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This novel is a very clever addition to the hard-boiled detective genre. Its parallel stories are set in Los Angeles in 1941-42, and the bombing of Pearl Harbor and its aftermath figure in all of them. In the first plotline, Japanese-American Sam Sumida searches for information about his wife's murder. In the second, Korean-American Jimmy Park is recruited to serve on a secret government mission to infiltrate a Japanese spy ring.

The third "story" bridges the first two. We find out that Sam Sumida's story was written by a Japanese-American author, Takumi Sato. Maxine Wakefield, Sato's editor, tells him that a book written by a Japanese-American with a Japanese-American protagonist will not sell in the country's anti-Japanese political climate. (I read this book shortly after the terrorist attacks in Paris, and the subsequent anti-[fill in the blank] rhetoric was chillingly familiar.) Wielding her "blue pencil," Wakefield suggests major revisions, and Park's story, written by "William Thorne," is the result.

Sato, however, continues to write Sumida's story and keeps this manuscript to himself, while submitting Park's story to Wakefield for edits even as he is interned and later enlists in the army. The joy of Woman with a Blue Pencil comes in seeing how Sumida's and Park's stories merge.

The "real" author, Gordon McAlpine, gives us authentic glimpses of the period and place. Scenes take place at real locations (The Pike in Long Beach, Wilson High School in Long Beach, White Point in San Pedro, and Little Tokyo near downtown L.A.) that made me feel like he lives in the area.

As fun as this book was, I have to nitpick about some of the writing, which at times was less than smooth. I was confused by a plot point in which Japanese characters were translated into English words, which were then scrambled to provide a clue. Luckily for the protagonists, they happened upon the exact, precise English words to be used--no synonyms here, thank you very much. There were also some typos (an unclosed paren; the use of "discreet" rather than "discrete"). Where was the editor's blue pencil?