Naomi Hirahara

Naomi Hirahara is an award-winning American author of general fiction, history, children, and mystery books. She was born in Pasadena, California in 1962 and attended elementary school in Altadena, later on, graduated from Stanford University with a bachelor’s degree in international relations with her focus being Africa. Hirahara has volunteered to work in Ghana, Africa during her early years under the YWCA.

The best place to start is the Mas Arai series, the earliest of Naomi Hirahara's multi-book series: it opens with Summer of the Big Bachi (2004) and runs to 7 books across 2004–2018, ending with Hiroshima Boy (2018). Naomi Hirahara's other series stand alone, so they can be read in any order.

Naomi Hirahara has 154 books catalogued in this guide, published between 2002 and 2026. 135 of them belong to 5 named series — the largest being the Mas Arai series with 7 books — and 19 are standalone titles, collections or anthologies.

Read each series in publication order — the numbered entries in each series follow the year each book first appeared. Naomi Hirahara's series do not depend on one another, so they can be started in any order; by start date they are Mas Arai (2004–2018, 7 books), Officer Ellie Rush (2014–2015, 2 books) and Leilani Santiago Hawai'i Mystery (2019–2022, 2 books), plus 1 more.

This guide splits Naomi Hirahara's 154 books into 5 named series and 19 titles that stand alone or appear only in collections: Mas Arai (7 books, 2004–2018); Japantown Mystery (3 books, 2021–2026); Leilani Santiago Hawai'i Mystery (2 books, 2019–2022); Officer Ellie Rush (2 books, 2014–2015); Akashic Noir (121 books, 2002–2025).