and her temper is explosive. She’s fed up to here with garbage from fellow detectives. Her reports go missing, someone broke into her gym locker to pee on her stuff, and she and her partner Moran are permanently stuck on the graveyard shift.

Conway is ready to chuck it all for a lucrative bodyguard job when she and Moran are dispatched to investigate the murder of Aislinn Murray, an attractive secretary killed at home by a blow to the head.

A little scratching reveals that Aislinn was about to have dinner company. Guileless Rory Fallon owns a bookstore across town and has had a few dates with Aislinn. He claims that she never opened the door when he arrived but closed circuit cameras reveal he’d been stalking the victim for several weeks.

Enter the Murder Squad’s resident Mr. Cool, aka Detective Breslin. He’s got money, charm, flash suits, and a game show host smoothness that Conway sees as weapons he’ll use to discredit her and force her out of the Squad. Breslin is sure that poor Fallon is their killer, despite no witnesses or hard evidence. Thus begins a cat-and-mouse game of Conway and her partner trying to run down more angles, while he tries to circumvent their orders and nail Fallon. This makes for some great interrogation room dialogue. Every conversation reveals more competing agendas and French keeps the tension high.

In the background, Conway has her own Peeping Tom, Rory Fallon wasn’t the only one stalking Aislinn Murray, and there’s a subtle father-daughter relationship comparison happening. Aislinn Murray was obsessed with finding her long-lost father while Conway doesn’t even ask her father’s name when he finally turns up.

The plot is solid but the most engrossing thing about THE TRESPASSER is Conway’s deep point of view. It’s a mix of in-your-face Irish slang, slick cop jargon, and a harsh and headstrong irreverence for everything in her way. Conway is plowing through life with her fists up, looking for the fight; snarling and snapping and loaded with the local equivalent of Red Bull.

Get ‘em up, Rocky. THE TRESPASSER is a knockout.