Showing results by narrator "Brian Nishii" in All Categories

Few things get Mas more excited than gambling, so when he hears about a $500,000 win - from a novelty slot machine! - he's torn between admiration and derision. But the stakes are quickly raised when the winner, a friend of Mas's pal, G. I. Hasuike, is found stabbed to death just days later. The last thing Mas wants to do is stick his nose in someone else's business, but at G. I.'s prodding he reluctantly agrees to follow the trail of a battered snakeskin shamisen (a traditional Okinawan musical instrument) left at the scene of the crime...

Yamada no Goji is a minor nobleman of ancient Japan who has lost everything - except a single purpose: keep a promise to the woman he loved. In order to fulfill his vow, all he has to do is fight a horde of demons and monsters, bargain with a few ghosts, outwit the sinister schemers of the emperor's court, find a way to defeat an assassin who cannot be seen, heard, or touched - and change the course of history.

Returning from a funeral, Mr. and Mrs. Jack Briggs find their Beverly Hills mansion ransacked. As they wait for the police, they discover something unusual: Despite the chaos, nothing appears to be missing - a fact that greatly interests Beverly Hills police detective Masao Masuto. But the Zen detective only has a few minutes to ponder the strange break-in before a murder intervenes. The victim is Ivan Gaycheck, a stamp dealer whom Masuto remembers for his stout frame and unplaceable accent.

Rain has spoiled Masao Masuto's vacation. For six days the storm has trapped the Zen Buddhist detective and his family inside their Los Angeles cottage. By the morning of his vacation's final day, he is so stir crazy that the call to come to work is a relief. Detective Masuto knows no better cure for boredom than a puzzling murder.

The island of Tarawa, a tiny spit of sand out in the middle of the Pacific, teemed with five hundred pillboxes filled with artillery pieces and highly motivated Japanese soldiers. Their commanding officer encouraged his troops, saying, “It would take one million men one hundred years” to conquer Tarawa. They were convinced that the Americans would be slaughtered before they ever got ashore.

After Japan's surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, the U.S. military was desperate to find Americans who spoke Japanese to serve in the Pacific war. They soon turned to the Nisei—first-generation U.S. citizens whose parents were immigrants from Japan. Eager to prove their loyalty to America, several thousand Nisei—many of them volunteering from behind barbed wire—were selected by the Army for top-secret training, then were rushed to the Pacific theater. Henderson reveals the harrowing untold story of the Nisei and their major contributions in the war of the Pacific.

Mara Coyne’s new client has left her uneasy. Republican kingmaker Richard Tobias has hired her, he says, because of her skill in recovering stolen art and advocating for the rightful owners, but Mara senses that he is not telling her everything. Tobias reveals that a centuries-old map was stolen from an archaeological dig he is sponsoring in China, and he wants her to get it back. But as Mara begins her investigation, she uncovers the shocking truth: The map is more valuable than anyone has ever imagined, and her client’s motives are more sinister than she suspected.

From the pulpy pages of Black Mask Magazine in the 1920s and '30s, through the film noir era of the 1940s, to today, noir fiction has lured many a reader and movie-goer away from the light and into the dark underbelly of society. Names such as Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, and James M. Cain; titles like The Big Sleep, The Maltese Falcon, The Postman Always Rings Twice...these have inhabited our collective consciousness for decades. Humanity, it seems, loves the dark. And within the dark, one figure stands out: that of the femme fatale.

The sacred arts play an essential, intrinsic role in Tibetan Buddhist practice. Here, one of the great practitioners and master artists of our time presents a guide to the Tibetan Buddhist path, from preliminary practices through enlightenment, from the artist's perspective. With profound wisdom, he shows how visual representations of the sacred in paintings, sculptures, mandalas, and stupas can be an essential support to practice throughout the path.

Oren, his family, and his friends have escaped the empire and its cruel Iron Law and arrogant rulers. Their enemies are not far behind. They must continue to grow stronger and embrace their powers if they are going to survive this dangerous new land and its strange customs and wild beasts.

Two detectives. Two identical women. One dead body—rapidly becoming two, then three, then four. All knotted up in Japan’s underground BDSM scene and kinbaku, a form of rope bondage which bears a complex cultural history of spirituality, torture, cleansing, and sacrifice. As Togashi, a junior member of the police force, investigates the murder of a kinbaku instructor, he finds himself unable to resist his own private transgressive desires. In contrast, Togashi’s colleague Hayama is morally upright to a fault, with a stalwart commitment to the truth.

You will not believe what you are reading - even though it all feels so real. Only a man like Smilin’ Jack could monetize civil war. After the infamous business tycoon launches a hit TV show that pits American and Confederate gladiators in brutal battles, his grisly spectacle draws the attention of psychopaths across the nation.

Miren and Bittori have been best friends all their lives, growing up in the same small town in the north of Spain. With limited interest in politics, the terrorist threat posed by ETA seems to affect them little. When Bittori’s husband starts receiving threatening letters from the violent group, however - demanding money, accusing him of being a police informant - she turns to her friend for help. But Miren’s loyalties are torn: her son Joxe Mari has just been recruited to the group as a terrorist, and to denounce them as evil would be to condemn her own flesh and blood.

Fiona Barnes has a secret—one so big she's afraid it will destroy everything she holds dear. Not even her beloved music can save her. Li Wu has fought prejudice his entire life. But he's always felt safe and protected within the fierce love of the Barnes family. If only the object of his desire were free to be his, all would be well. Will he risk everything to be with the one he loves, or will societal pressures keep them apart?

Deep in the Kunlun Hills lives a deer whose fur has nine colors. One day she hears a cry for help and discovers a man drowning. Then, leaping from wave to wave, she saves him. When the man asks how he could ever repay this kindness, the Nine Color Deer simply requests that the man never reveal her whereabouts. Will he be able to keep his promise when the King and Queen offer a reward to anyone who can locate the Nine Color Deer? Inspired by a 1,500-year-old mural in the Mogao Caves of Dunhuang, China, Kailin Duan brings listeners a beautiful story about the power of kindness.

It’s the night of senior prom, and eighteen-year-old Julia has made a pact with her friends. (Yes, that kind of pact.) They have secured a secluded cabin in the woods, one night without parental supervision, and plenty of condoms. But as soon as they leave the dance, the pact begins to unravel. Alex’s grandmother is undergoing emergency surgery, and he and his date rush to the hospital. Zoe’s trying to figure out how she feels about getting off the waitlist at Yale―and how to tell her girlfriend.

From the editor of the award-winning Children of Manzanar, Heather C. Lindquist, and Edgar Award winner Naomi Hirahara comes a nuanced account of the “Resettlement”: the relatively unexamined period when ordinary people of Japanese ancestry, having been unjustly imprisoned during World War II, were finally released from custody. Given $25 and a one-way bus ticket to make a new life, some ventured east to Denver and Chicago to start over, while others returned to Southern California only to face discrimination and an alarming scarcity of housing and jobs.

As a boy, Kenichi “Zeni” Zenimura dreams of playing professional baseball, but everyone tells him he is too small. Yet he grows up to be a successful player, playing with Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig! When the Japanese attack Pearl Harbor in 1941, Zeni and his family are sent to one of ten internment camps where more than 110,000 people of Japanese ancestry are imprisoned without trials. Zeni brings the game of baseball to the camp, along with a sense of hope. This true story, set in a Japanese internment camp, introduces children to a little-discussed part of American history.

This classic and integral memoir recounts the events in the life of the first Chinese student to graduate from a major American university, Yale College. An avid advocate for education, Yung Wing convinced the Qing Dynasty government to create a program that would send Chinese students to American schools in order to study science and engineering, giving them opportunities that would never be open to them if they stayed in China. Both enthralling and educational, this historic memoir from an important voice in history will take listeners back in time to the late nineteenth century.

Three Wishes in Bardo draws an intimate picture of twentieth-century Hong Kong while telling the story of a typical Hong Kong bright boy and his devoted mother. It is also a story of scientific labor and discovery, where single-mindedness, integrity, talent, and skill rise from the mire of academic sharp-practice and envy. Different strands of the plot weave together to form a climactic ending where all characters’ lives resolve into fulfillment with a touch of humor and true catharsis created from genuine surprise.