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BookDragon Mystery Tag

City Under One Roof by Iris Yamashita [in Booklist]

26 Jan, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Japanese American, Repost

Oscar-nominated screenwriter Iris Yamashita makes her fiction debut with a celluloid-ready thriller that opens with body parts – a hand and foot that wash up on Point Mettier shores. Inspired by remote Whittier, Alaska, former military outpost Point Mettier has 205 full-time residents who all...

Jackal by Erin E. Adams [in Booklist]

20 Jan, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Black/African American, Fiction, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW On the opening page, debut author Erin E. Adams affectingly invokes Alice Walker – the Black writer of a banned book exposing racist hate – although here, this Alice is just a girl playing in the woods of 1985 Johnstown, Pennsylvania ...

Killers of a Certain Age by Deanna Raybourn [in Booklist]

14 Jan, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Nonethnic-specific, Repost

Billie was the outlier in 1979 when she was recruited by the Museum to become one of four elite Sphinxes: hired assassins who do good. Now as newly retired sexagenarians, she, Helen, Natalie, and Mary Alice board a luxury cruise, a thank-you-for-your-service gift that turns...

All That’s Left Unsaid by Tracey Lien [in Booklist]

11 Jan, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Australian, Australian Asian, Fiction, Repost, Southeast Asian

Denny died at the Lucky 8 restaurant after his high school formal, his “Most Likely to Succeed”-sash still tucked into his borrowed suit. In 1996 small-town Cabramatta, populated by children of Southeast Asian refugees coming of age amidst drug-related violence, Denny was that perfect kid:...

Big Man and the Little Men by Clifford Thompson [in Booklist]

23 Dec, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Black/African American, Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Repost

Award-winning memoirist, essayist, and visual artist Clifford Thompson gets full-color graphic in his hand-drawn debut that piercingly bares the behind-the-scenes manipulations of a contentious presidential campaign. April Wells is an Oprah-endorsed Black author recognized by autograph-seeking admirers, but as she sits weeping in her therapist’s...

Why Didn’t You Tell Me? by Carmen Rita Wong [in Booklist]

14 Dec, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Caribbean American, Chinese American, Hapa/Mixed-race, Latina/o/x, Memoir, Nonfiction, Repost

“‘Your life is like a telenovela!’” Carmen Rita Wong’s daughter tells her after another complication in Wong’s labyrinthine search for her biological father. Born to Dominican immigrant mother Lupe, Wong and older brother Alex called Lupe’s estranged Chinese immigrant husband, Peter Wong, “Papi.” Lupe was a...

Saha by Cho Nam-Joo, translated by Jamie Chang [in Booklist]

05 Dec, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Korean, Repost, Translation

*STARRED REVIEW Town was once a fish-farm village, but it’s now internationally known for the corporation that aggressively expanded it into a bustling city-state. Here, class stratification is impermeable. Su is a Citizen. Do-kyung is a Saha, an inconsequential resident of the crumbling Saha Estates who...

Three Assassins by Kotaro Isaka, translated by Sam Malissa [in Booklist]

01 Dec, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Japanese, Repost, Translation

Kotaro Isaka has written dozens of award-winning, internationally bestselling novels and story collections. This, his third Anglophoned title, is notably narrated by versatile actor Adam Sims, who earnestly embodies former math teacher Suzuki, transformed by the senseless murder of his beloved wife. Her killer remains...

Death by Bubble Tea [L.A. Night Market Mystery 1] by Jennifer J. Chow [in Booklist]

20 Nov, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Chinese American, Fiction, Repost

Jennifer J. Chow inaugurates her L.A. Night Market Mysteries (after the Winston Wong and Sassy Cat/Mimi Lee series), which turns two cousins into unlikely sleuths. Yale Yee is still mourning her mother’s death. She quit her family’s dim sum restaurant and found solace in a...

Shutter by Ramona Emerson [in Booklist]

31 Oct, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Native American/First Nations/Indigenous Peoples, Repost

Emmy-nominated Navajo/Diné filmmaker Ramona Emerson jumps genres with her fiction debut, a chilling mystery starring Rita Todacheene (who just might be getting a bookish series of her own). Charley Flyte, with a similar Native/Indigenous background (Oglala Lakota and Mohawk), empathically ciphers a considerable cast –...

The Loophole by Naz Kutub [in School Library Journal]

21 Oct, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Audio, Fiction, Indian American, Repost, South Asian American, Young Adult Readers

Naz Kutub commingles the preposterous and poignant, heightened with myths of lost love. Shawn K. Jain is a sensitive cipher, opening with Kutub’s author’s note that includes content warnings about abuse and expulsion, both of which happen to Sy, the 17-year-old Muslim Indian gay son...

Theo Tan and the Spirit Fox by Jesse Q. Sutanto [in School Library Journal]

18 Oct, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Audio, Chinese American, Fiction, Indian African, Indonesian American, Middle Grade Readers, Repost, Singaporean American

Jesse Q. Sutanto makes her middle grade debut with a Chinese and Indian mythology-inspired epic examining identity politics, bullying, capitalist greed, and unblurring the lines of integrity. “I hate that I’m a Chinese American kid who lives in Chinatown,” Theo readily admits. But he’ll have...

The Last Mapmaker by Christina Soontornvat [in School Library Journal]

15 Sep, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Audio, Fiction, Middle Grade Readers, Repost, Southeast Asian, Southeast Asian American, Thai American

*STARRED REVIEW Thai American and double Newbery Honoree Christina Soontornvat gets culturally and linguistically matched with Thai-fluent, (self-described) “blended” Asian American (of Thai, Chinese, Vietnamese, Japanese heritage) Sura Siu for engrossing high-seas exploits in search of mythical lands. For 12-year-old Sai, being Master Mapmaker Paiyoon’s assistant means...

The Fervor by Alma Katsu [in Booklist]

24 Aug, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Japanese American, Repost

Historical horror master Alma Katsu augments an already terrifying occurrence – the U.S. imprisonment of 120,000 Americans of Japanese descent during WWII – by crafting this intricately plotted supernatural-tinged thriller. To underscore the reality, Katsu’s dedication points to her mother “for her stories of childhood...

Trinity, Trinity, Trinity by Erika Kobayashi, translated by Brian Bergstrom [in Booklist]

18 Aug, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Japanese, Repost, Translation

Tokyo-based author/artist Erika Kobayashi makes an intriguing, albeit uneven, translated-into-English debut, enabled by Canadian Brian Bergstrom. The consequences of Japan’s 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster are manifest in three generations of an all-female Tokyo family. Kobayashi’s novel takes place on a single day, following the schedule...

The Cartographers by Peng Shepherd

14 Aug, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Chinese American, Fiction, Nonethnic-specific, Repost

Nell Young, former New York Public Library cartography scholar, is summoned back to the hallowed Map Division when her director father is found dead in his office. Seven years ago, he ignominiously fired her over the Junk Box Incident and she’s hasn’t seen him since....

The Missing Word by Concita De Gregorio, translated by Clarissa Botsford

04 Aug, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, European, Fiction, Italian, Repost, Translation

Widower, widow. Uxoricide. Orphan. Patricide. Infanticide. And yet missing from that harrowing vocabulary is a word for “parents who lose children. Who don’t murder them, but lose them.” Irina becomes that kind of grieving parent when her 6-year-old daughters vanish. She’s recently separated from husband Mathias,...

Fish Swimming in Dappled Sunlight by Riku Onda, translated by Alison Watts [in Shelf Awareness]

02 Aug, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Japanese, Repost, Translation

Following the notable success of The Aosawa Murders, prolific, award-winning Japanese author Riku Onda reunites with translator Alison Watts for Fish Swimming in Dappled Sunlight, another riveting, tightly plotted psychological thriller. "This, I guess you could say," the novel opens, "is the story of a photo." That...

Take No Names by Daniel Nieh [in Shelf Awareness]

11 Jul, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Chinese American, Fiction, Hapa/Mixed-race, Repost

Daniel Nieh, a former international model and Chinese-English translator, introduced his protagonist Victor Li in the gripping Beijing Payback, published in 2019. Nieh's sophomore thriller, Take No Names, heightens the gasp-inducing wild ride of Victor's debut. Although both titles are easily consumable as stand-alone novels – Nieh...

Family Album by Gabriela Alemán, translated by Dick Cluster and Mary Ellen Fieweger [in Shelf Awareness]

03 Jun, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Repost, Short Stories, South American, Translation

Family Album, from award-winning author Gabriela Alemán, is a shrewd, beguiling collection. In eight genre-defying stories, the Brazil-born, Ecuador-based Alemán deftly confronts push-button topics like colonialism, identity, and religion. Dick Cluster, who translated Alemán's novel Poso Wells (2018), returns here with Mary Ellen Fieweger to provide...

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Welcome to BookDragon, filled with titles for the diverse reader. BookDragon is a new media initiative of the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center (APAC), and serves as a forum for those interested in learning more about the Asian Pacific American experience through literature. BookDragon is inhabited by Terry Hong.

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