Author Naomi Hirahara based her crime-solving protagonist, Mas Arai, on an unassuming role model: her father, who started a landscaping and gardening business in the L.A. area after World War II. With no police or military background, a 72-year-old Japanese American gardener may seem an odd choice for an amateur detective, but from the start, the series has won acclaim from both readers and critics. “I’m basically making a character like my father a hero,” says Hirahara in an interview with NPR. “I think all the times I complained that my dad was a gardener and we couldn’t afford this trip or that trip, I’m trying to make up for it by creating this heroic, iconic figure that’s underestimated.” Read more…

In February, concerns were raised about the veracity of one of Charles Pellegrino’s sources in his new book The Last Train From Hiroshima: The Survivors Look Back, which documents the experiences of Japanese blast survivors as well as the American flight crews that dropped the atomic bomb. Joseph Fuoco (now-deceased) claimed to be a last-minute substitution on the flight crew of one of two escort planes accompanying the Enola Gay during its fateful mission on Aug. 6, 1945. But, Fuoco’s account of the bombing and his claim that an accident while readying the weapon killed an American scientist and weakened the bomb’s power, have been vehemently denied by historians and the surviving flight crew members. The Seattle Times reports that evidence has come to light that proves flight engineer, James Corliss, actually flew in the escort plane, not Fuoco. Though, it is possible that he did participate in reconnaissance flights over Hiroshima before and after the blast.
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