Five Decembers
Author: James Kestrel
Publisher: Titan
Date of Publication: October 26, 2021
Pages: 428
The five nominees for the 2022 Edgar Award for Best Mystery Novel are: Razorblade Tears by S.A. Cosby, The Venice Sketchbook by Rhys Bowen, Five Decembers by James Kestrel, How Lucky by Will Leitch, and No One Will Miss Her by Kat Rosenfield. This is the fourth of my reviews for this list of books. Click on the hyperlinks above to view the previous reviews.
This book is terrific. It combines a fine noir murder mystery, a love story, and a well-researched historical narrative. The settings of Pearl Harbor, Honolulu, Manila, Hong Kong, and Tokyo are essential to the story and are brilliantly rendered. The plot is complex but keeps the reader locked in. The story starts in Honolulu in early December, 1941. A young couple is found in an isolated shed brutally murdered. The young woman is Japanese and the young man is a nephew of the Admiral in command of Pearl Harbor. Detective Joe McGrady of the Honolulu Police Department is the lead investigator and follows the primary suspect across the Pacific to Manila and Hong Kong. Before he can make an arrest, Joe is captured by the Japanese and spends the rest of the war in Tokyo. After the armistice is signed on the U.S.S. Missouri, Joe returns to Honolulu and attempts to resurrect what is now a cold case. Stephen King calls this "An electrifying read. The last chapter is a real stunner." These are, believe it or not, gross understatements.
I enjoyed this book for many reasons. The large cast of characters are all well developed. Joe McGrady is a classic 1940s gumshoe who is very sympathetic and mostly plays by the rules until he doesn't. Gloves come off when Joe returns to Honolulu in 1945 and realizes he has been betrayed by former colleagues and things aren't what they seemed in 1941. The plot moves along with many twists and turns. The settings as I mentioned above, are great. This author has done an amazing amount of research to bring these locales to life. The descriptions of the fire bombing of Tokyo and the aftermath of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are worth reading the whole book for. This is a very worthy nominee for the 2022 Edgar Award.
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