J. McCarthy
Former acquisitions editor. Former teacher of English, history, and photography. Author of mysteries in which the truth is assembled from records, files, and the details others overlook.
- Writes The Keiko Ito Mystery Series
- Debut The Joseon Retrospective, October 2026
- Background Acquisitions editor; teacher
- Studied B.A. Art & Graphic Design, Point Loma Nazarene University
- Based San Diego, California
Biography
J. McCarthy is the author of The Joseon Retrospective, her debut novel and the first book in the Keiko Ito Mystery Series — mysteries set inside the National Art Center, Tokyo, where the crimes are institutional, the clues live in paperwork, and justice arrives through documentary evidence rather than car chases.
Before turning to fiction, McCarthy spent more than a decade as an acquisitions editor for a national publisher of college and university textbooks, developing an editor’s instinct for structure, accuracy, and clarity — a sensibility that shapes a mystery series in which the truth is assembled from records, files, and the details others overlook. She is also a former high school teacher whose subjects ranged from English and history to photography, and she holds a B.A. in Art and Graphic Design from Point Loma Nazarene University — a background that informs the series’ immersion in the world of curators, registrars, and conservators.
Her travels have taken her across the world, including to Japan, where the Keiko Ito series is set. Her photography appears in The Culture of Dance by Dr. Wendy Guess, a nationally published university text, and in A Walk by the Water by Billy Barnard.
J. McCarthy lives in San Diego, California. The Joseon Retrospective launches in October 2026.
On the series
Keiko is not a detective. She is a registrar — a professional whose career rests on the premise that the documented record, kept with enough care, cannot be argued with. She reconciles discrepancies, and the discrepancies lead her to a letter from 1938, a confiscation dressed in administrative language, and a wrong the record has been waiting all this time to make right.
See the reading order
Binder
Keiko’s cat: ink-dark, with a white smudge on his chest like spilled correction fluid, already middle-aged and opinionated when she brought him home. He supervises the case from the kitchen table. Newsletter subscribers occasionally receive dispatches from his side of it.
Four documents from the world of the novel.
A condition report, a catalog entry, a 1938 letter, and a floor plan — prepared as facsimiles for readers and delivered one at a time, in order. Free with the newsletter.