Hirahara was nominated for the Sue Feder Memorial Award for Best Historical Mystery along with Cheryl Head (“Time’s Undoing”), William Kent Krueger (“The River We Remember”), Claudia Hagadus Long (“Our Lying Kin”), Sujata Massey (“The Mistress of Bhatia House”) and James Mc Bride (“The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store”).
Hirahara won for “Clark and Division” in the same category in 2022. That book also received the Mary Higgins Clark Award and the Lefty Award for Best Historical Mystery, and was a finalist for the Agatha Award for Best Historical Novel and the Anthony Award for Best Novel.
She was a finalist for the Macavity Award for Best First Novel for “Summer of the Big Bachi” in 2005 and the Macavity Award for Best Mystery Novel for “Hiroshima Boy” in 2019, and won the Edgar Allen Poe Award for Best Paperback Original in 2007 for “Snakeskin Shamisen.” All three novels are part of her Mas Arai mystery series.
“Evergreen,” a follow-up to “Clark and Division,” is set in Los Angeles in 1946. It’s been two years since Aki Ito and her family were released from Manzanar 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 overcrowded 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?
Each year the members of Mystery Readers International nominate and vote for their favorite mysteries in five categories. Established in 1987, the Macavity Award is named for the “mystery cat” of T.S. Eliot (“Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats”).
Other nominees for books published in 2023 include:
Best Mystery Novel — Angie Kim (“Happiness Falls”)
Best First Mystery — Amy Chua (“The Golden Gate”), Ritu Mukerji (“Murder by Degrees”)
The winners will be announced at the Boucheron Opening Ceremonies on Aug. 24 in Nashville.
For more information on the awards, go to: https://mysteryreaders.org/macavity-awards/