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Welcome back to our award nominee corner: From last week’s Rachel Howzell’s AND NOW SHE’S GONE (an L.A. Times Book Prize finalist) to this week’s Edgar and Anthony award nominated Mas Arai mystery by the estimable Naomi Hirahara.

HIROSHIMA BOY marks a journey by Los Angeles gardener Mas Arai, who returns to Japan to bring his best friend’s ashes to a relative. This errand involves him in another death, a teenage boy who had been the same age as Mas when he survived the atomic bomb in 1945.

Also nominated for the Macavity and Anthony awards, the series includes SUMMER OF THE BIG BACHI, GASA-GASA GIRL, SNAKESKIN SHAMISEN, BLOOD HINA, STRAWBERRY YELLOW and SAYONARA SLAM. The prolific Hirahara also writes the Officer Ellie Rush bicycle cop series (Berkley) and is the author of LIFE AFTER MANZANAR (Heyday Books). A graduate of Stanford University, Naomi has also written many books about gardening and Japanese American history and culture and has contributed to several anthologies and collaborative books, including LOS ANGELES NOIR and SANTA CRUZ NOIR. Her first historical mystery CLARK AND DIVISION will be published by Soho Crimes. Keep up with all she’s up to at naomihirahara.com.

The Pasadena-born  will be on the panel  The Exquisite Joy of Finding Out: How to Research Your Novel with Anne Perry, Jeffrey Deaver,  S.A. Cosby and moderator Anne Louse Bancroft.

Don’t miss out on our giveaways: Register today. And see you June 12!

Hey, how about starting your own virtual book club? Gather your reading pals and order a copy of HIROSHIMA BOY today.