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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
"Why was Haruo, at seventy-one, even thinking of getting remarried? Might as well just buy two cemetery plots next to each other,
By
This review is from: Blood Hina: A Mas Arai Mystery (Mass Arai Mystery) (Hardcover)
(3.5 stars) Like Alexander McCall Smith, who found a unique niche in mystery writing, with his #1 Ladies Detective Agency series, set in Botswana, Edgar Award-winning author Naomi Hirahara has also found a unique niche. Setting her series in Little Tokyo in Los Angeles, she features Mas Arai, an elderly gardener whose detection skills are repeatedly called upon in the Japanese-American neighborhoods in which he works. Like others among his elderly friends who also bear scars, Mas survived the Hiroshima bombing, then came to the United States and became a citizen. Other friends already in the US were interned following Pearl Harbor.
In this fourth novel in the Mas Arai mystery series, Mas is asked to be best man at his friend Haruo Mukai's wedding to Spoon Hayakawa, and he is delighted that Haruo, whose gambling addiction had ended his previous marriage, seems finally to be on the right path. The night before the wedding, however, two old "hina dolls," empress dolls, used to celebrate the Hina Matsuri Festival of Girls' Day, vanish from Spoon's house, and her daughter Dee, who has been in treatment for drug addiction, accuses Haruo of stealing them. The wedding is called off, and Mas soon discovers that Haruo has been seen regularly at Santa Anita Racetrack. Author Hirahara gives much cultural information about the Japanese-American community, reflecting the cultural changes which are taking place as successive generations acculturate, marry outside their Japanese roots, and move away, but she also emphasizes those qualities which are unique to her characters. As Mas investigates, he never goes far beyond the neighborhood, talking with people who work at the Flower Market, traveling to find sellers of hina dolls to see if anyone has tried to sell Spoon's dolls, and investigating the background of the dolls' ownership. Many other people are desperate to locate and possess them. Before long, Mas is investigating the long-ago deaths of Spoon's husband and his best friend, a Dutchman named Jorg de Groot, who died together twenty years ago in a car crash. That investigation suggests further leads involving criminal enterprises. For the first half of the book, the novel remains local and domestic, concentrating on families, their relationships, and their shared pasts. Then Haruo vanishes, and before long, several people have been shot to death. Mas himself may be targeted, and Dee Hayakawa must revisit her drug-addicted past. The novel becomes very complex, very quickly, in the last half of the book, and keeps the reader hopping to keep all the details straight, sometimes threatening to overwhelm with intricacies and involved, overlapping relationships. Though some of the characters sometimes begin to feel as if they are part of a "cozy" mystery, in the tradition of Miss Marple or Mma Ramotswe, this novel is ultimately much darker than those, showing the violence that can emerge in a changing society, even among apparently good people. Hirahara's close-up of Little Tokyo and its people adds a whole new dimension to the American mystery novel. Mary Whipple Snakeskin Shamisen Gasa-Gasa Girl Summer of the Big Bachi
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
More please,
By
This review is from: Blood Hina: A Mas Arai Mystery (Mass Arai Mystery) (Hardcover)
Mas Arai is the best man in his friend's wedding. It is a good thing that people have wedding rehearsals as Mas has dropped the wedding ring into the koi fish pond. Well things can only get better from here...right? No things can get worse...a lot worse. Mas's friend's fiancée's priceless Japanese doll collection has been stolen. Who would want to steal a doll collection and why? These are the questions Mas must find answers to in Blood Hina.
Author Naomi Hirahara has written several novels but Blood Hina is the first book I have read by this author. After finishing this book, I plan to check out the other novels that this author has written. I liked that Ms. Hirahara used her ethic background and infused it into this book. It showed that Ms. Hirahra is proud of whom she is and wants to share what that culture what readers. Being of Asian background myself, I always find it intriguing when authors incorporate their lifestyle or diversity into their books. Mas Arai is a very likable character. The story line was fast paced and had me trying to figure out the ending before Mas, which I didn't. This is always a plus for a mystery fan like me to now have the ending solved until right up to the big reveal.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
wonderful amateur sleuth who-done-it,
This review is from: Blood Hina: A Mas Arai Mystery (Mass Arai Mystery) (Hardcover)
In Los Angeles septuagenarian Japanese-American gardener Mas Arai is unhappy that his friend fellow Hiroshima survivor Haruo Mukai drafts him as his best man in his marriage to Sumako Hayakawa. The wedding rehearsal is obvious a forerunner of things to occur as that proves a disaster. Soon afterward her family accuses Haruo of stealing two ancient Japanese Girls' Days hina dolls from them. Besides the theft the purification rite the dolls represent is tainted so Sumako ends the engagement.
Although he hopes otherwise Mas fears Haruo stole the family heirlooms to pay off his latest gambling debt as his friend is a betting addict. Mas investigates the theft by tracing the dolls' trail, which takes him to drug dealers making him fear his friend is guilty and homicides; several of which occurred decades ago, making him believe his friend is not. The latest Mas mystery (see Snakeskin Shamisen) is once again a wonderful amateur sleuth who-done-it that enables the reader to see deeply into the Japanese-American lifestyle. The story line is fast-paced as fans will enjoy accompanying Mas as he follows the clues of the dolls past and present through the Great Los Angeles area. Harriet Klausner
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