September 25, 2025
Five Decembers by James Kestrel
In early December 1941, Detective Joe McGrady is new to the Honolulu police department, having been recently discharged from the Army. One rainy night, his captain sends him out to a dairy farm to investigate a wild story told by a drunken farm worker of finding a dead body hanging in a shed. Little does Joe know that the case will take him to China and Japan, far from the woman he loves as he chases down a vicious killer.
Winner of the Edgar award, a traditional noir mystery with the traditional hard-boiled crime cover, beginning in Honolulu in December 1941. Gritty, violent, bloody. There are shocking descriptions of Tokyo after it was fire-bombed by American bombers. It turns out the Americans didn't need the atomic bomb after all - since almost all the buildings in Japan were made of wood, regular fire bombs wreaked just as much destruction as the A-bomb (see picture below). This is a can't-put-down read - I read a third of the book the day that I started it. Readers who enjoy the grit lit fiction of James Ellroy or James McCain or even Don Winslow will enjoy this classic noir.
Tokyo after the fire bombing
