Five Decembers

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As told by James Kestrell, revealed to be the pen name for author Jonathan Moore, this noir crime novel is set at the precipice of America's engagement in the Second World War. Where else are the stakes higher and the players so desperate, pushed to extremes in matters that are life or death?

If Spillane's hero Mike Hammer were to encounter a foreigner, it's dollars to doughnuts he'd first punch him (or her) in the face and then mock them for their funny accent. His writing has won advance praise from Stephen King, James Patterson, Dennis Lehane, Lee Child, Meg Gardiner, James Fallows, Pico Iyer, and numerous other authors. McGrady discovers a woman's body on the scene and gets the impression the criminal he shot was not working alone. That’s the interesting “genre” thing about it: it starts “hard-boiled” and ends up in so many different places. Kestrel (a nom de guerre for Jonathan Moore) has written an excellent historical police procedural that opens with the horrific deaths of a young man and a young Asian woman in Honolulu in November of 1941.This is one of those books that’s tricky to review because I don’t want to say much more about the plot because it takes some surprising twists that end up being the best part of the of the story. The descriptions of Japan and the aftermath of the bombing is nothing short of brilliant and at the same time horrifying.

But I was surprised nonetheless when Hard Case Crime’s publisher Charles Ardai invited me to preview an upcoming release-Five Decembers by James Kestrel. There are unexpected twists to the murder story as McGrady closes in on the killer and his accomplices.Then begins a long, slow, meditative interlude, and without spoiling excessively, where Joe is saved by a Japanese diplomat and makes his way through the war’s four Decembers in a Japanese house and garden with a beautiful woman. Yet it doesn’t overwhelm because it follows one man’s journey from Honolulu to Hong Kong to Tokyo, back to Honolulu, back to Hong Kong, and finally back to Tokyo.