Evergreen

Praise for An Amazon Best of the Month - Mystery/Thriller CrimeReads Best Historical Fiction of 2023 (So Far) CrimeReads Most Anticipated Crime Fiction of Summer 2023 “Absorbing... Like Walter Mosley in his great Easy Rawlins books, Hirahara shows us a corrupt LA whose most endemic corruptions come steeped in racism. But -- and this too recalls Mosley -- she doesn''t wallow in the self-indulgent cosmic nihilism that defines too much noir.” --John Powers, NPR''s “Hirahara humanizes the struggles of Japanese Americans rebuilding their lives from scratch. Her evocation of Little Tokyo haunts will bring a flood of memories for some Angelenos while introducing a new generation of readers to a pivotal period in L.A. history.” --Paula Woods, “Hirahara’s affinity for sculpting real characters and placing them in historical context while creating palpable suspense shines in -- “I have long been a fan of Naomi Hirahara’s writing, but --Lisa See, “Hirahara’s --Dwyer Murphy, CrimeReads “Excellent.” --Sarah Weinman, "Intriguing and provocative . . . Hirahara cleverly weaves together a riveting mystery with historical details of postwar Little Tokyo, touching on issues of race, postwar trauma and the rebuilding of community. Her extensive research as a non-fiction writer offers a solid base for her insightful reimagining of postwar resettlement." --Nichi Bei “ --BookTrib “Brilliant . . . A sharply plotted mystery and a historically rich story.” --Historical Novel Society “Highly recommend.” --Dear White Women “ --Crime Fiction Lover “Hirahara expertly folds this crime story into her insightful and fully realized portrait of postwar America and the struggles of Japanese Americans to come to terms with the American society that had imprisoned them during the war... A thought-provoking noir with a searing period flavor.” -- “Once again, Hirahara illuminates the experiences of Japanese Americans during World War II by embodying them in the lives of the Ito family. The author weaves a compelling tale, which is a...

Auteur

Naomi Hirahara is the Mary Higgins Clark Award–winning author of Clark and Division, and the Edgar Award–winning author of the Mas Arai mystery series, including Summer of the Big Bachi, which was a Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year and one of the Chicago Tribun*e’s Ten Best Mysteries and Thrillers; *Gasa Gasa Girl; Snakeskin Shamisen; and Hiroshima Boy. She is also the author of the LA-based Ellie Rush mysteries. A former editor of The Rafu Shimpo newspaper, she has co-written nonfiction books like Life after Manzanar and the award-winning Terminal Island: Lost Communities on America's Edge.

Texte du rabat

A Japanese American nurse's aide navigates the dangers of post-WWII and post-Manzanar life as she attempts to find justice for a broken family in this follow-up to the Mary Higgins Clark Award–winning Clark and Division.

Los Angeles, 1946: It’s been two years since Aki Ito and her family were released from Manzanar detention center and resettled in Chicago with other Japanese Americans. Now the Itos have finally been allowed to return home to California—but nothing is as they left it. The entire Japanese American community is starting from scratch, with thousands of people living in dismal refugee camps while they struggle to find new houses and jobs in over-crowded Los Angeles.

Aki is working as a nurse’s aide at the Japanese Hospital in Boyle Heights when an elderly Issei man is admitted with suspicious injuries. When she seeks out his son, she is shocked to recognize her husband’s best friend, Babe Watanabe. Could Babe be guilty of elder abuse?

Only a few days later, Little Tokyo is rocked by a murder at the low-income hotel where the Watanabes have been staying. When the cops start sniffing around Aki’s home, she begins to worry that the violence tearing through her community might threaten her family. What secrets have the Watanabes been hiding, and can Aki protect her husband from getting tangled up in a murder investigation?

Échantillon de lecture
Chapter 1


I had only been working at the Japanese Hospital on Fickett Street for a month when Haruki Watanabe was brought into an examination room. The one Issei doctor on call was treating a patient who had been suffering from severe hypertension. It was up to me to take Mr. Watanabe’s vitals and update his medical chart. I was only a nurse’s aide, not a full-fledged nurse, but the hospital had just reopened in spring 1946, three years after we had been sent away, and the facility was severely understaffed.
     Mr. Watanabe had sad eyes with bags that drooped down onto his sagging cheeks. Everything about his face seemed to be melting away. His lip was swollen and the side of his face was beet red, inflamed from some kind of trauma. The only sign of vigor was in his hair, still jet-black and abundant, like a badger’s coat, despite his fifty-two years.
     I put the glass thermometer under his tongue, which was thick and streaked with bacteria. His temperature was a little higher than normal.
     I gently took hold of his wrist, which was sturdier than I expected, to take his pulse. His pulse was fast, but that was not unusual when people came for emergency care. I spied something red on his upper arm and lifted his shirtsleeve. Bruises the pattern and color of smashed raspberries—not fresh, but not months old, either.
     “What’s happened here?”
     “*Nandemonai,” he said in a low voice, as if he didn’t want anyone to hear. Realizing that I was a Nisei and might not understand much Japanese, he said it in English, too. “Nothing.”
     I got a cotton gown out of the cupboard and left it next to him on the examination table. “Can you get dressed in this?”
     “*Doushite? I only have my head problems.”
     “The doctor will probably want to do a thorough checkup.”
     “No need,” he insisted.
     “Please, Watanabe-san,” I said as firmly as I could. I had found that attaching san to their names usually softened the most distraught of Issei patients.
     I left the examination room, closing the door behind me to give him some privacy.
     Dr. Isokane appeared from around the corner. He had been in Santa Anita Assembly Center and then Manzanar, like us, and then Topaz after that, serving other Japanese Americans in bleak wartime camps. He was older than my father and should have been thinking of retirement, but instead he had dedicated himself to those who had been exiled.
     “Isokane-sensei.” I handed him Mr. Watanabe’s medical chart and shared my concerns about the bruises on his arm.
     The doctor didn’t reveal any emotion. He was trained, after all, not to be shocked by practically anything. “Is he working?” he asked in Japanese.
     He was, as a driver. Not as a gardener or janitor—no taxing physical labor. I wondered if he was a good driver. He was living with his son in an apartment in Little Tokyo.
     Dr. Isokane pulled his stethoscope out of his white coat pocket and looped it around his neck, a sign that he was ready to see his patient. I excused myself to prepare for the vaccination of children at a hostel down the street. …