PRAISE FOR FIVE DECEMBERS BY JAMES KESTREL, FINALIST FOR THE EDGAR, HAMMETT AND BRAM STOKER AWARDS
"Hard-as-nails mystery/suspense/noir set against a backdrop of war in the Pacific. One hell of a good story." - Stephen King
“War, imprisonment, torture, romance…The novel has an almost operatic symmetry, and Kestrel turns a beautiful phrase.” -The New York Times, Best Mystery Novels of 2021
“Lyrical, violent, intelligent, breathtaking: this is an unforgettable book.” - Wall Street Journal
"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." -Library Journal, Starred Review
"Vivid, richly detailed... This tale of love, courage, hardship, and devotion is unforgettable"
Publishers Weekly, Starred Review and Editor's Choice
"Magnificent... a transcendent love story and a gripping thriller... it works superbly... 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."
-Booklist, Starred Review & Booklist's Best Books of the Year
"It’s never easy to challenge the expectations of a beloved genre successfully, but Kestrel has done just that, growing an adventure story far beyond the expectations of a noir murder mystery."
Los Angeles Review of Books
"Kestrel’s expertly clipped descriptive passages and dialogue bring his spacious canvas into razor-sharp focus." -Kirkus Reviews
"A gripping, resonant neo-noir odyssey" -New York Magazine
"A great blend of crime, war, and history." The New York Post
"2021 was a memorable reading year, and I can’t think of a better way to close it out than with this unique mystery, which will engage you from start to finish." - Bookreporter
"I doubt I’ll read a more satisfying novel this year... This book is the work of a true craftsman."
-Morning Star
"A well-written and suspenseful crime thriller" - Washington Times
“Five Decembers is absolutely terrific. I can’t remember the last novel I read that was so beautifully immersive. A joy to read.” -Lou Berney
"Five Decembers is really excellent. A first-rate book." -James Fallows
"A crime epic for the ages." -Dennis Lehane
"What a story! Totally engrossing, beautifully written, sometimes shocking and very moving."
-Elly Griffiths
"Five Decembers is a masterpiece. You'll stay up all night with this one. It’s unique and it’s terrific."
-Eric Redman, author of The Dance of Legislation and Bones of Hilo
"Utterly enthralling. Wildly ambitious and deeply haunting, Five Decembers drops you in the middle of a dark noir dream full of heat, loss and memory. Not to be missed" -Megan Abbott
"James Kestrel evokes the Hawaii, the Hong Kong and the Tokyo of the 1940s with an urgency, a vividness—a passion—few of us can have met before. Read this book for its palpitating story, its perfect emotional and physical detailing and, most of all, for its unforgettable conjuring of a steamy quicksilver world that will be new to almost every reader." -Pico Iyer
“The definition of a page-turner… an emotionally charged crime novel shaped by the tragic years of a world at war, a story that is relentlessly hopeful in the face of unrequited devotion and doomed love.”
-Every Read Thing
“Loved every page. A brilliant wartime noir that entangles you in a mystery while transporting you to a different age.” - Mason Cross
”I was completely blown away by Five Decembers. It is one of best novels I have read about the twilight days of empire, its protagonist getting caught up in the maelstrom of the British, Japanese and European empires dragging themselves into oblivion. ” -Steven Powell
“One of the most stunning and brilliant modern novels I have read.” - Peter Cozzens
“What a wonderful book Five Decembers is! One of the best hardboiled mysteries I've read in years, and an epic war story and love story to boot.” - James Reasoner
"A gripping, taut, magnificent saga unlike anything we’ve ever read in our life. No understatement there. It is a work of power, brilliant plotting, heart and grace" -Pulp Fiction Reviews
"Everything about this book is terrific... If I were to recommend just one 2021 title for you to read, it would be this one. It’s that good." -Deadly Pleasures
"Unravels much like a traditional mystery, albeit a superior one.... as much a love story as a mystery, if not more...an undoubted success." -CrimeFictionLover
"As James Ellroy might say, 'Don’t pay the rent. Buy this book!'” Steve Powell, The Venetian Vase
"Five Decembers feels like it could have been written during the golden age of noir… hugely satisfying.” - SFBook Review
"An electrifying thriller set in the Pacific theatre of World War II" - The Straits Times
"'Five Decembers' is a police procedural, a war story, a cultural history, a thriller, a romance, a tourist’s guide to Honolulu. It’s everything. It’s too much. But so what? This book is awesome. So’s the writing. Kestrel’s lean prose and cinematic eye makes an impossible story seem probable, even likely." - Expressed
ACCLAIM FOR THE AUTHOR’S EARLIER WORK:
"Suspense that never stops."
James Patterson
"An electrifying read."
Stephen King
★ 08/16/2021
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. (Oct.)
★ 10/15/2021
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.
2021-08-18
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.