Naomi Hirahara: 15 books

From the editor of the award-winning Children of Manzanar, Heather C. Lindquist, and Edgar Award winner Naomi Hirahara comes a nuanced account of the “Resettlement”: the relatively unexamined period when ordinary people of Japanese ancestry, having been unjustly imprisoned during World War II,...

A present-day mystery is tied to the Japanese American detention centers of WWII in this “wonderful” chapter of the Edgar Award-winning series (Lisa See). Mas Arai’s best friend Haruo is getting married, and the cranky detective and semi-retired gardener has grudgingly agreed to serve...

From Summer of the Big Bachi to Gasa-Gasa Girl, Naomi Hirahara’s acclaimed novels have featured one of mystery fiction’s most unique heroes: Mas Arai, a curmudgeonly L.A. gardener, Hiroshima survivor, and inveterate gambler. Few things get Mas more excited than gambling, so when he hears...

From Valley Girls to Valley of the Dolls, the L.A. Woman has captured our imagination and redefined the fairer sex. CJ Parker is our lifeguard, Lucy Arnaz our studio executive, Angelyne our reality star, and the Black Dahlia our murder victim. L.A. neighborhoods have spawned the Beverly Hills housewife,...

From the time she was a child, Mas Arai’s daughter, Mari, was completely gasa-gasa–never sitting still, always on the go, getting into everything. And Mas, busy tending lawns, gambling, and struggling to put his Hiroshima past behind him, never had much time for the family he was trying to support....

In the foothills of Pasadena, Mas Arai is just another Japanese-American gardener, his lawnmower blades clean and sharp, his truck carefully tuned. But while Mas keeps lawns neatly trimmed, his own life has gone to seed. His wife is dead. And his livelihood is falling into the hands of the men he...

The Japanese American detective’s most engaging mystery yet delves into baseball, WWII, and the complex history between Japan and Korea: “Hard to put down” (Kirkus Reviews). At Dodger Stadium, Japan is playing Korea in the World Baseball Classic, but before the first pitch is thrown,...

A new strawberry varietal has someone seeing red in this “intricate whodunit” featuring the curmudgeonly Japanese American gardener and reluctant sleuth (Kirkus Reviews). Hiroshima survivor Mas Arai first arrived in Watsonville, California in the 1940s. Now a semi-retired gardener living...

Akashic Books Noir Series is selling great; nearly every title has gone into multiple printings. Whole series to be promoted at major trade conferences and mystery conferences. Major media push: print, radio, television.

It’s no secret that authors have a love-hate relationship with Hollywood. The oft-repeated cliché that “the book was better than the movie” holds true for more reasons than the average reader will ever know. When asked about selling their book rights to Hollywood authors like to joke that they...

LAPD bicycle cop—and aspiring homicide detective—Ellie Rush is back on patrol in the newest mystery from the award-winning author of Murder on Bamboo Lane. Ellie stops for a friendly chat with gardener Eduardo Fuentes while patrolling one of Los Angeles’s premier concert halls. A few...

WHEN 12-YEAR-OLD ANGELA Kato arrives in L.A., the last thing she wants to do is spend the entire summer with her grandparents. But in the Kato family, one is never permitted to complain. Grandma Michi and Aunt Janet put Angela to work in their flower shop, folding origami and creating 1001 crane displays...

Trouble awaits rookie LAPD Officer Ellie Rush as she patrols the mean streets of Los Angeles on her bicycle… Bike cop Ellie Rush dreams of becoming a homicide detective, but it’s still a shock when the first dead body she encounters on the job is that of a former college classmate. At...

Leilani Santiago is back in her birthplace, the Hawaiian island of Kaua’i, to help keep afloat the family business, a shave ice shack. When she goes to work one morning, she stumbles across a dead body, a young pro surfer who was being coached by her estranged father. As her father soon becomes...