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Hiroshima Boy (Mas Arai, #7)

Naomi Hirahara

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May 21, 2021 Julie Griffin rated it it was amazing

"Mas Arai was worried that the customs officer at Kansai Airport would find his best friend, Haruo Mukai, inside his suitcase. Mas had wrapped him in an old plastic bag...."
This was the beginning of one of the most remarkable books I've ever read.
The author manages to mix wry humor, sad contemplation, one of my favorite characters in fiction, and one of the worst acts of violence ever committed by humans against humans, into a very pleasurable and uplifting mystery that surprised and satisfied. "Mas Arai was worried that the customs officer at Kansai Airport would find his best friend, Haruo Mukai, inside his suitcase. Mas had wrapped him in an old plastic bag...."
This was the beginning of one of the most remarkable books I've ever read.
The author manages to mix wry humor, sad contemplation, one of my favorite characters in fiction, and one of the worst acts of violence ever committed by humans against humans, into a very pleasurable and uplifting mystery that surprised and satisfied.
True to form, I started this series with what will be the last one (a pity). Mas Arai, an 86- year old gardener who was raised in Japan and survived the bombing of Hiroshima, is a wry and gentle treasure. He's made a life in California as a gardener, raising a daughter with his deceased wife and now remarried in his eighties. He is bringing his best friend's ashes back to Hiroshima after he, and his friend, spent decades in America. As he boards a ferry to the island of Ino, to give the ashes to his friend's sister, he feels his long-forgotten home sink back into his bones. He reaches the care home of the sister, but wants to create a more dignified presentation of his friend than a bag encased in a sock in his suitcase. Waiting for the next day, he settles into a guest room at the home. The next day, up early, he spies something in the water; it is the body of a young boy that Mas had seen coming to the island on the ferry. He gets involved, despite himself, in solving the boys death. Along the way he spends time with the boy's parents, befriends a Filipino girl working as a nurse, suspects the director of a boys' home, and rescues a one-eyed cat and a delinquent boy. The author never lets us forget the history of Hiroshima: here's a memorial where 600 bodies were found in the 1970s, here's where Mas was standing when he miraculously survived, here was another memorial. She is able to weave the solemnity into a warm and compassionate story, and the history has a direct cause in the solution to the crime. Along the way, we see that perceptions of ourselves and others are sometimes very different than the way others see us.
Who killed the boy? And, who stole the bag of ashes from Mas's room?
I'm not sure if the author has this same tone with the earlier six Mas Arai Mysteries, but look forward to reading them. I really love this character. The author also has a series, Ellie Clark. These are set in California. She's also written a children's book about the 1000 Cranes, and about the internment camps of Japanese Americans during WWII. Recommend highly. ...more

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Feb 27, 2020 Andy Plonka rated it really liked it

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Interesting viewpoint with a main character who was born in Japan but has lived most of his life in the US. In this book he returns to Japan and is treated as a foreigner by the Japanese.

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May 16, 2019 Tammy Grimm marked it as to-read

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May 18, 2021 Julie Griffin added it · review of another edition

May 10, 2022 Curlysue marked it as to-read

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