The killer left no trace in the security footage…
…but they didn’t account for the registrar’s archives.
Step into the hushed world of Japanese art, institutional secrets, and a document that waited eighty-eight years to be found. A meticulous, atmospheric mystery for readers of The Cloisters and The Last Masterpiece.
The File is Open.
You don’t have to wait for publication day to begin the investigation. Join the reader list to unlock an exclusive, interactive case file. Over the next three weeks, you will receive restricted museum documents—starting with the official Condition Report—delivered to your inbox exactly as they were filed. One at a time. In order.
The Joseon Retrospective
What is this book?
A literary mystery set at the National Art Center Tokyo, where Senior Registrar Keiko Ito investigates the murder of a Korean provenance researcher — and solves it entirely through paperwork: badge logs, inspection schedules, and a set of 1938 colonial-era acquisition records.
Keiko Ito has spent nineteen years as a registrar — the last eleven at the National Art Center Tokyo, documenting everything that enters and leaves one of Japan’s most prestigious exhibition venues. She does not investigate crimes. She reconciles records.
Then the body of Dr. Yun Se-bin — the Korean provenance researcher accompanying a Joseon dynasty moon jar — is found in a basement service corridor. And Keiko discovers something the police cannot see: Se-bin left a message. Not a note. A seven-line annotation, handwritten in Korean, on page four of Keiko’s own condition report.
Justice through documentation, not deduction.
A sleuth no one else has
Keiko is not a detective. She is a registrar — a professional whose career rests on the premise that the documented record, kept with enough care, cannot be argued with.
Cozy pace, literary depth
No graphic violence, no explicit content, and the crime itself stays off the page — but the themes underneath are serious. A gentle mystery with substance.
Grounded in real history
Built on the documented displacement of Korean cultural objects during the colonial period, and the provenance research and restitution work that continues today.
Five cases. One registrar.
The Keiko Ito Mysteries follow a museum professional through the cases her paperwork will not let her ignore. The Joseon Retrospective opens the series in October 2026; The Unsigned Falcon follows in Spring 2027.
Each novel tells a complete case. Starting at the beginning is best — but no book will strand you.
See the reading order
Built for book clubs.
Twelve spoiler-free discussion questions, a provenance timeline, a glossary, and a note from the author — free to print and circulate.