Japantown Mystery - Book 1
Clark and Division
“Crime fiction is at its best when telling a compelling story while also analyzing the shadowy foundations of human nature. Very few writers do that better than Hirahara.”
Washington Post
A New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice of the Week
An Indie Next List of the Month
An Amazon Editor’s Top Pick
A Barnes & Noble Best Book of 2021
A Crime Reads Pick of Best Crime Books of 2021
A New York Times Best Book of 2021 in Mysteries
One of Parade Magazine’s Top Books of the Year
A Washington Post Best Book of 2021
A South Florida Sun Sentinel Pick of the Year's Best Books
A New York Public Library Best Book of the Year
A BookPage Best Book of 2021
Finalist for the Barry Award for Best Mystery/Crime Novel
Chicago, 1944: Twenty-year-old Aki Ito and her parents have just been released from Manzanar, where they have been detained by the US government since the aftermath of Pearl Harbor, together with thousands of other Japanese Americans. The life in California the Itos were forced to leave behind is gone; instead, they are being resettled two thousand miles away in Chicago, where Aki's older sister, Rose, was sent months earlier and moved to the new Japanese American neighborhood near Clark and Division streets. But on the eve of the Ito family's reunion, Rose is killed by a subway train.
Aki, who worshipped her sister, is stunned. Officials are ruling Rose's death a suicide. Aki cannot believe her perfect, polished, and optimistic sister would end her life. Her instinct tells her there is much more to the story, and she knows she is the only person who could ever learn the truth.
Inspired by historical events, Clark and Division infuses an atmospheric and heartbreakingly real crime fiction plot with rich period details and delicately wrought personal stories Naomi Hirahara has gleaned from thirty years of research and archival work in Japanese American history.
Praise