Five Decembers

I was given an advance reading copy of Five Decembers by the publisher.

From the moment I started reading James Kestrel's Five Decembers, I was immersed in a time and place I've never experienced, but found entirely believable. Early 1940's Hawaii, Pacific islands, Hong Kong and Tokyo all come alive, giving this book a lyrical quality missing from many hard-boiled tales. Combine the setting with Hawaii PD Detective Joe McGrady's journey to solve two brutal murders while his life is set on fire by world war, and you have a story that makes for compelling, non-stop reading, all the way to the wintry conclusion. Five Decembers is a terrific addition to the Hard Case Crime library.

In his acknowledgements at the end of the book, Kestrel mentions that he has written seven books, but Five Decembers is apparently the first book with the byline James Kestrel. What is his real name? What are his other books? Asking for a friend who wants to read them!

I subscribe to Hard Case Crime???s newsletter and was offered a free copy of the book on the condition that, if I liked it, I???d tell my friends. Well, I certainly liked it and I will be telling my friends. It???s one of the best thriller/mysteries I???ve read in a while. I???m going to be keeping an eye out for future James Kestrel books and I???m going to pre-order this one for my dad for his birthday. Do yourself a favor and check it out.

Five Decembers is quite a good if rather odd crime novel. Joe McGrady, a Honolulu police detective, starts investigating a brutal dual murder in December of 1941 just before the start of WW2. His investigation takes him West to Hong Kong. There the events of the war take him in an unexpected direction and put his investigation on hold during the war. After the war in 1945 he resumes his investigation and takes it to a conclusion five Decembers later.
That makes the story sound simple. It is anything but. We get a complicated mystery involving more than just the murders and requiring tenacious police work. We get violence, brutality, betrayal, do-or-die situations, and unexpected romance.
For me one of the key aspects of the story is Kestrel's attention to detail. That and Edoardo Ballerini's excellent narration made me feel like I was back in the early 1940s in Hawaii and the Far East during those terrible times.
Solid 4 stars.

Five Decembers was a book I picked up because of a YouTube channel (mancarryingthing) recommendation and I am so happy that I did.

This book caught me off guard in every way I can think of. On the surface it looks like a pulpy, hard boiled, detective novel… and it is, but it’s so much more than that. The prose is absolutely beautiful annd admittedly terse at points, although this didn’t bother me at all. In fact, that is one of the aspects I admire most about it.

While being action packed, tense, and a violent story, it is also a heartbreaking and beautiful character study about a broken man. It’s just as much his struggle for identity and purpose as it is crime thriller. It walks that line brilliantly.

Please, don’t judge this book by the cover. It is so much more what it appears.