A highly plausible alternate history exploring what might have happened had the Japanese empire chosen to invade and occupy the Hawaiian islands rather than carry out the drive-by style attack at Pearl Harbor they did in actuality. His characters are well developed; as in his other books, he creates a fairly large cast of memorable people, and the subplots involving their experiences with the invasion and occupation both give the story greater depth and show more detail about the military and civilian cultures of the period and the Nazi-like brutality - ugly but historically authentic - toward civilian populations with which the Japanese fought the war.