Japanese-American Beverly Hills homicide detective Masao Masuto is a karate expert, a devotee of roses, and a Zen Buddhist. He does his job with a cool, caustic wit-and with surprising force when necessary. He possesses a singular sense of justice, taking action on his own and occasionally pushing the boundaries of the law… The Case of the Angry Actress: When a Hollywood mogul drops dead at his own party, Detective Masuto must dig into the darkest...

A small-town girl flees from the assassin she hired to kill her When the doctor in her small hometown tells Sally Dillman that she has six months to live, the quiet young schoolteacher sells her house and moves to New York City. She comes not to see the sights, not for one last thrill, but to die as quickly as possible. Savings in hand, she pays a mobster $3,000 to put a contract out on her life. She wants to be killed before leukemia saps her strength,...

A rare California deluge unearths a hidden body-and a decades-old crime Rain has spoiled Masao Masuto's vacation. For six days the storm has trapped the Zen Buddhist detective and his family inside their Los Angeles cottage. By the morning of his vacation's final day, he is so stir crazy that the call to come to work is a relief. Detective Masuto knows no better cure for boredom than a puzzling murder.   Nothing remains of the deceased man but his...

A rash of political deaths alerts a New York cop to an international assassination plot At a crime scene, Harry Golding has no fear. But put him in front of a few dozen undergraduates, and he begins to sweat. He agrees to give the lecture on criminology for his brother, a New York University professor, and muddles through it, successful until it comes time for questions. A skinny young conspiracy theorist demands to know what the police are doing...

Detective Masuto investigates a string of strange Southern California crimes that lead all the way back to Nazi Germany Returning from a funeral, Mr. and Mrs. Jack Briggs find their Beverly Hills mansion ransacked. As they wait for the police, they discover something unusual: Despite the chaos, nothing appears to be missing-a fact that greatly interests Beverly Hills police detective Masao Masuto. But the Zen detective only has a few minutes to ponder...