Guest Post - Naomi Hirahara

I am delighted to welcome Ms. Naomi Hirahara back to our blog.  She is the Edgar Award-winning author of the Mas Arai mysteries and the first book in her new series won the T. Jefferson Parker Mystery Award. Her new series is the Ellie Rush Mysteries where we follow a fledgling Los Angeles bicycle cop who wants to be a detective.  

I reviewed the first book, Murder on Bamboo Lane (click here), the second book Grave on Grand Avenue (click here), and we were honored to have a guest post from Ms. Hirahara last year (click here).  

Please welcome back Ms. Hirahara!

Never Making First Chair

I’ve a big believer of doing things that you’re not good at.  I’ve completed a few half-marathons (I’ve since retired), and been left in the dust by women who have been twenty years older than me. A rusty set of golf
clubs sit in my garage, a reminder of the many divots I’ve left in local golf
courses. And a bowling bowl with my name, “NAOMI,” engraved on the surface is a memento from the days that I proudly held a 113 average in a company league.

Another thing that I never excelled in was music. There was the piano, followed by the guitar and the cello. I took up the cello in junior high school. To me, the violin seemed too common; the viola, too obscure. I was less than five feet tall (still am), so the upright bass was out of the question. But the cello – that rich, honey-hued instrument – I was immediately attracted to it.

A small girl carrying around a cello around school was a ripe target for
comments: “What, you got a machine in there?” “That thing is bigger than you are.” But I didn’t care. I loved the cello, and I wasn’t alone. There was a whole row of us, including one of my good friends, Denise Blanco, who had also adopted the instrument in our orchestra.

I enjoyed the process of preparing the instrument. Of lengthening the metal endpin to suit my height. The tightening of the strings and the rubbing rosin on the strings of the bow. But when I actually played, the sound that I encountered wasn’t what I heard from my fellow cellists. My cello, a rental, moaned and mooed like a cow. The poor thing wasn’t happy with the things that I was doing to it.

In my latest Officer Ellie Rush mystery, GRAVE ON GRAND AVENUE, I’ve revisited my beloved instrument. But the cello in the novel is in the hands of a superstar Chinese musician, Xu. It sounds a lot better when Xu is playing, which is one of the powers and benefits of being a writer. Another advantage is to give props to your real friends, and in this book I have in the acknowledgments: “To Denise Blanco, who always was at least a chair ahead.”


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THANK you Ms. Hirahara for sharing this bit of your life with us.  Reminds me of my Clarinet adventures!