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The Cuckoo Clock / A Murder Mystery. (Ziff-Davis, 1946). (8vo), original gray cloth in dust jacket. First Edition. Dj chipped and worn.
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A Fiend in Need / A Fingerprint Mystery (Ziff-Davis, 1947). (8vo), original blue cloth in worn and chipped dust jacket. First Edition.
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Case of the Deadly Kiss (Gold Medal paperback, 1957) Original pictorial covers. Front cover creased.
Ozaki was the mixed-race son of a Japanese immigrant and his caucasian wife and was the first Nisei (as well as the first Asian) writer in the detective genre, producing 25 "cop-talk" whodunits by 1960. The first two titles - his first books - were the only Ozaki mysteries published in hardcover.
The 1957 paperback was significant for introducing the character, Lt. Ken Koda (a “heavy-set, grey-haired, ruddy complexioned man”), probably the first literary Japanese-American Nisei police detective, although his ethnicity is never explicitly stated, only presumed from a common Japanese surname. While a Japanese-American detective appeared in a 1959 movie (based on a white director's script), the next Asian-American contributions to the literary detective genre did not appear for nearly three decades.