"The events preceding the Meiji restoration, ending centuries of control by the Tokugawa shogunate, included political assassination, a shifting alignment of samurai groups and clans, and other complicated intrigues. In Assassination, Shinoda focuses upon an enigmatic samurai leader named Hanchiro Kiyokawa whose allegiances are constantly questioned by both factions. Sometimes Kiyokawa seems to be switching sides erratically. At other times his movement from camp to camp hints of a cunning strategy to bolster the imperial group against the shogunate. On still other occasions, it looks as though he is playing both ends against the middle and taking advantage of the rampant confusion to set himself up as a new Shogun. In one complex man Shinoda compiles a plethora of different political and personal motivations--all mutually contradictory and equally destructive." Stuart Rosenthal, PFA Calendar, June 1978