This was much more than I expected. The twists and turns will have you on the edge of your seat.

Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for the advanced reader copy. This is my honest review.

This one was not for me.
Thank you NetGalley for providing a copy of this ARC in exchange for an honest review!

Honolulu detective Joe McGrady is sent to investigate a gruesome and mysterious death and report back to more senior members of the police force. He conducts a preliminary assessment of the scene and discovers that the crime is actually a double homicide. At this point, we’ve already got the start of a juicy detective novel with action, noir atmosphere, and a tough-guy hero constrained by useless higher-ups. McGrady's boss can no longer sideline him when it turns out that one of the victims was the nephew of a high-ranking admiral who insists on dealing directly with the responding officer. From there, this hardboiled detective story turns into a wartime saga taking place across continents. The clues take our hero to Hong Kong, where he arrives on December 7, 1941; we all know how that’s going to go. The story unfolds over years yet never fails to be engaging. There’s epic suffering, hiding behind enemy lines, thrilling action, cultural immersion, and slow-blooming romance. All of this is told in short, simple sentences perfectly evocative of old-school noir novels. Highly recommended.

Thanks to Netgalley and Titan Books for a digital advance review copy.

At first what I thought would be a noir turned into a book that changed my life! I was not expecting to feel all the feels I felt reading Five Decembers. An unexpected gift I was provided. Thank you. Would definitely read more books by this author.

Five Decembers by James Kestral is, according to Denis Lehane "a crime epic for the ages", and I am certainly not going to argue with the great Lehane. Starting as a gruesome murder mystery, told in a noirish style before become-coming a World War Two epic as the events of December 7th 1941 overtake the lead detective. Because of the connections with the Admiral of the US fleet to one of the victims Joe McGrady is sent to Hong Kong, arriving a day before the Japanese invasion. Spanning America's involvement in WW2, this is a crime novel like no other. Highly recommended.

It doesn't get more hard-boiled than this, be rest assured.

Pearl Harbour is days away from being pummeled in an event that'll draw the USA into World War II. Joe McGrady, ex-soldier and now Honolulu PD officer, couldn't be more blissfully unaware of the plans afoot across the Pacific. He's enjoying a drink when a call comes in, and he's ordered to investigate a bloody double-murder outside town.

The night turns McGrady's life on its head, and propels him into a heady world of conspiracy, cruelty, love and war.

Kestrel embraces (and how!) the genre like a parent does their child after lockdown - it's got the beats of pure crime noir, and also a very distinct personal quality to it in how McGrady approaches life.

Kestrel keeps away from the major historical events of the time, taking aim at the chaos around McGrady far more than a novel with events like Pearl Harbour and countries like Imperial Japan normally would. In a sense, the reader is McGrady - we know only what he knows, and we're as much in danger of a nasty surprise as the protagonist.

The one fatal flaw is that Kestrel doesn't quite stay with the character for long periods of time. The novel is called "Five Decembers" but we get to see only two-and-a-half. That, and the partially-cooked love stories are both hindrances to the book, which would be a much bigger winner were it not for these limitations.

I love pulp detective novels, especially when they’re well written, so I feel like I hit the jackpot here. It feels a lot like a Travis McGee story, and it actually reminds me a lot of L.A. CONFIDENTIAL, except this is way better. The prose is sharp and hard hitting. McGrady is a great character and the love story is deep and at times heartbreaking. There are thrills galore here, and honestly, it blew me away. I had no idea it was going to be this good. This is the best pulp detective book I’ve ever read.

Noir is not always an easy genre to write, there is a timeless tone to it. You can pick up a book that was written 70 years ago and it still has all the effortless style to make it incredibly readable. If you are going to write a new noir set during the classic noir period you are not only competing with other new books, but a library of classics. James Kestrel has boldly taken on the challenge with Five Decembers a brand-new noir set during and after World War Two, and the author may have just carved out their own classic.

Joe McGrady is a former solider turned Detective in Honolulu. He has never been accepted as a local, but when a vicious murder occurs, he is the only Officer available. A man is found hung by his feet, brutally murdered. McGrady’s first major case may just be his last as it leads to more than one corpse and more than one country. The Detective travels to Hong Kong in 1941 to further investigate the murder, a region that is on the brink of conflict.

There are all the elements of noir that make Five Decembers a delicious read, but it goes so much further than that. The opening segment is a classic murder mystery and as a reader I was happy with just this. However, Kestrel’s ambition for the book was far larger and McGrady goes on a journey that spans years and continents. A domestic story becomes international. During the lead up to and outbreak of World War Two, this means a gruesome murder in Honolulu might just be factor in the future of millions.

The sense of time and place is excellent. Reading the acknowledgments, Kestrel went on their own journey when authoring this book to ensure that all the elements were researched. All this knowledge is found on the page and as a reader you find yourself comfortable with an author who knows what they are doing. Kestrel not only set out to master the noir genre, but also historic fiction. The narrative of this book means that it will appeal to not only crime fans, but anyone that enjoys books with a historic setting. It feels so professionally researched.

As a noir fan it is easy to just fall back on books written at the time as there were so many. To visit the genre and time Kestrel needed to do an outstanding job, and they did. Five Decembers has all the tone and class of the genre, but it is also effortlessly modernised. Not in terms of tone, but in terms of writing. This is an easy read as the structure and language is suited better for modern tastes. Some of the action and characters are also more palatable to a modern audience, without compromising on the structure. This book has murder, war crimes and Nazis, but avoid some of the jarring old fashioned language that can take a modern reader out of a noir tale.

It is testament to Kestrel’s writing ability and research that Five Decembers feels like it could have been written during the golden age of noir. It is only the hidden modernisation that subconsciously informs the reader this is a book from 2021 and not 1951. This is a perfect book for fans of the genre, but also new readers as it will introduce them to a fabulous genre in a style that reads effortlessly. As a book Five Decembers feels epic, with twists most people will not see coming. The end is hugely satisfying, but also has you wanting more novels from Kestrel, a writer to look out for.

This book deals with murder in the back drop of WWII.
Initially it kicks off with a murder, one that will keep you guessing and will make you feel clueless. You start to wonder so wait where and how does WWII play into this?
Then slowly and gradually the transition occurs, WWII is constantly mentioned, from the beginning but it takes front seat almost halfway into the book.

To say its a good book would be an understatement. It is a great book, with so many feels that by the end all you want to do is curl up in a ball and cry.

Cry for the people impacted by wars waged by grotesque egotistical men and cry at the injustice of both life and war.
The fact that this book is fictitious but is woven in with a REAL WAR, makes it a difficult read.
The great thing about this book was that the author showed the impact a war has globally and individually. A man who goes about his daily job, gets sucked into a war he didn't even start, a war that changes his life and everyone's around him. The book shows how everything is stripped from him. How he loses everything, how he has no one to come back to and how the world and people move on without him.
The harsh reality of life, LIFE GOES ON, hit me really hard.

I have always read books on WWII but I've never read a book where the setting is Japan or American occupied Islands, like Hawaii, Guam etc. To read about the brutality of the Japanese and then the bombing of civilians by american aircrafts was devastating.

This book is an all rounder for me, from depicting devastations of a REAL war to a murder mystery thats so flawlessly crafted that you feel utterly perplexed, then there's political intrigue and let's not forget about a little romance thats so bittersweet it tugs at your heart and makes you ache for the main character. Throw in great prose and you've got yourself a five star read!

But I will say this,
Initially you do face a bit of trouble understanding which character is speaking and you feel a bit lost when the islands are mentioned but a quick google search lifts all your confusions. A map at the start would have been really handy.
Nevertheless, I loved this book and I highly recommend it to fans of Historical Fiction and Thriller

Two very gruesome murders committed in Honolulu on the eve of the Japanese attack on Pearl harbor in December 1941 are the trigger point behind a relentless manhunt that will last until 1945 and take you into a dark and nightmarish journey around the Pacific.

A captivating and very brutal historical thriller full of horrific twists and turns where cold- blooded criminals, heartless spies and innocent war victims are engaged into a merciless dance against time in the middle of a landscape totally devastated by a harsh and pitiless conflict.

Brilliantly plotted, fiendishly addictive and blessed with a powerful cast of war-weary characters, this riveting and adrenaline-fueled fictional trip across the hellishsly dangerous landscape of WWII will leave many of its readers utterly gobsmacked by its ferocious drive and its mind-blowing conclusion.

A magnificent novel that really deserves to be enjoyed without any moderation whatsoever👍

Many thanks to Netgalley and Titan Books for this terrific ARC

Five Decembers comes on the back of some outstanding reviews and enthusiastic word-of-mouth recommendations from overseas, and for once the hype is warranted.

James Kestrel, apparently the pseudonym for an established Hawaiian author, has delivered an outstanding piece of fiction that combines elements of the crime, thriller and romance genres with the war novel. All of which is set against a vividly described Hawaii and South East Asia in the early 1940s.

The story opens in late November 1941 with Hawaiian police detective Joe McGrady being called to a late-night double murder in a worker’s cottage on a local farm. The victims have been gruesomely slaughtered and when McGrady returns to the murder scene after calling for support, he becomes involved in a shootout with the supposed perpetrator. It seems like a simple murder case, until it turns out that one of the victims is a young Japanese woman and the other is the nephew of a Navy Admiral. When it looks like another person was also involved, McGrady finds himself in pursuit of the killer as the attack on Pearl Harbor nears.

To reveal more of the story would be a crime, as much of the pleasure of Five Decembers comes from the way in which the plot heads in unexpected and interesting directions. Not surprisingly given the period in which it is set, Five Decembers is as much a reflection on war and what it does to people, as it is a crime novel. The characters grow and change throughout the book, and Kestrel is particularly adept at creating strong, interesting female characters who have considerable depth and credibility to them. This strength of characterisation adds a real sense of poignancy to the book at times, and is hard not to become emotionally caught-up in the plight of the protagonists.

At its core, however, Five Decembers is a crime novel, and Kestrel does a marvellous job of maintaining suspense and keeping the story ticking over at a good pace. There are a couple of neat twists towards the end and the book builds to a suitably tough and exciting climax. An outstanding novel.

Five Decembers is close to five out of five stars for me, and probably falls just a little short through some minor stretches of credibility towards the end. Easily one of the best, if not the best, crime/thrillers of the year!

With glowing blurbs from Dennis Lehane, Megan Abbott, and others, I started this book with some pretty high expectations. I'm thrilled that James Kestrel's FIVE DECEMBERS actually exceeded my best hopes for the novel. Others have said it, but this is a noir crime novel, a love story, and historical fiction all wrapped into one. A lesser writer would've bungled that ambition into an unreadable mess. Kestrel, he gives us literary gumbo--a delicious stew of beautiful writing, fully-realized characters, stunning dialogue, a satisfyingly labyrinthine plot, and that unlikely mix of genres I just mentioned. This is the story of Joe McGrady, a detective stationed in Honolulu, Hawaii, who in the pursuit of a murderer finds himself in Hong Kong on a fateful night in December of 1941 (hint hint: Pearl Harbor attack). Needless to say, McGrady is stuck in that foreign land, under great threat, for years. In the process, losing everything he holds dear. His journey to get as much of it back as possible is one that will enthrall even the most finicky of readers. This will make many a Best-of list for 2021. Highly recommended.

Much more than I expected. The book is Five Decembers by James Kestrel . In late November 1941 Detective Joe McGrady Is sent from Honolulu, Hawaii to the country-side to investigate a gruesome murder. It gets more complicated when a second body is found at the scene and Joe learns the identity of the first victim. And given the date you suspect World War 2 will soon enter the story.

After a few pages, it is obvious that James Kestrel has written a first-class crime novel. But then the war begins a there is so much more. Soon you are dealing with the cruelty and foolishness of war, a love story, obsession and revenge. All this in a fantastic read.

I was expecting a decent crime novel but this was so much more. I highly recommend Five Decembers and thank Netgalley for a chance to read this book before publication.

Five Decembers is a book that manages to feel both deeply personal and sprawlingly epic. It has the straightforward narrative of classic Hollywood movie and the dramatic scope to match, but also digs deep into the emotions and motive of its characters.
Told over four years (and five Decembers), it starts in Honolulu in the run up to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Its protagonist is Hawaii PD detective Joe McGrady. Joe is sent to investigate a body found on a local farm, and quickly finds himself embroiled in a brutal, high profile case. The classic hardboiled detective story of the first third develops into something more complex as the novel progresses, weaving war story and romance into the police procedural.
Joe’s determination to do the right thing keeps driving the tale forward, even as the odds against him mount. He’s an incredibly satisfying character, written right on the edge of cliché but somehow convincing and always great to read. The fact that James Kestrel’s prose has the terse brute force of the best noirs helps a lot. The sentences are short and yet the words flow together perfectly. It’s the perfect style for the story Kestrel is telling. Plain and unadorned, but never lacking in subtlety. Kestrel manages to pack so much meaning into so few words that the story flies by but the emotions and the characters linger with the reader.
There is a beautiful moment in the final third of the book where Joe sees that some trash cans that were dented five years previously in the first third are still dented.
“It was amazing what things were allowed to endure, while others evaporated.”
So much has happened in the interim and that one simple line encourages the reader to take stock of them, pausing for a moment from the story to think about the real lives that were destroyed by the Second World War.
That’s the power of Five Decembers. It is such a page turning tale, but packed with raw truths about both love and conflict. It’s a brilliant piece of fiction and worth your time whether you’re a crime fan or not.

<i>I received an ARC of this book through NetGalley in exchange for a review.</i>

A good book. A solid book.

This book defies its genre, spits in the face of tropes, and is clearly a labor of love. The author has done a superior job of researching the piece of history surrounding this story, and the care that has been put into the finest details ensures a flawless experience for the reader, a perfect peer into the past.
The pacing for the story is surprising as well. It tarries in places you wouldn't expect, and leaps over others that you would want more information from. When you pick up this book, be aware that it is not simply a case crime, not quite a war experience, a nostalgia trip, or even a love story - it's everything at once, and each piece of that will fall into place in its' own time.

The obvious sufferer for this all-encompassing work are the characters, whose personality is not as well cared for as the narrative. Your main character will receive adequate adversities to fuel his drive in seeing the story through its' completion, but every other character is inconsequential apart from their relevance in advancing the plot. You're made to care about characters that turn out to be disappointing and useless, while other irrelevant characters get in the limelight for absolutely no reason. (I'm looking at you, Sachi.) They would have certainly benefitted from the sixty-thousand or so words that were cut out from the original draft, as stated by the author.

Perhaps it's simply a matter of focus, because the story does tell itself regardless.

<i><u>My level of enjoyment:</i></u> 3/5, won't reread.

Warning: absolutely unputdownable!

Joe McGrady, war veteran and now Honolulu PD detective is called to investigate the brutal dual murder of an unknown Japanese girl and an Admiral’s nephew. He is a man who keeps himself to himself and likes to act solo -- has a few scars of his own and has developed a hard shell. Now he appears to have found a girl he likes. The investigation takes him to Hong Kong, where he should stay a few days – he has already made romantic Christmas plans, but we are biting our nails as he hops on that clipper because we know war is going to break out. When Hong Kong is invaded and Pearl Harbour attacked by the Japanese, he is cut off from all he has: at this stage, we are totally gripped with his destiny as a man isolated in an enemy country, his love story, his investigation and the man who keeps eluding him. The novel, spanning five Decembers, becomes epic as the war takes him through Asia...

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. You visualise the period cars, the Pan Am clipper (that clipper!), the busy cable rooms, the way women behave.

The novel is truly well paced and skillfully plotted, with twists and turns that have you constantly hold your breath. It merges elements of hardboiled crimefiction into a tale of survival and a sweeping historical novel that looks at little known issues, such as Japanese pacifism and more. 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. Everything is covered in a patina, distanced as if in a period movie, or as if to say some deeds are a thing of the past. Memorable reading experience.

I don’t think I’ve ever read a book that was so page-turning yet also filled with so much beautiful pathos. I had to stop reading on occasion and take breaks just to pull myself together emotionally before being able to plunge back into James Kestrel’s affecting narrative. Perhaps it is a failure of my own imagination, but I certainly never thought that a story this moving would come in the form of a noir novel set in and around World War II, as a Honolulu police detective named Joe McGrady doggedly pursues a murderer back and forth across the Pacific Ocean.

Being from the mainland, McGrady is fairly low in the HPD pecking order even after five years on the force, having attended college and enlisted in the Army before finding his feet as a cop. With the island in a state of perpetual tension given the saber-rattling maneuvers of the Japanese military just over the horizon, nerves inevitably boil over into crime, straining the HPD’s resources to its limits. McGrady isn’t even on duty when he’s called in to investigate the drunk ravings of a farmhand employed by an influential islander. The farmhand claims that there’s a dead body in his lodgings, so the higher-ups send the newest guy to go look into what may or may not be an actual crime.

McGrady does indeed find the dead body and more, when a second trip to secure the scene has him running into a cleaner who’s ready to torch the place and exterminate any witnesses, including any interfering police detectives, with extreme prejudice:

QUOTE
McGrady took two steps backwards, lost his footing in a muddy wheel rut, and fell. He got off five shots on the way down.

The powder flashes gave him a stop motion film. Like something from the old penny arcades. The [assassin]’s arms flew out like wings. He spun, he twitched. The empty revolver was out of his hands and spinning backwards, toward the coupe.

Then McGrady was down in the mud and banyan roots, and the only sound was the ringing in his ears.

McGrady got up. The other man didn’t.
END QUOTE

The trappings of a professional hit make more sense when the victim is identified as the nephew of the commander of the Pacific fleet stationed in Hawaii. McGrady is forced to partner up with fellow detective Fred Ball, who makes a habit of violence in extracting confessions. Ball’s brutality aside, the two men make a good team, and soon enough discover that the killer has flown away from the island and across the Pacific to Hong Kong. With the combined weight of the police and the Navy behind him -- and with the benefit of his experience having been stationed in China with the Army -- McGrady is sent on his own to apprehend the suspect.

Before he goes, he kisses his sweetheart, graduate student Molly Radcliffe, goodbye, fully intending to surprise her with a romantic getaway when he returns after a few days, at most after a few weeks. History, however, has other plans:

QUOTE
He looked at his watch. He’d reset it for local time, and it took him a while to reorient himself. He’d traveled so far that to piece together his place in the world he had to work it out backwards. It was 1:30 p.m. in Hong Kong. Sunday, December 7, 1941. He did the math. Back home it was Saturday evening. The sixth of December. Molly would be in the library for the next hour and a half. Tomorrow would be her day off. She could sleep in. He liked that thought. It made a peaceful picture. A good way to start this day.
END QUOTE

The day’s decline is gradual but violent, leading -- as most readers will already know and anticipate -- to the coordinated Japanese attack both there in Hong Kong and across the ocean at Pearl Harbor. Trapped behind enemy lines and desperate to return to the woman he loves, McGrady must make hard choices in order to survive his increasingly perilous milieus. The same doggedness that propels his survival also compels him to keep tracking his quarry across distance and time, even as the whole world falls apart.

McGrady is a terrific protagonist, smart but willing to keep learning, tough but capable of letting experience guide him to becoming a better person. The losses he experiences are heart-rending, but no less so are the genuine hurts of the people he encounters as he closes in on a cold-blooded killer. The raw emotion of the book only serves to make the noir mystery at its core that much more compelling, as it deftly uses our own expectations to devastating effect. Written in spare prose that conveys beauty and brutality in equal, eloquent measure, Five Decembers is an extraordinary novel of wartime crime and justice, and loves lost and refound.

Joe McGrady is just trying to have a whiskey or two after his shift when he is called back to check on something for the Honolulu Police chief. The discovery of a body sets in motion an epic set of events starting on the eve of America's involvement in WW2.

This is a great story that is written in a plain mild-boiled style. I guess my one criticism is that the book doesn't give much more than what the story delivers. While I always wanted to know where the story was leading, I never felt too much for Joe as a character.

I think this book is bound to be a success for Hard Case Crime, but it wasn't one that I felt as invested in as other readers.

Five Decembers manages to meld an epic war novel with a striking crime novel – and does it extremely well!

The historical details are so vivid that I felt like I was living in the setting. The story itself? Heartbreaking.

The author does noir so well, from the language to the overall darkness and edge that permeates everything.

A thoroughly engrossing novel that completely immersed me in another time and place.

Five well deserved stars.

*ARC via Publisher

Great book like always with the Hard case collection. Fun story, very entertaining for the pulp lovers or nostalgic. Great scenes/moments and just a good reading time!