The Kimono Tattoo

"The Kimono Tattoo is an intelligent escape-into the past, into the mind, into a fascinating culture. Finely crafted and perfectly paced, this literary thriller remains engrossing long after the last sentence, opening a world that lingers in the imagination."

-Jeannette Cooperman, St. Louis Media Hall of Fame journalist, essayist, and author of A Circumstance of Blood

"I jostled her shoulder and noticed when I did that her skin was cold to the touch....her entire torso was covered in tattoos from her collar bone to the midline of her thighs. All were of kimono motifs-fans, incense burners, peonies, and scrolls."  

This ghastly scene was the last thing Ruth Bennett expected to encounter when she agreed to translate a novel by a long-forgotten Japanese writer. Returning to her childhood home in Kyoto had promised safety, solitude, and diversion from the wounds she encountered in the U.S. But Ruth soon finds the storyline in the novel leaking into her everyday life. Fictional characters turn out to be real, and the past catches up with the present in an increasingly threatening way.

As Ruth struggles to unravel the cryptic message hidden in the kimono tattoo, she is forced to confront a vicious killer along with her own painful family secrets.

"In a tale as intricately patterned as a Jacquard-weave obi, Rebecca Copeland's American heroine finds herself entangled in the delicate threads of Kyoto's kimono industry as well as the darker skeins of yakuza, tattoo parlors, and rebellious youth. The reader is quickly drawn in to the dangerous twists and turns while Copeland's detailed knowledge of Kyoto comes through on every page-a treat for all who love this city, and a great read."

-Liza Dalby, anthropologist, artist, and author of the best seller, Geisha; Kimono: Fashioning Culture; and the novels The Tale of Murasaki and Hidden Buddhas: A Novel of Karma and Chaos