Assassin's Touch

May 1695. During a horse race at Edo Castle the chief of the shogun's
intelligence service, Ejima Senzaemon, drops dead as his horse gallops
across the finish line—the fourth in a recent series of sudden deaths of
high-ranking officials. Sano Ichiro is ordered to investigate, despite
his recent promotion to chamberlain and his new duties as the shogun's
second-in-command.
Meanwhile, Sano's wife, Reiko, is invited to
attend the trial of Yugao, a beautiful young woman accused of stabbing
her parents and sister to death. The woman has confessed, but the
magistrate believes there is more to this case than meets the eye. He
delays his verdict and asks Reiko to prove Yugao's guilt or innocence.
As
their investigations continue, both Sano and Reiko come to realize that
the man he is trying to hunt and the woman she is desperate to save are
somehow connected. A single fingerprint on Ejima's temple puts Sano on
the trail of an underground movement to overthrow the regime, and in the
path of an assassin with a deadly touch.