Tetsurô Abe

In the Edo period, the Ichiyanagi family ran a honjin, an official guesthouse for travelling representatives of the shogunate; and they are still a family of tradition and influence in the Okayama country where they live. (Yokomizo came from this area, and many of the books are set there or in the neighbouring Inland Sea. (japanesebookshelf)

A ronin for a hire (Koji Takahashi) and an acupuncturist (Jiro Otama) are members of an assassin's gild in Tokugawa Edo. The ronin is offered a position as a city magistrate by the corrupt magistrate he has been hired to assassinate, and struggles with the possibility of taking an "honest" job that is in reality less wholesome than his work as an assassin. Dr. Baian meanwhile is hired to kill a woman who he begins to suspect may be his own sister, from whom he was separated when still a boy.