Death in the dojo door Sue Leather

Kate Jensen is a reporter for The Daily Echo in London. when the famous teacher Kawaguchi is murdered in his own dojo, Kate is assigned to the case. This is not an easy task for Kate since Kawaguchi was her own ‘sensei, back in the days she trained in karate. the following day Kwaguchi’s number two at the dojo, Ito, is also found murdered.

Kate’s father, a retired journalist and keen boxer, remembers that a girl called Kawaguchi was injured in an incident known as the London Road murder thirty years ago. The girl was being driven home by a school caretaker called John Blakeston. They picked up a hitchhiker who shot Blakeston and seriously injured the girl. The girl was Kawaguchi’s daughter, Naoko. She picked out a young man called Brendan Murphy at an identity parade, and Murphy was hanged for the murder of Blakeston in 1961. Kate’s father, and many others, believed that Murphy was innocent.

After Kawaguchi’s funeral, Kate returns to her flat and is attacked as she goes in. She calls her neighbour for help but is not badly hurt. The next day she flies to Tokyo to visit Naoko. Naoko tells Kate that John Blakeston was her lover and that her father had tried to stop her seeing him. She also admits that she might have made a mistake in identifying Brendan Murphy as the murderer

Kate becomes convinced that there is a connection between the London Road murder and the recent murders of Kawaguchi and Ito. She learns from old newspaper articles about the London Road murder that a man called Peter Benson confessed to killing Blakeston. She manages to find his brother James, who tells Kate that he believes his brother Peter, now dead, was responsible.

The following morning a letter bomb and note from someone signing themselves ‘The Avenger’ is sent to the Home Secretary. Kate visits Brendan’s brother Paddy and learns that Brendan had a girlfriend called Janey Lovat. Kate then discovers that a woman called Brenda Lovat is one of the top karate fighters in the country and believes that she has at last found the answer.

Kate persuades her father to write an article in the Daily Echo saying that he now believes Murphy was guilty. Their plan works, and The Avenger comes that evening to Kate’s father’s house where Kate and a friend Sanjay are lying in wait. They capture The Avenger and discover that, as Kate suspected, it is Brenda Lovat, Brendan Murphy and Janey Lovat’s daughter. Brenda confesses to the murders of Kawaguchi and Ito (who had already told the police what was going on) and is sent to prison. Brendan Murphy is finally granted a posthumous pardon