I.J. PARKER won the Private Eye Writers of America Shamus Award for Best P.I. Short Story in 2000 for "Akitada's First Case," published in 1999. An Associate Professor of English and Foreign Languages (retired) at a Virginia university, Parker began research into11th century Japan because of a professional interest in that culture's literature. This led to the first Akitada short story, "Instruments of Murder," published in Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine in October of 1997. Although Parker's multi-lingual background includes a little Japanese, research is done using translations and the help of scholars specializing in the period.