Japan faces Korea in the World Baseball Classic at Dodger Stadium, and curmudgeonly gardener Mas Arai finds himself embroiled in a murder. A Japanese tabloid writer drops dead on the field, and Mas gave the victim his last drink. It turns out there's more at stake than a baseball championship—international diplomacy depends upon uncovering secrets buried decades ago. Naomi Hirahara is the Edgar Award–winning and Anthony and Macavity Award–nominated author of the Mas Arai mystery series, including Strawberry Yellow, Blood Hina, and Snakeskin Shamisen. She is also the author of the new series of Los Angeles-based Ellie Rush mysteries, published by Penguin.

Ben Carter, pet care specialist, is hired to walk a Shiba Inu named Toby. Unbeknownst to Ben, Toby is no ordinary dog but an "inugami" – an immortal demon born in feudal Japan and bred for only one purpose: murder. Bonded by the power of the kakawari, their wounds are shared and their fates intertwined. The doorway to Hell has been opened. A great darkness has been unleashed upon on the Windy City, but even the dark knows to fear…the Dog Walker. "THE GIRL WITH SPIDER HAIR" Since we last saw him, Ben has been pulling double duty – dog walker by day, demon slayer by night. Toby assists in the latter, growing more violent with each kill. Dogs can be domesticated, but an inugami's murderous instincts are not easily suppressed. Ten-year-old wrestling prodigy Ash Ocampo is possessed by a sentient spider, which plans to overthrow humanity and bring about a new Age of Yōkai. Wanting to help Ash but worried he is losing Toby, Ben seeks the assistance of Lucas Alcindor – a freelance demon trainer with three inugami of his own. Can Ben regain control of Toby before disaster strikes? Can Ash free herself before the demon inside reigns supreme? Or are both merely prey for the monstrous wolves of the Shadow Pack?

LA gardener Mas Arai returns to Hiroshima to bring his best friend’s ashes to a relative on the tiny offshore island of Ino, only to become embroiled in the mysterious death of a teenage boy who was about the same age Mas was when he survived the atomic bomb in 1945. The boy’s death affects the elderly, often-curmudgeonly, always-reluctant sleuth, who cannot return home to Los Angeles until he finds a way to see justice served. Naomi Hirahara is the Edgar-winning author of the Mas Arai mystery series, including Summer of the Big Bachi, Blood Hina, Strawberry Yellow, and Sayonara Slam. She is also the author of the LA-based Ellie Rush mysteries, published by Penguin. Her Mas Arai books have earned such honors as Publishers Weekly’s Best Book of the Year and one of the Chicago Tribune’s Ten Best Mysteries and Thrillers. The Stanford University alumna was born and raised in Altadena, CA, where her protagonist lives; she now resides in neighboring Pasadena.

It's the middle of the pandemic and Hawaii has been virtually closed to tourists. So when Leilani Santiago and her young sisters save a mysterious woman wearing an unusual lei from drowning in Waimea Bay in Kaua‘i, questions abound. Who is she and where did she come from? Leilani suddenly finds herself in the middle of a murder investigation when the lei is traced back to her best friend, the very pregnant Courtney Kahuakai, and her family’s flower business. While the woman is in a medically-induced coma at a local hospital, Leilani sets out to discover her identity and her connections to the island. She is drawn deeper into the mystery, only to stumble into secrets that prove deadly. When Leilani’s investigation puts her family in danger, her survival and the safety of those dearest to her will depend on her sense of ingenuity and the strength of her island community.

From the short stories and journalism of Sui Sin Far to Maxine Hong Kingston's pathbreaking The Woman Warrior to recent popular and critical successes such as Viet Thanh Nguyen's The Sympathizer, Mohsin Hamid's The Reluctant Fundamentalist, and Kevin Kwan's Crazy Rich Asians, Asian North American literature and media encompass a long history and a diverse variety of genres and aesthetic approaches. The essays in this volume provide context for understanding the history of Asian immigrants to the United States and Canada and the experiences of their children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. Contributors address historical contexts, from the early enactment of Asian exclusion laws to the xenophobia following 9/11, and provide tools for textual analysis. The essays explore conventionally literary texts, genres such as mystery and speculative fiction, historical documents and legal texts, and visual media including films, photography, and graphic novels, emphasizing the ways that creators have crossed boundaries of genre and produced innovative new forms.

A New York Times Best Mystery Novel of 2021 Set in 1944 Chicago, Edgar Award-winner Naomi Hirahara’s eye-opening and poignant new mystery, the story of a young woman searching for the truth about her revered older sister's death, brings to focus the struggles of one Japanese American family released from mass incarceration at Manzanar during World War II. 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 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.

A BOY AND HIS DEMON Ben Carter, pet care specialist, is hired to walk a Shiba Inu named Toby. Unbeknownst to Ben, Toby is no ordinary dog but an “inugami” - an immortal demon born in feudal Japan and bred for only one purpose...murder. A mysterious cult seeks to capture the inugami and harness its power for evil. With the help of an elderly luchador and a cop with a heart of gold, Ben must protect Toby and uncover the secret of the Tengu before the cultists can unleash the beast and the bloodlust claims the inugami once more.

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 the No. 1 murder suspect, Leilani must find the real killer and somehow safeguard her ill mother, little sisters, and grandmother while also preserving a long-distance relationship with her boyfriend in Seattle.

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. 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?

Ducks is a love letter to baseball, but it's not just diamonds, dust & Dodgers. It's about youth, wonder & nostalgia-simpler times when Pluto was a planet & reality stars were not. Steal away to Kool Aid-stained summer days, wiffle ball, BBQ hot dogs and American Top 40 with Casey Kasem. Award-winning writer R. Scott Murphy uses his storyteller mashup style to blend Cultural Literacy with Schoolhouse Rock and take snapshots of the grand game. He morphs generations of Bronx Bombers in Revelry In The House of Ruth, the ultimate conversation starter for Yankee Nation. Liven up your longball lingo with The Home Run Alphabet. Take a poetic excursion to every MLB stadium & every World Series played since 1965. Count down Murphy's favorite baseball nicknames with music references as assigned by ESPN's Chris Berman. Albert Pujols becomes E Pluribus Pujols, and The Monsters Are Raging On Huston Street. As Casey Kasem would say, Keep your feet on the ground and keep reaching for the stars.