The Ghost In The Tokaido Inn

The Ghost in the Tokaido Inn is a young adult novel by Dorothy Hoobler and Thomas Hoobler. Set in eighteenth-century Japan, the story follows Seikei Konoike, the son of a tea merchant who longs to be a noble samurai family. When a robbery occurs at the inn Seikei and his father are staying in, Seikei is recruited to discover the thief.

Winner of the American Library Association’s Best Books for Young Adults Award, The Ghost in the Tokaido Inn is the first in a samurai detective series by the authors.

The book opens with a preface of Japanese history, giving context to the timeline and culture of the story that is about to take place; it is 1735 in the era of samurai, and the Tokaido Road is “the world’s busiest highway,” for travelers, merchants, and pilgrims. The story starts on Tokaido Road, as a girl and her father notice a kago, a passenger-box, being carried.



Inside the kago are Seikei Konoike and his father, an Osaka tea merchant. They are traveling to Edo to open a new business; Seikei has been brought along to learn. Seikei, however, has no interest in being a merchant, as he longs to be a samurai. Near the checkpoint, Seikei notices an exchange between a lord and his samurai and a beggar with a scar on his face.

After passing the checkpoint, Seikei and his father stop in Kameyama to rest for the night, staying at an inn, which is also hosting a daimyo, Lord Hakuseki. The daimyo requests to sample tea, which Seikei brings, as well as writing paper, which is brought in by the girl from Tokaido Road. When the daimyo is satisfied with the goods, he shows the children a beautiful ruby stone which he plans to gift to the shogun.

After entertaining the daimyo, Seikei unexpectedly meets the girl, Michiko Ogawa. They talk about the poet Basho and the samurai spirit. Before leaving, Michiko shares a ghost story with Seikei about a Buddhist priest and a cursed monk. Later that night, kept awake by the ghost story, Seikei has his own ghost encounter as he witnesses a big, white spirit crossing the hallway.



The next morning, the guests at the inn are detained because the daimyo’s ruby is missing. Judge Ooka arrives to question the guests, but it is soon revealed that the ruby is in the Ogawas’ possession. Believing the Ogawas have been falsely framed, Seikei yells out that it was the ghost. Judge Ooka decides to question Seikei. He recruits Seikei to further investigate, which leads to the discovery of a hidden passageway in the inn and the arrest of the innkeeper.

The jewel thief is still at large, so Judge Ooka takes Seikei with him to track him down. Their first stop is a kabuki play, where the actors perform the tale of The Forty-Seven Ronin. Believing one of the actors to be the beggar Seikei saw on the Tokaido Road, he decides to look for him after the show. Seikei learns that the actor is named Tomomi Tomo. After Seikei finds him in the pleasure district and spars with him, the actor reveals his true name is Genji Takezaki, the son of a disgraced daimyo, and that he is the jewel thief.

In trying to get back to Edo to report to Judge Ooka, Seikei joins Tomomi’s traveling kabuki group as an assistant. Tomomi takes Seikei under his wing as an actor for the next play to be performed for the shogun. Seikei learns that the plays performed have a secret message connected to Lord Hakuseki, the stolen ruby, and Tomomi’s family.



On the night of the performance for the shogun, the play is going smoothly. Tomomi steps out in the same costume he wore dressed as the ghost, to perform the final scene. He begins his act, a thinly veiled insult and accusation against Lord Hakuseki. Chaos ensues. The angry daimyo charges the stage to battle with Tomomi, only to lose to his lack of skill. However, the shogun’s samurai surround Tomomi, and with the emperor’s approval, they behead him.

The story ends with Seikei being invited to the shogun’s palace to partake in a tea ceremony and to rehash how he and Judge Ooka solved the case of the missing jewel. At the end, Judge Ooka asks the shogun for a favor, to allow him to adopt Seikei and grant him samurai status. The shogun grants this favor, and Seikei realizes his dream.

The Ghost in the Tokaido Inn introduces many aspects of Japanese culture to young readers, such as the differences between the Japanese religions of Buddhism and Shintoism, and the foreign Kirishitan (Christian) religion of converts; the historical class system of Japan; and the varied art forms of Japan, such as haiku and kabuki.