Naomi Hirahara has 10 audiobooks on Listento.it, narrated by 16 narrators, with an average listener rating of 5★ across 2 ratings. The most-rated is Summer of the Big Bachi.
Summer of the Big Bachi
Summary
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 once hired by the day. For Mas, a life of sin is catching up to him. And now bachi - the spirit of retribution - is knocking on his door. It begins when a stranger comes around, asking questions about a nurseryman who once lived in Hiroshima, a man known as Joji Haneda. By the end of the summer, Joji will be dead, and Mas' own life will be in danger. For while Mas was building a life on the edge of the American dream, he has kept powerful secrets: about three friends long ago, about two lives entwined, and about what really happened when the bomb fell on Hiroshima in August 1945. A spellbinding mystery played out from war-torn Japan to the rich tidewaters of LA's multicultural landscape, this stunning debut novel weaves a powerful tale of family, loyalty, and the price of both survival and forgiveness.
©2004 Naomi Hirahara (P)2015 Audible Inc.
Gasa-Gasa Girl
Summary
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. For years now his resentful daughter has lived a continent away in New York City and had a life he knew little about. But an anxious phone call from Mari asking for his help plunges the usually obstinate Mas into a series of startling situations, from maneuvering in an unfamiliar city to making nice with his tall, blond son-in-law, Lloyd, to taking care of a sickly child...to finding a dead body in the rubble of a former koi pond. The victim was Kazzy Ouchi, a half-Japanese millionaire who also happened to be Mari and Lloyd's boss. Stumbling onto the scene, Mas sees more amiss than the detectives do, but his instinct is to keep his mouth shut. Only when the case threatens his daughter and her family does Mas take action: patiently, stubbornly tugging at the end of a tangled, dangerous mystery. And as he does, he begins to lay bare a tragic secret on the dark side of an American dream.... Both a riveting mystery and a powerful story of passionate relationships across a cultural divide, Gasa-Gasa Girl is a tale told with heart and wisdom: an unforgettable portrait of fathers, daughters, and other strangers.
©2005 Naomi Hirahara (P)2015 Audible Inc.
Snakeskin Shamisen
Summary
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 LA gardener, Hiroshima survivor, and inveterate gambler. Few things get Mas more excited than gambling, so when he hears about a $500,000 win - from a novelty slot machine! - he’s torn between admiration and derision. But the stakes are quickly raised when the winner, a friend of Mas’s pal G. I. Hasuike, is found stabbed to death just days later. The last thing Mas wants to do is stick his nose in someone else’s business, but at G. I.’s prodding, he reluctantly agrees to follow the trail of a battered snakeskin shamisen (a traditional Okinawan musical instrument) left at the scene of the crime...and suddenly finds himself caught up in a dark mystery that reaches from the islands of Okinawa to the streets of LA - a world of heartbreaking memories, deception, and murder.
©2006 Naomi Hirahara (P)2018 Audible, Inc.
Blood Hina
Summary
Mas Arai's best friend, Haruo, is getting married, and he has grudgingly agreed to serve as best man. But when an ancient Japanese doll display of Haruo's fiance goes missing, the wedding is called off with fingers pointed at Haruo. To solve the mystery and to save Haruo's life, Mas must untangle a web of secrecy, heartbreaking memories, and murder.
©2013 Naomi Hirahara (P)2015 Audible Inc.
Sayonara Slam
Summary
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.
©2016 Naomi Hirahara (P)2018 Audible, Inc.
Strawberry Yellow
Summary
Curmudgeonly Japanese American gardener and unwitting detective Mas Arai is back in this fifth in the Edgar Award-winning series. Naomi Hirahara has created a memorable protagonist unlike any other: a Hiroshima survivor, Los Angeles gardener, widower, gambler, grandfather, and solver of crimes. In Strawberry Yellow he returns to the strawberry farms of his youth and encounters family intrigue, danger, and murder. The series' most compelling and evocative mystery yet is set in the strawberry fields of Watsonville, California, where young Mas first arrived as a Hiroshima survivor in the 1940s. He returns for the funeral of a cousin and quickly gets entangled in the murder of a young woman. Was his cousin murdered, too? Mas has to figure out what happened, keep himself safe, and uncover the mystery of the Strawberry Yellow blight and a new strawberry varietal so important it could be inspiring a murderer. Naomi Hirahara is an engaging speaker who's always a hit at bookstore and mystery events. She's very active in the Japanese-American community in California and is a past president of the Southern California chapter of the Mystery Writers of America. She won the Edgar Award for Best Paperback Original Mystery for Snakeskin Shamisen, the third in the Mas Arai series.
©2013 Naomi Hirahara (P)2015 Audible, Inc.
Snakeskin Shamisen
Summary
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 LA gardener, Hiroshima survivor, and inveterate gambler. Few things get Mas more excited than gambling, so when he hears about a $500,000 win - from a novelty slot machine! - he's torn between admiration and derision. But the stakes are quickly raised when the winner, a friend of Mas' pal, G. I. Hasuike, is found stabbed to death just days later. The last thing Mas wants to do is stick his nose in someone else's business, but at G. I.'s prodding he reluctantly agrees to follow the trail of a battered snakeskin shamisen (a traditional Okinawan musical instrument) left at the scene of the crime...and suddenly finds himself caught up in a dark mystery that reaches from the islands of Okinawa to the streets of LA - a world of heartbreaking memories, deception, and murder.
©2006 Naomi Hirahara (P)2015 Audible Inc.
Gasa-Gasa Girl
Summary
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. For years now, his resentful daughter has lived a continent away in New York City and had a life he knew little about. But an anxious phone call from Mari asking for his help plunges the usually obstinate Mas into a series of startling situations from maneuvering in an unfamiliar city to making nice with his tall, blond son-in-law, Lloyd, to taking care of a sickly child...to finding a dead body in the rubble of a former koi pond. The victim was Kazzy Ouchi, a half-Japanese millionaire who also happened to be Mari and Lloyd’s boss. Stumbling onto the scene, Mas sees more amiss than the detectives do, but his instinct is to keep his mouth shut. Only when the case threatens his daughter and her family does Mas take action: patiently, stubbornly tugging at the end of a tangled, dangerous mystery. And as he does, he begins to lay bare a tragic secret on the dark side of an American dream.... Both a riveting mystery and a powerful story of passionate relationships across a cultural divide, Gasa-Gasa Girl is a tale told with heart and wisdom: an unforgettable portrait of fathers, daughters, and other strangers.
©2005 Naomi Hirahara (P)2018 Audible, Inc.
Hiroshima Boy
Summary
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.
©2018 Naomi Hirahara (P)2018 Audible, Inc.
Hollywood vs. The Author
Summary
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 drive their manuscripts to the border of Arizona and California and toss them over the fence, driving back the way they came at breakneck speed. This is probably because Hollywood just doesn’t “get it.” Its vision for the film or TV series rarely seems to match the vision of the author. And for those rare individuals who’ve had the fortune of sitting across the desk from one of the myriad, interchangeable development execs praising the brilliance of their work while ticking off a never-ending list of notes for the rewrite, the pros of pitching their work to Hollywood rarely outweigh the cons. Stephen Jay Schwartz has sat on both sides of that desk - first as the Director of Development for film director Wolfgang Petersen, then as a screenwriter and author pitching his work to the film and television industry. He’s seen all sides of what is known in this small community as “Development Hell.” The process is both amusing and heartbreaking. Most authors whose work contains a modicum of commercial potential eventually find themselves in “the room” taking a shot at seeing their creations re-visualized by agents, producers or development executives. What they often discover is that their audience is younger and less worldly as themselves. What passes for “story notes” is often a mishmash of vaguely connected ideas intended to put the producer’s personal stamp on the project. Hollywood vs. The Author is a collection of non-fiction anecdotes by authors who’ve had the pleasure of experiencing the development room firsthand - some who have successfully managed to straddle the two worlds, seeing their works morph into the kinds of feature films and TV shows that make them proud, and others who stepped blindsided into that room after selling their first or second novels. All the stories in this collection illustrate the great divide between the world of literature and the big or small screen. They underscore the insanity of every crazy thing you’ve ever heard about Hollywood. For insiders and outsiders alike, Hollywood vs. The Author delivers the goods.
©2018 Stephen Jay Schwartz (P)2018 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved.