J. McCarthy Books
J. McCarthy Books
Media Kit · For Press, Bookstores & Librarians
A Keiko Ito Mystery · Book One
About the Book
At the National Art Center, Tokyo — a real museum that owns nothing, where every object is borrowed and must be returned — Senior Registrar Keiko Ito inspects a celadon moon jar on loan for a landmark exhibition of Joseon dynasty ceramics. Days later, the Korean researcher who accompanied the jar is found dead in a basement service corridor, having left a careful annotation, handwritten in Korean, on page four of Keiko’s own condition report.
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.
About the Author
Photograph: JCPenney Portraits by Lifetouch
J. McCarthy spent over a decade as an acquisitions editor for a national academic publisher, developing a sharp instinct for structure, accuracy, and the small detail that fails to align. That sensibility defines the Keiko Ito Mystery Series, where crimes are institutional, clues live in the paperwork, and justice arrives through documentary evidence rather than a chase.
Her debut novel, The Joseon Retrospective, is set inside the National Art Center, Tokyo, and follows a senior registrar who does not investigate crimes so much as reconcile records.
Before turning to fiction, McCarthy taught high school English, history, and photography. She holds a B.A. in Art and Graphic Design from Point Loma Nazarene University, a background that directly informs the series’ immersion in the quiet, exacting world of curators, registrars, and conservators. Her time in Japan and extensive global travel inspired the atmospheric backdrop of Keiko’s world. She is also an avid photographer, with work published in The Culture of Dance by Dr. Wendy Guess and A Walk by the Water by Billy Barnard.
J. McCarthy lives in San Diego, California. The Joseon Retrospective launches on Tuesday, 20 October 2026.
Fact Sheet
The Keiko Ito Mysteries. The Joseon Retrospective is Book 1; further books are planned for 2027.
The National Art Center, Tokyo — a real institution; the novel’s interior layout, staff, and events are entirely fictional.
Mysteries solved through documents — condition reports, provenance files, loan agreements — rather than chases or gunfire.
Colonial-era art and its afterlives, Korea/Japan history, museum ethics, and the quiet power of institutional memory.
Readers of cozy and traditional mysteries, dark academia, and art-world fiction.
A set of archival companion documents — a condition report, a 1938 letter facsimile, a museum floor plan, and an exhibition catalog entry — is available through the author’s newsletter.
Assets & Downloads
High-resolution versions of every asset below are available by email at contact@jmccarthybooks.com. Please do not stretch, recolor, crop, or restyle the logo or cover.
Front cover · 300 dpi
Author portrait · 4:5 · 300 dpi · download
Author portrait · square · download
Primary logo · PNG/SVG
Logo on dark · PNG/SVG