Five Decembers

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In fact, that's maybe the biggest problem of this novel- the author chose to focus on all the wrong details while barely mentioning that things that truly mattered).

Her youth had passed without distinction, and her middle of life was devoted to the care of a failing mother, and the endeavour to make a small income go as far as possible. In the acknowledgements, Kestrel states that the original manuscript for FIVE DECEMBERS had tipped the scales at nearly seven hundred pages, but through advice from his agent, he cut it down to just over four hundred. Thick ear, shoot first ask questions, if any, later plot but nicely written with engaging characters. B. bei einem Meisterwerk wie "Die schwarze Dahlie" von James Ellroy erlebe ich in den seltensten Fällen.In another World War I campaign, Dashiell Hammett was rushing around the battlefield aiding the wounded while serving in the Motor Ambulance Corps. James Kestrel’s FIVE DECEMBERS is an emotionally-charged crime novel shaped by the tragic years of a world at war, a story that is relentlessly hopeful in the face of unrequited devotion and doomed love.

Rather, it's the story of a civilian -a local Honolulu police detective given the most unsolvable case ever -a murder out in the hills that barely makes sense. Some characters were so pointless (Sachi, for example) and they came and went so fast, that some plot-threads that were tide to them were left unresolved, as the author just didn't know what to do with them. Five Decembers" feels like it could have been written during the golden age of noir… hugely satisfying. Part of his investigation takes him away from Honolulu and the girlfriend he has fallen in love with. James Krestel recreates the Honolulu, Hong Kong and certainly Japan during World War 2 in a subtle way making this not only a crime story but also a historical novel with a lot of details which you would not necessarily expect in crime writing.I received a copy from Hard Case Crime, via Edelweiss+, and this does not impede the free expression of my opinion.

This is hardboiled fiction at its best: an exceptional tale, filled with emotion, plenty of surprises, and enough violence to satisfy the most bloodthirsty reader. 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. It’s a Hard Case Crime novel set in Hawaii just weeks before the infamous Pearl Harbor attack occurs on December 7, 1941. As an ex-soldier with no family to speak of, Joe is a loner who didn’t grow up in Hawaii so he’s seen as an outsider even by his fellow cops, and it’s evident from the start that he’s not entirely trusted by them. I don’t know if James Kestrel, the author’s pseudonym, is a veteran, but he certainly red-lined the pressure by stranding his Five Decembers detective, Joe McGrady, in the middle of a war.This extraordinary novel is so much more than just a gripping crime story―it's a story of survival against all odds, of love and loss and the human cost of war. McGrady discovers a woman's body on the scene and gets the impression the criminal he shot was not working alone. I can understand why it won the Edgar–so readable (I had to force myself to put it down), and with so much depth.

To quote Nolan's review in the WSJ: "Lyrical, violent, intelligent, breathtaking: this is an unforgettable book. In der Mitte der Geschichte unterbricht der Autor den Kriminalfall, da der Detective untertauchen muss.When the novel opens, in Honolulu, Joe is a police detective investigating the gruesome double-murder of an American admiral’s nephew and a young Japanese woman. In Hong Kong, McGrady falls into the hands of the invading Japanese Army and is swept along by the tide of war. There are significant challenges inherent in plunging your reader into the past and orienting them accurately to the environment.