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Also by Naomi Hirahara:

Crown City, February 2026
Hardcover / e-Book / audiobook
Evergreen, July 2024
Trade Paperback / e-Book (reprint)
Evergreen, August 2023
Hardcover / e-Book
Clark and Division, August 2021
Hardcover / e-Book
Grave On Grand Avenue, April 2015
Mass Market Paperback / e-Book
Murder on Bamboo Lane, April 2014
Paperback / e-Book
Blood Hina: A Mas Arai Mystery, March 2010
Hardcover
Summer of the Big Bachi, February 2008
Paperback
Snakeskin Shamisen, May 2006
Hardcover
Gasa-Gasa Girl, March 2005
Trade Size

SUMMER OF THE BIG BACHI
By: Naomi Hirahara

Dell
February 2008
On Sale: January 29, 2008
368 pages
ISBN: 0440241545
EAN: 9780440241546
Paperback
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Fiction

In the foothills of Pasadena, Mas Arai is just another Japanese-American gardener, his lawnmower blades clean and sharp, his truck carefully tuned. But while Mas keeps lawns neatly trimmed, his own life has gone to seed. His wife is dead. And his livelihood is falling into the hands of the men he once hired by the day. For Mas, a life of sin is catching up to him. And now bachi—the spirit of retribution—is knocking on his door.

It begins when a stranger comes around, asking questions about a nurseryman who once lived in Hiroshima, a man known as Joji Haneda. By the end of the summer, Joji will be dead and Mas’s own life will be in danger. For while Mas was building a life on the edge of the American dream, he has kept powerful secrets: about three friends long ago, about two lives entwined, and about what really happened when the bomb fell on Hiroshima in August 1945.

A spellbinding mystery played out from war-torn Japan to the rich tidewaters of L.A.’s multicultural landscape, this stunning debut novel weaves a powerful tale of family, loyalty, and the price of both survival and forgiveness.

Media Buzz

Morning Edition - August 12, 2010