Five Decembers

Product Information

Thick ear, shoot first ask questions, if any, later plot but nicely written with engaging characters. Not just any murder, but one our protagonist realizes changed the entire course of history while he was marooned, including his life and the lives of those nearest to him: the girlfriend who gave him up for dead, and the daughter of the Japanese Minister of Foreign Affairs, whose father springs McGrady from a prison camp for his help finding the men who murdered his niece, hiding him in Tokyo until the conclusion of the war. Hawai'i across the Pacific Ocean to Hong Kong falling to the Japanese in 1942, over to Japan until the end of World War II, back to Hawai'i and then all over again in December 1945. With the connect made to Admiral Kimmel, McGrady is thinking along the lines that this was a professional hit. At the station, McGrady learns that there was a brutal murder on a dairy farm on the other side of Oahu.

For a long time, the novel I'd bring up if anyone asked what I thought would make a good TV mini-series was Kindred by Octavia Butler. I’d really like to stop things there because it’s probably best to go into this one not knowing much more than what I’ve already said. And at its heart the book a tale of 1941-1945(hence 5 Decembers) and what the world was like then-so different from now—its like going in a time machine to inhabit a lost world. For example, one clue revolves around how there were no Packard dealerships in Hawaii at the time so that type of car was very rare on the islands, but trying to track down a particular one means spending hours reviewing car registration records. McGrady discovers a woman's body on the scene and gets the impression the criminal he shot was not working alone.McGrady’s character was easy to route for as were the other people where were important to him (I am being vague on purpose so that you can get to know everyone on your own). Kestrel seems to have anticipated this by including brief detours in time and point of view to add historical context about the offensive campaigns that loom over the plot. History precedes it, encroaches on it, and history ends it, but while it lasts, it turns Joe McGrady from hard-boiled detective to a man stripped of everything except his word and honour.

War, imprisonment, torture, romance…The novel has an almost operatic symmetry, and Kestrel turns a beautiful phrase. There are significant challenges inherent in plunging your reader into the past and orienting them accurately to the environment. It is one of best novels I have read about the twilight days of empire, its protagonist getting caught up in the maelstrom of the British, Japanese and European empires dragging themselves into oblivion. Yes, the narrative “movements”, as I went on and on about in my review, were like sea-waves, sometimes crashing as in the opening, or like the third, slow and meditative.

This is unforgettable historical fiction, a mesmerising noir that turned out to be one of my books of this year, and which, if there is any justice in the world, should be hugely successful. Almost immediately the situation escalates rapidly as it becomes obvious that there's a lot more to the situation than McGrady first thought. Things get complicated when one of the victims turns out to be a relative of a prominent Navy admiral and the other is a young Japanese woman. His investigation ultimately leads to the Philippines, where things go south for our detective, then there's the attack on Pearl Harbor. Hell, some of the most notable pioneers of the noir page and stage went through the crucible themselves.

The tone is in the same kind of terrain as Chandler, with an economy of prose and a propulsive sense of momentum. From describing the streets and people of Honolulu in 1941 to several other locations, you get all of the atmosphere without it feeling like a bunch of regurgitated facts from a history class.To quote Nolan's review in the WSJ: "Lyrical, violent, intelligent, breathtaking: this is an unforgettable book. Most American readers will share a basic knowledge of the attack on Pearl Harbor and the Pacific Campaign from history lessons or pop culture.