by Naomi Hirahara
I just finished Clark and Division, the first in this mystery series, and am happy to follow the Ito family back to Los Angeles, especially since Evergreen is the book that was recommended by our friend Frako. The Itos’ difficult and stressful foray through Manzanar and Chicago during the dark years of World War II has ended. It is now 1946, and they could not return to their former neighborhood of Tropico because the properties vacated when Japanese Americans were incarcerated had been taken over by other families. So they moved to Boyle Heights, a part of east Los Angeles where immigrants and people of color have traditionally settled while looking for a foothold in this large sometimes very unfriendly city. (Howard’s mom’s family settled there in the early 1900s, and in those days it was a mix of Jews, Latinos, and Japanese residents.)
Daughter Aki Ito and her veteran husband who recently returned from Europe are living with her parents, and she has become a nurse in the “Japanese Hospital.” Aki soon finds another murder to solve, as she did in Chicago, and once again it hits close to home as the victim’s family is known to her husband. I am looking forward to a historical take on a setting I am familiar with, and I have gotten kind of fond of Aki.