Compiled by Janet Hamilton
In the book "Silence of the Lambs" by Thomas Harris, there is reference to an origami chicken, which "pecked" when the tail was moved. In the book you learn that Hannibal Lecter also folds origami.(ISBN 0312195265)
The narrator in “North of Montana” by April Smith is an FBI agent who notes: "My work often requires me to make this type of construction, a model of human behavior, like the origami polyhedron that hangs on a string off Special Agent Michelle Nishimura's desk lamp. I have watched her make the most amazing things out of paper, complex folds executed in sequence, the pure logic of the design giving strength to the most fragile of materials." (ISBN 044922502X)
A scene of Onchiki river people reading fortunes from Sheri S. Tepper's "The Family Tree": (ISBN 0380791978):
She broke the seal, opened the flap, and took out the folded parchment. That took some time to be unfolded and laid down flat as Grandmama turned it this way and that, finding the right way up of it. Grandmama was a pretty good reader. There were hardly any words she couldn't make out if she took her time about it. " 'High ladies need sharp eyes to tend their geese,' " she read at last. "I think it's geese."
Lucy Low gave it a look. "It must be geese, Grandmama."
Diver sniffed. "No job for a man, goose tending. More a girl's job."
"Well, shall we give it to Lucy Low or to the twins?" asked Grandmama.
"We don't want it," said the twins in one voice.
"I do," said Lucy Low.
"Lucy Low's it is, then," Grandmama decided, handing over the parchment.
Lucy Low took it and smoothed it out, admiring the bright colors around the edges and the jiggery way it had been folded to make a long necked bird, and when she waggled the tail, the legs moved.
Perhaps it was meant to be a goose....
The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror: Sixth Annual Collection contains "Origami Mountain" by Nancy Farmer. (St. Martins's Press 1993, ISBN 0312094213)
"Celebrity Vampires" is an anthology of "What if?"-type short stories, and "Undead Origami" by Norman Partridge is a story about Howard Hughes as a vampire. It is not ABOUT origami, but if I remember correctly, Howard Hughes folds money into paper planes and throws them at an employee, then later folds himself up. (ISBN 0886776678)
For those who like origami, cats and mystery stories, Lillian Braun's recent novel, "The Cat Who Tailed A Thief", has a minor character who is taking a class in origami at the local community college. (ISBN 0515122408)
Carolyn G. Hart presents "Malice Domestic 4: An Anthology of Original Traditional Mystery Stories". A group of colleagues tormented by a tyrant administrator contemplate revenge--one is always folding napkins. (ISBN 0671896318)
"Lowell looked quite ready to fold the sheriff into an origami swan." From "The Dead Past" by Tom Piccirilli (Berkley Prime Crime Mystery, 1997, mass market pb 1999, page 188, ISBN 0425166961)
In Sue Grafton's "I is for Innocent", page 193, “The lines in his face suggested an origami paper folded once, then flattened out again." (ISBN 0449221512)
In Andrew Vachss' novel “Safe House” we learn that Max is into origami: “Max's face went into repose. But his hands were busy, fingers flying now. He was creating more sculptures, duplicates of the ones he'd already made, as precise as a cookie-cutter. If I hadn't seen him do this before, when he made an entire origami chess set for his daughter, Flower, I would have been astounded. Even so, I had to shake my head in wonderment...” (ISBN 0375400842)
Joe Gores, "Contract Null & Void", p. 23: "Politics held as much interest for Morales as origami." (Mysterious Books ISBN 0446404470)
This is from a novel by John Case and titled, "The
Genesis Code": (ISBN 0345422317)
"Lassiter liked Chicago. The high-rises beside the lake, the glitter and sophistication, always
surprised him. He took a taxi from O'Hare to the Near North Side, where he
checked into one of his favorite hotels, the Nikko. It was a crisply efficient place, elegant and very Japanese. The ikebana
displays were as beautiful as they were simple, and there was an excellent
restaurant on the ground floor. He took advantage of it, that same evening,
washing down his sushi with two large bottles of Kirin. When he returned to his room he expected to find a chocolate on his pillow -
but, of course, it was the Nikko, and what he found was an origami figure instead. A wolf, howling, or maybe it
was a dog. Whatever it was, it reminded him of *Blade Runner*."
From John Sandford's book "The Night Crew":
(ISBN 0425163385)
"He pulled a napkin out of a chrome napkin holder and smoothed it on the
tabletop. Anna thought he was going to write on it, but then he started folding
it as he talked: L.A.diner origami."
In a Carlotta Carlisle mystery by Linda Barnes, Carlotta, a private detective, is searching the home of a suspect. She describes: "Marsha was incredibly organized, obsessively neat, which meant I had to keep track of where everything was and put it back just so. There was no clutter in the woman's life .... I mean, she folded her underwear like origami. "
In "Strawgirl", a murder mystery by Abigail Padgett, (The Mysterious Press paperback, 1994), p.3, Bo Bradley, the lead character, "folded the workshop memo into an origami swan and left it dead center on the gray Formica surface of her desk." (ASIN 0892964898)
In Stephen King's "Dreamcatcher" (book, not movie), one of the villains (Kurtz) is on a mission in a helicopter and, while reaching his target, turns a newspaper into an origami hat. Didn't show up on the movie. (ISBN 0743467523)
In "The Last King of Texas", a murder mystery by Rick Riordan, , the detective's mom makes collages of origami hats and sells them to hotel decorators. Her soon-to-be ex-boyfriend says, "Tell your mother she's obsessed." Her reply, "This is my art." ( ISBN 0553801562, Bantam paperback, 2000).