Five Decembers

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Five Decembers by James Kestrel certainly doesn't disappoint, it's part hard-hitting crime thriller,part war story, part love story , a tale of obsession, retribution and most importantly a fantastic read.

Reconstruction of time and place is superb, both in Honolulu and in Asia, and everything is vividly portrayed: there is no waste of words here and all details you encounter are functional to plot development. Having completed the book – which comes with an ending that’s pretty unforgettable in and of itself – I was amazed to discover that it was only written in 2021; I’d assumed that it must have been penned perhaps seventy years earlier. Joe will travel widely and meet really interesting people: some helpful and others very much the opposite. I don't remember another book I've read in years that had the powerful emotional impact this one has. With tensions high, Joe’s boss just wants the case solved as quickly and quietly as possible, and McGrady ends up hot on the trail of the killer across the Pacific.It has all the elements of a good thriller and tells a universal tale on the brutality of war and individuals caught in mechanisms larger than they are, trying to survive and act according to what they believe in. This isn't just a thriller, though it certainly is a thriller, it's also a remarkably well-told story of one man's quest for justice through the years of WWII. He is a 2021/2022 National Book Critics Circle Emerging Critic Fellow, and his work has been featured or is forthcoming in Publishers Weekly, the Los Angeles Review of Books, The Coachella Review, Thought Catalog, Sein und Werden, and PseudoPod. As another victim with a similar MO is discovered, Joe finds himself sent to hunt the killer, ending up in British ruled Hong Kong.

Yes, you've read tales with an ex-military man turned tough detective before, but not one like Honolulu Detective Joe McGrady. Another commenter wrote positively about this year’s Edgar winner, so I’d be keen to read that one too. McGrady's and Sachi sudden romance feels anything but real (probably added just as a shock value), and even the night of the attack on Tokyo is minimized and is barely touched upon (for example, David Downing did a wonderful job in his "Station"s series by using his characters to describe perfectly and chillingly teh destruction of Berlin by the allied forces as they were closing in. The lurid cover hearkens back to the days of Mickey Spillane and Dashiell Hammet, but this tale overtakes the classics by leaps and bounds.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. 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. 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.