Evergreen

Hirahara’s second installment in her Edgar Award–winning “Japantown Mysteries” series (following Clark and Division) showcases Southern California’s fractured yet resilient Japanese American community. World War II has just ended, and people are finally making their way back to their homes after being detained in the American concentration camps for people of Japanese descent. Aki Ito, a nurse’s aide at the Japanese Hospital in Boyle Heights, her recently returned veteran husband Art, and her parents rent a new home in their former community. When she encounters Babe, the best man at her wedding, and his father, who has been badly beaten, Aki has questions. Did Babe beat his father? How did he get so many broken bones and bruises? Babe seems evasive and unwilling to talk, and when his father is later found dead in his Little Tokyo apartment, Babe is nowhere to be found. Aki is determined to discover what happened before their connections with Babe drag them into the scandal. Skillfully narrated by Allison Hiroto, whose charm and wit shine through.