Dale Furutani Books In Order

Publication Order of Ken Tanaka Books

Publication Order of Matsuyama Kaze Books

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Publication Order of Anthologies

Dale Furutani is a general fiction novelist who is best known for his Agatha, Macavity, and Anthony Award-winning novel “Death in Little Tokyo.”

He holds the distinction of being the first Asian American to win such prestigious awards that he has been referred to as “the best-known of Japanese-American writers.”
The author’s family is originally from Yamaguchi Prefecture in Japan and it was in 1896 that they moved to Hawaii.

But Dale was brought up in San Pedro, California, which is where he went to school. He would then proceed to California State University, Long Beach, where he got a creative writing degree and later a UCLA MBA in Marketing.

He has penned mysteries set in Tokyo and Los Angeles in addition to a trilogy set in Japan in 1603. He has also been on numerous bestseller lists on the likes of the Los Angeles Times, and the national bestseller list on the Mystery Writers of America.
He has also been invited to speak at numerous mystery and writer conventions and has also spoken to the U.S. Library of Congress as an Asian American Writer and mystery writer.

The author Dale Furutani is a third-generation Sansei or Japanese American who was born in 1946 in Hilo, Hawaii.

His mother was at Pearl Harbor during that infamous attack by Japan attending church camp and she could see the planes dropping bombs all over the harbor. During the Second World War, his mother worked in Honolulu for the American Red Cross.
When he turned five, he moved to California after he was adopted by John Flanagan. In California, he was for the first time confronted with racism and prejudice given that he was the only Asian in school.
Despite the challenges, he managed to graduate and then attended the Long Beach-based California State University where he got his Information Systems and Marketing MBA.

During his time as an undergraduate, he used to write articles and worked for various magazines as a contributing editor.

For nearly two decades, he was the owner of a small publishing company that worked with corporate giants such as Xerox and Nissan.

He also worked with several other companies including Yamaha Motorcycles where he was Parts Marketing Manager before moving to Nissan Motor Corp where he is now Director of Information.

Even though Dale Furutani would go into the corporate world after graduation, his love for writing was always there – beneath the surface.

In 1993, he decided that even though he had too many responsibilities, he needed to fulfill his dream of becoming a fiction author.

He began writing in 1993 and by 1996 he published his debut novel “Death in Little Tokyo” under St. Martin Press and the work went on to receive stellar reviews and win many awards.
In 1997, he published “The Toyotomi Blades,” his second novel, and has been writing ever since. In addition to his fiction novels, Furutani has also published three nonfiction works and more than 250 articles.
He has also won prizes for a one-act play that he produced while he was in college and for his poetry.

He has been married to Sharon his wife for more than three decades and together with Darby their rambunctious Labrador Retriever, they currently make their home in Los Angeles, California.

“Death at the Crossroads” by Dale Furutani opens at the crack of dawn which comes through to an intense scent of pine trees and veiled mists.

At the intersection of four roads, a samurai and an old coal merchant stumble upon the body of a stranger killed by the arrow of a noble.

Manase the local lord is known as a refined scholar of the arts and literature who has been incompetent at governing the district.

The other person of concern is the frustrated and narrow-minded magistrate named Nagato who has been accumulating money to get a concubine.
Neither of the two men has any interest in the homicide case and soon Jiro the poor coal burner is fingered for the crime.

To save the man from being crucified, Matsuyama Kaze the samurai (whose name means breath of fresh air in Japanese) decides that it is up to him to get to the bottom of the case.
Strong, loyal, and always ready to do anything, he is not your ordinary samurai as he has been on a quest to find a girl who had been missing for years and is suspected to have been killed by the new shogun.
Putting his quest on hold, he puts to use his training and imaginative ideas to foil traps, ferret out lies, and find the culprit.

Dale Furutani’s “Jade Palace Vendetta” continues to follow the life and times of a ronin samurai named Matsuyama Kaze.

He had made a promise on his master’s deathbed that he would find her young daughter who had been taken during the feudal wars.

There are very few clues to where she could be but over several years, he chases down every lead even in the face of much adversity.

While on his quest he comes across a businessman under attack from bandits. Since he is a master swordsman he handily dispatches the criminals even though he did not have to.

He is fascinated by the man who seems to have an obsessive love for Yuchan his wife. It was a time of arranged marriages when it was very unusual to see such passionate love.

The man keeps Yuchan his wife in a heavily decorated palace on a massive compound where he keeps her in all manner of luxury. However, all is not as it seems and he will have to deal with great evil while following the code of the samurai.

“Kill the Shogun” by Dale Furutani is another interesting addition to the Matsuyama Kaze series of novels. For years, he has been traveling all over seventeenth-century Japan to fulfill a promise he made to the wife of his murdered lord.
Until this time, his samurai skills and quick wit have made it possible for him to get out of deadly plots, solve crimes, and protect the innocent, even as he lives according to the sense of honor and justice of a samurai.

However, the danger he is facing from the unknown and enemies is the greatest he has ever faced up to now. Still, this is the closest he ever came to fulfilling the promise he had made to his old employer.

He follows a trail of clues that send him to the new bustling capital of Japan, Edo. Working in unfamiliar lands, he soon finds himself hunted by some vicious enemies when he attempts to take the life of the Shogun and fails.
He needs to keep ahead of his enemies but in the meantime learns about the whereabouts of the young girl. But his work is harder as he not only needs to rescue the child but while at it he is also trying to clear his name.
He may need to work with an eccentric cast of characters making for a lively story set in feudal Japan.