Five Decembers

Starred review from August 16, 2021
In early December 1941, police detective Joe McGrady, the hero of this enthralling crime novel from the pseudonymous Kestrel, investigates the murder of Henry Kimmel Willard, a 21-year-old student at the University of Hawaii, whose tortured and disemboweled body was found hanging inside a shed in the mountains outside Honolulu. Also in the shed was the body of an unknown young Japanese woman, who was similarly butchered. Henry, who was destined for a promising career in Navy Intelligence, was studying Japanese, so his connection with the other victim may have been professional, as suggested to McGrady by his real-life uncle, Admiral Kimmel, who commands the U.S. Pacific Fleet moored at Pearl Harbor. A possibly related murder takes McGrady first to Wake Island and then to Hong Kong on the trail of an elusive assassin known as John Smith. When the Japanese capture Hong Kong, they take McGrady prisoner, but his quest for the killer is only beginning. Heartfelt, enduring images of war and the pain and damage it reaps are sprinkled throughout Kestrel’s vivid, richly detailed narrative, which carries McGrady to the end of WWII. This tale of love, courage, hardship, and devotion is unforgettable. Agent: Alice Martell, Martell Agency.

Starred review from August 1, 2021
Another Pearl Harbor novel? Not hardly. Kestrel's magnificent debut is a work of panoramic historical fiction, traversing in graphic detail not only Hawaii in the days before December 7, but also Hong Kong at the time of the Japanese invasion and Tokyo through the course of war. It's also a transcendent love story and a gripping thriller. It begins with the discovery of two eviscerated bodies, a white male and a Japanese female. Honolulu police detective Joe McGrady gets the case and soon is following the trail to Hong Kong, where he is arrested (on a trumped-up rape charge) and dumped in a jail cell. He's still there when Pearl Harbor is attacked and, later, when the Japanese overrun Hong Kong. Joe's fate takes another turn when a Japanese diplomat, uncle of the female victim in the Hawaii murder, whisks Joe off to Tokyo. A WWII novel in which the hero spends the entire war sequestered in a Tokyo house learning Japanese from a beautiful young woman? Yes, indeed, and it works superbly, with Kestrel expertly juggling a finely etched portrait of Tokyo at war with the developing love story and the still-unresolved murder case. All of these plot strands come together exquisitely in a truly breathtaking finale that is unbearably violent one moment and tearfully tender the next. Give this special novel the word of mouth it so richly deserves.

COPYRIGHT(2021) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

September 1, 2021
A Honolulu cop's search for an unusually brutal killer is upended by the arrival of World War II, which puts his investigation on hold and adds an epic dimension to his quest. Called over Thanksgiving weekend 1941 to a shed where an unknown young White man has been gutted and hung upside down, Detective Joe McGrady soon finds a second butchered corpse, that of a bound, naked Asian woman whose throat has been cut with the same Mark I model trench knife, and creates a third when he returns to the scene and wins a gunfight with a nameless scar-faced man. Capt. J.H. Beamer, who puts McGrady in charge of the case, clearly doesn't like or trust him and keeps him on a short leash because the first dead man's uncle, Adm. Kimmel, pulls a lot of weight, and his moneyed associate, John Francis Kincaid, even more. Acting on evidence McGrady's unearthed, Beamer sends him to Hong Kong in search of the mysterious John Smith, who's become the leading suspect. The morning after McGrady arrives, the Japanese bomb Pearl Harbor, cutting off any hope of his return home, and his trip stretches out to three years, first as a prisoner of the Hong Kong Police when Smith frames him for aggravated rape, then as a fugitive in the Tokyo home of Takahashi Kansei, the dead woman's pacifist uncle in the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Exposed to a bewildering variety of people, locations, and beliefs, McGrady miraculously manages not only to keep his cool in a world gone mad, but to return to Honolulu, where he was reported dead long ago, and close the case. Kestrel's expertly clipped descriptive passages and dialogue bring his spacious canvas into razor-sharp focus.

COPYRIGHT(2021) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Starred review from October 15, 2021

DEBUT In pseudonymous author Kestrel's World War II--set debut, Honolulu detective Joe McGrady investigates the brutal homicide of a young man. At the crime scene, he discovers a second body, a woman, also killed in brutal fashion. Over the course of his investigation, Joe returns to the murder site, where he's attacked and shoots his assailant in self-defense. But the real killer is still at large, and his trail leads to Hong Kong. Joe follows but is imprisoned in a Hong Kong jail on a false rape charge on December 7, 1941. Then Pearl Harbor is attacked, Hong Kong is taken by the Japanese, and an unlikely ally saves Joe from certain death and hides him in a Tokyo house, where Joe lives for the next four years. While there, he finds love but it falters. The war over, Joe returns to Honolulu to find that his prewar sweetheart is lost too. Picking up the thread of his old investigation gives purpose to Joe's otherwise purposeless life. In the process of solving the case, he encounters enemies he hadn't expected to find. VERDICT 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.

Copyright 2021 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.