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December 6
Amid the imperialist fervor of late 1941 Tokyo, Harry Niles is a man with a mission -- self-preservation. But Niles was raised by missionary parents and educated in the shadows of Tokyo's underworld -- making his loyalties as dubious as his business dealings.
Now, on the eve of the attack on Pearl Harbor, Niles must decide where his true allegiances lie, as he tries to juggle his Japanese mistress and an adulterous affair with the wife of a British diplomat; avoid a modern-day samurai who is honor-bound to kill him; and survive the machinations of the Japanese high command, whose plans for conquest may just dictate his survival.
Set in a maelstrom of personal temptations and mortal enemies, with a remarkable anti-hero caught in a land he can never call his own, DECEMBER 6 is a triumph of imagination, history, and riveting storytelling.
Now, on the eve of the attack on Pearl Harbor, Niles must decide where his true allegiances lie, as he tries to juggle his Japanese mistress and an adulterous affair with the wife of a British diplomat; avoid a modern-day samurai who is honor-bound to kill him; and survive the machinations of the Japanese high command, whose plans for conquest may just dictate his survival.
Set in a maelstrom of personal temptations and mortal enemies, with a remarkable anti-hero caught in a land he can never call his own, DECEMBER 6 is a triumph of imagination, history, and riveting storytelling.
383 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published September 30, 2002
279 people are currently reading
1497 people want to read
About the author
Martin Cruz Smith
53 books1,274 followersMartin Cruz Smith (AKA Simon Quinn, Nick Carter, Jake Logan, and Martin Quinn) was an American writer of mystery and suspense fiction, mostly in an international or historical setting. He was best known for his 11-book series featuring Russian investigator Arkady Renko, who was introduced in 1981 with Gorky Park and appeared in Independence Square (2023) and Hotel Ukraine (2025). [Wikipedia]
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 304 reviews
November 16, 2020
5 Stars
(Also published in 2002 under the title: December 6th. I'm not sure if there are differences in the text between the two versions...)
A truly excellent book, a time machine back to 1922 and 1941 Tokyo and Japan. Cruz Smith has here escaped the gilded cage of Arkady Renko for a standalone tale.
Harry is a "missionary kid" left mostly on his own in Tokyo, while his evangelical parents are going around Japan (and some China), mostly being ignore by the Japanese. They don't come into the story very much at all.
Cruz Smith provides great prose, amazing research and background, fully living characters, and great plot and dialogue.
There are two time frames interleaved in the book:
(A) The 1920s when Harry is a teen and young man
(B) December 1941, when Harry is fully grown, the days before the attack on Pearl Harbour
There was a time when Harry was in America between (A) and (B), but that is not covered so much here. This is all about pre-war Tokyo and Japan. Superb stuff.
Hajime's Japanese army pistol, Baby Nambu
Full size image here
Just over half-way through the book, there is a truly exquisite and erotic love scene by Cruz Smith. Beautiful prose.
This is a truly wonderful story, presented beautifully by Cruz Smith.
Notes and quotes:
(B time frame) Harry's girl, Michiko
She had the kind of gaze that penetrated the dark. Harry sensed there was some sort of silent conversation going on, a test of wills that he was losing. Michiko was complicated. She might be Japanese, but she was from Osaka, and Osaka women didn’t mince words or back down. She was a doctrinaire Red who kept stacks of Vogue under a Shinto shrine in a corner of the room. She was a feminist and, at the same time, was a great admirer of a Tokyo woman who, denied her lover’s attention, had famously strangled him and sliced off his privates to carry close to her heart. What frightened Harry was that he knew Michiko regarded a double suicide of lovers as a happy ending, but she’d be willing to settle for a murder-suicide if need be. It seemed to him that the safest possible course was to deny they were lovers at all.
-
Extraordinarily, in the (B) time frame, some cars run on charcoal!
By the time he made it to the street, Willie was waiting with DeGeorge, whose taxi wasn’t going anywhere soon. The driver poured fresh charcoal into the top of the furnace and cranked a fan.
“Like riding a fucking hibachi,” DeGeorge said.
-
(B)
Harry remembering the gang of kids when he was young, and sad about the war in China
One day we talked about what we were going to do when we grew up. I was going to be rich. He said what he wanted was to become a soldier so he could die for the emperor. And he got his wish. If you’re captured or surrender, you’re worse than dead, and you shame your family; but if you die fighting, you become a kind of a god, and this is your shrine, along with all the other loyal Japanese who died for their emperors. Since the fighting in China started, there are a hundred thousand new gods here. It used to be fun. There were wrestlers, jugglers, puppets, snake charmers.
-
(B)
“Well, your English sounds better than mine,” Harry said. Even the cupped echoes of Iris’s Chinese intonation were charming.
-
(B)
Harry took a picture of the man with a young recruit who had a bright red face from ceremonial farewell cups of sake and a thousand-stitch belt tied like a scarf around his neck, a son who was obviously the measure of his father’s love.
The "thousand-stitch belt", with mythical protective powers.
Full size image here
(A time frame)
Gaijin were freaks, and Harry’s parents were the biggest freaks of all. The pair of them preaching the gospel on a street corner was almost mortally embarrassing to Harry. First was the presumption of preaching at all before being asked. Second was his father’s total inability to speak Japanese. Third was his mother’s partial Japanese. Fourth was the fact that she spoke not women’s but men’s Japanese, full of bluster no decent woman would use. Fifth was the way she stood beside her husband instead of behind him. Sixth was their mysterious ignorance about how much and to whom to bow. Seventh was their loudness. Eighth was their clumsiness. Ninth was their color. Tenth was their size. Those were the Ten Sins of Gaijin, and every day Roger and Harriet Niles were guilty of each one.
-
(B)
Agawa grunted, which Harry took as not necessarily yes or no but at least not violent objection. Harry suspected that two Japanese didn’t need words at all, they could communicate perfectly well with grunts, grimaces, winces, frowns, inhales, exhales, eyes cast down and to the side, brows furrowed with concern or gathered in anger, not to even mention bows.
-
(B)
“Now you have the ashes. Now your mother will have peace of mind. You will have peace of mind, too, because you will know that you have done everything possible to make her happy and allow her to pray for him. You have lost him, and now he is found. A good shepherd rejoices more in the one lost sheep he has found than in the hundred that never strayed.”
-
(A)
Beautiful prose.
The model was not Oharu but Chizuko, the small dancer Harry had seen changing into a ballerina’s tutu on his first visit to backstage. Her hair, cut short as a schoolgirl’s, cupped her broad face. Kato had depicted her standing in the snow, dressed in a red, slightly soiled kimono, barefoot in stilted clogs, a paper peony in her hair and a rolled tatami mat slung across her back. The mat was the trademark of a “sparrow,” a prostitute with the coarsest sort of clientele. Although she was younger than Oharu, Chizuko’s eyes returned the viewer’s gaze with blunt directness. Her cheeks and her feet were flushed from the cold, and despite the snowflakes that swirled around her, Harry could feel her heat.
-
(B)
Beautiful prose.
The night sky was a deep blue edged by the softest light of any major city in the world, light that escaped from paper windows and sliding doors or was the tear-shaped light of streetlamps along the banks of the Sumida. At this distance from the Ginza, there were no office buildings to blot out the view, only occasional spikes of neon like the Ebisu Beer tower or the giant illuminated clock of Ueno Station, otherwise only a steady churn behind the backs of obscure one-and two-story houses. Half-seen figures wrung clothes on balconies that overhung the water. A muted glow of patched windows gave way to a bright corner with a streetlamp, neighborhood pump, the calls of children around a street musician, which in turn gave way to the next stretch of blind windows, music swallowed as quickly as it had emerged. The only river traffic was other river buses or barges that eased in and out of canals.
-
(A)
Beautiful prose again, after a beautiful sex scene.
Harry did know that his knowledge of the world had just doubled, as if the moon shone not as brightly as the sun but as fully in a softer way, as if he could see his body by her light. She changed the nature and purpose of skin, of hands, of mouth. The scent of Oharu stayed on him like salt on a swimmer. Many things made more sense now than they had ten minutes before. An equal number of things no longer made any sense at all.
-
Followed by a profound sleep with Harry folded around Oharu as if they were riding with their eyes closed slowly through the rain, the heart’s rhythm like a black horse. A faint electric haze lay in all directions. They rode through high grass soughing in the wind.
-
(A) Harry and parents left Tokyo to go to America
While the Nileses had been at sea, 120,000 Japanese had died in [the horrific earthquake in] Tokyo in three days of shaking and fire. Except for the Imperial Hotel and Tokyo Station, hardly a building was left standing. The updraft of the fire was so intense it lifted people high into the air, where they burst into flame. American observers said it was the end of Tokyo as a modern city and that it would take the Japanese fifty years to recover.
-
(B)
He’d seen geisha go in and out of the willow house for the past two years. The problem was that the whole geisha presentation was a mask. Their faces were masks of white greasepaint under elaborate, top-heavy wigs with hairpins and tiny bells. They were wrapped in volumes of kimono and minced unnaturally in high wedge sandals. Every gesture and every note were pieces of acting, a doll-like combination of the innocent and erotic.
-
(B)
Mild
-
(B)
There was an old saying, that if after five minutes in a card game you don’t know who the mark is, it’s you.
.
(Also published in 2002 under the title: December 6th. I'm not sure if there are differences in the text between the two versions...)
A truly excellent book, a time machine back to 1922 and 1941 Tokyo and Japan. Cruz Smith has here escaped the gilded cage of Arkady Renko for a standalone tale.
Harry is a "missionary kid" left mostly on his own in Tokyo, while his evangelical parents are going around Japan (and some China), mostly being ignore by the Japanese. They don't come into the story very much at all.
Cruz Smith provides great prose, amazing research and background, fully living characters, and great plot and dialogue.
There are two time frames interleaved in the book:
(A) The 1920s when Harry is a teen and young man
(B) December 1941, when Harry is fully grown, the days before the attack on Pearl Harbour
There was a time when Harry was in America between (A) and (B), but that is not covered so much here. This is all about pre-war Tokyo and Japan. Superb stuff.
Hajime's Japanese army pistol, Baby Nambu
Full size image here
Just over half-way through the book, there is a truly exquisite and erotic love scene by Cruz Smith. Beautiful prose.
This is a truly wonderful story, presented beautifully by Cruz Smith.
Notes and quotes:
(B time frame) Harry's girl, Michiko
She had the kind of gaze that penetrated the dark. Harry sensed there was some sort of silent conversation going on, a test of wills that he was losing. Michiko was complicated. She might be Japanese, but she was from Osaka, and Osaka women didn’t mince words or back down. She was a doctrinaire Red who kept stacks of Vogue under a Shinto shrine in a corner of the room. She was a feminist and, at the same time, was a great admirer of a Tokyo woman who, denied her lover’s attention, had famously strangled him and sliced off his privates to carry close to her heart. What frightened Harry was that he knew Michiko regarded a double suicide of lovers as a happy ending, but she’d be willing to settle for a murder-suicide if need be. It seemed to him that the safest possible course was to deny they were lovers at all.
-
Extraordinarily, in the (B) time frame, some cars run on charcoal!
By the time he made it to the street, Willie was waiting with DeGeorge, whose taxi wasn’t going anywhere soon. The driver poured fresh charcoal into the top of the furnace and cranked a fan.
“Like riding a fucking hibachi,” DeGeorge said.
-
(B)
Harry remembering the gang of kids when he was young, and sad about the war in China
One day we talked about what we were going to do when we grew up. I was going to be rich. He said what he wanted was to become a soldier so he could die for the emperor. And he got his wish. If you’re captured or surrender, you’re worse than dead, and you shame your family; but if you die fighting, you become a kind of a god, and this is your shrine, along with all the other loyal Japanese who died for their emperors. Since the fighting in China started, there are a hundred thousand new gods here. It used to be fun. There were wrestlers, jugglers, puppets, snake charmers.
-
(B)
“Well, your English sounds better than mine,” Harry said. Even the cupped echoes of Iris’s Chinese intonation were charming.
-
(B)
Harry took a picture of the man with a young recruit who had a bright red face from ceremonial farewell cups of sake and a thousand-stitch belt tied like a scarf around his neck, a son who was obviously the measure of his father’s love.
The "thousand-stitch belt", with mythical protective powers.
Full size image here
(A time frame)
Gaijin were freaks, and Harry’s parents were the biggest freaks of all. The pair of them preaching the gospel on a street corner was almost mortally embarrassing to Harry. First was the presumption of preaching at all before being asked. Second was his father’s total inability to speak Japanese. Third was his mother’s partial Japanese. Fourth was the fact that she spoke not women’s but men’s Japanese, full of bluster no decent woman would use. Fifth was the way she stood beside her husband instead of behind him. Sixth was their mysterious ignorance about how much and to whom to bow. Seventh was their loudness. Eighth was their clumsiness. Ninth was their color. Tenth was their size. Those were the Ten Sins of Gaijin, and every day Roger and Harriet Niles were guilty of each one.
-
(B)
Agawa grunted, which Harry took as not necessarily yes or no but at least not violent objection. Harry suspected that two Japanese didn’t need words at all, they could communicate perfectly well with grunts, grimaces, winces, frowns, inhales, exhales, eyes cast down and to the side, brows furrowed with concern or gathered in anger, not to even mention bows.
-
(B)
“Now you have the ashes. Now your mother will have peace of mind. You will have peace of mind, too, because you will know that you have done everything possible to make her happy and allow her to pray for him. You have lost him, and now he is found. A good shepherd rejoices more in the one lost sheep he has found than in the hundred that never strayed.”
-
(A)
Beautiful prose.
The model was not Oharu but Chizuko, the small dancer Harry had seen changing into a ballerina’s tutu on his first visit to backstage. Her hair, cut short as a schoolgirl’s, cupped her broad face. Kato had depicted her standing in the snow, dressed in a red, slightly soiled kimono, barefoot in stilted clogs, a paper peony in her hair and a rolled tatami mat slung across her back. The mat was the trademark of a “sparrow,” a prostitute with the coarsest sort of clientele. Although she was younger than Oharu, Chizuko’s eyes returned the viewer’s gaze with blunt directness. Her cheeks and her feet were flushed from the cold, and despite the snowflakes that swirled around her, Harry could feel her heat.
-
(B)
Beautiful prose.
The night sky was a deep blue edged by the softest light of any major city in the world, light that escaped from paper windows and sliding doors or was the tear-shaped light of streetlamps along the banks of the Sumida. At this distance from the Ginza, there were no office buildings to blot out the view, only occasional spikes of neon like the Ebisu Beer tower or the giant illuminated clock of Ueno Station, otherwise only a steady churn behind the backs of obscure one-and two-story houses. Half-seen figures wrung clothes on balconies that overhung the water. A muted glow of patched windows gave way to a bright corner with a streetlamp, neighborhood pump, the calls of children around a street musician, which in turn gave way to the next stretch of blind windows, music swallowed as quickly as it had emerged. The only river traffic was other river buses or barges that eased in and out of canals.
-
(A)
Beautiful prose again, after a beautiful sex scene.
Harry did know that his knowledge of the world had just doubled, as if the moon shone not as brightly as the sun but as fully in a softer way, as if he could see his body by her light. She changed the nature and purpose of skin, of hands, of mouth. The scent of Oharu stayed on him like salt on a swimmer. Many things made more sense now than they had ten minutes before. An equal number of things no longer made any sense at all.
-
Followed by a profound sleep with Harry folded around Oharu as if they were riding with their eyes closed slowly through the rain, the heart’s rhythm like a black horse. A faint electric haze lay in all directions. They rode through high grass soughing in the wind.
-
(A) Harry and parents left Tokyo to go to America
While the Nileses had been at sea, 120,000 Japanese had died in [the horrific earthquake in] Tokyo in three days of shaking and fire. Except for the Imperial Hotel and Tokyo Station, hardly a building was left standing. The updraft of the fire was so intense it lifted people high into the air, where they burst into flame. American observers said it was the end of Tokyo as a modern city and that it would take the Japanese fifty years to recover.
-
(B)
He’d seen geisha go in and out of the willow house for the past two years. The problem was that the whole geisha presentation was a mask. Their faces were masks of white greasepaint under elaborate, top-heavy wigs with hairpins and tiny bells. They were wrapped in volumes of kimono and minced unnaturally in high wedge sandals. Every gesture and every note were pieces of acting, a doll-like combination of the innocent and erotic.
-
(B)
Mild
-
(B)
There was an old saying, that if after five minutes in a card game you don’t know who the mark is, it’s you.
.
January 22, 2010
Ever wonder how things might have been different for Rick Blaine, the ostensibly selfish nightclub owner from Casablanca, had he lived in Japan during the 1940s, rather than Morocco? Martin Cruz Smith offers a reasonable scenario in December 6.
This slickly plotted, exotically atmospheric thriller opens in Tokyo just a few days before bombs start raining on Pearl Harbor. There we meet roguish Harry Niles, the culturally conflicted son of religious missionaries and owner of the Happy Paris, a club known for its enigmatic jukebox jockey, Michiko, who also happens to be Harry's mistress. With war rumors rampant, Harry--distrusted by both U.S. and Japanese authorities--"was skipping town. Any sane person would." He has a seat waiting on what may be the final flight out to Hong Kong, and plans to escape from there to the States with a British diplomat's wife. But first, there are business and personal affairs to settle, not the least of which is an oil-tank con he's been running on the Imperial Navy--a desperate strategy to stop his beloved Japan from entering into self-destructive conflict with America. Harry also has to duck a sword-wielding military fanatic, who's seeking revenge for a long-ago incident that cost him honor, and bid sayonara to Michiko, a woman as scary as she is seductive. (Oh, well, at least they'll always have the Happy Paris.)
This book memorably re-creates wartime Tokyo, with its pet beetles and mincing geishas and naive belief that "victory lies in a faith in victory." Yet it's Harry Niles--cynical on top, sentimental beneath--who really carries December 6, a novel as brilliantly convoluted and captivating as any Smith (Gorky Park , Havana Bay ) has yet concocted. --J. Kingston Pierce
This slickly plotted, exotically atmospheric thriller opens in Tokyo just a few days before bombs start raining on Pearl Harbor. There we meet roguish Harry Niles, the culturally conflicted son of religious missionaries and owner of the Happy Paris, a club known for its enigmatic jukebox jockey, Michiko, who also happens to be Harry's mistress. With war rumors rampant, Harry--distrusted by both U.S. and Japanese authorities--"was skipping town. Any sane person would." He has a seat waiting on what may be the final flight out to Hong Kong, and plans to escape from there to the States with a British diplomat's wife. But first, there are business and personal affairs to settle, not the least of which is an oil-tank con he's been running on the Imperial Navy--a desperate strategy to stop his beloved Japan from entering into self-destructive conflict with America. Harry also has to duck a sword-wielding military fanatic, who's seeking revenge for a long-ago incident that cost him honor, and bid sayonara to Michiko, a woman as scary as she is seductive. (Oh, well, at least they'll always have the Happy Paris.)
This book memorably re-creates wartime Tokyo, with its pet beetles and mincing geishas and naive belief that "victory lies in a faith in victory." Yet it's Harry Niles--cynical on top, sentimental beneath--who really carries December 6, a novel as brilliantly convoluted and captivating as any Smith (Gorky Park , Havana Bay ) has yet concocted. --J. Kingston Pierce
December 27, 2021
The review that caught my attention, and caused me to read the book was Willim's, https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
-- and that's the one to read first. I'll wait.
December 6 (Pearl Harbor Day) is a compulsively-readable book, that I read in (basically) 2 sittings, with a break to tend to other business. In retrospect, I have suspension-of-disbelief issues, and Harry Niles, while a great character, was less than believable (to my eye) as a person. OK, he's a fictional device, and I don't doubt that Smith did his usual thorough homework before and during his writing of this alternate-history thriller. I didn't much care for the ending. But while reading the book, up to the very end I was utterly convinced! Weak 4 stars, brought down a bit by the ending. Recommended for Martin Cruz Smith fans who are looking for a standalone beyond the Arkady Renko novels.
-- and that's the one to read first. I'll wait.
December 6 (Pearl Harbor Day) is a compulsively-readable book, that I read in (basically) 2 sittings, with a break to tend to other business. In retrospect, I have suspension-of-disbelief issues, and Harry Niles, while a great character, was less than believable (to my eye) as a person. OK, he's a fictional device, and I don't doubt that Smith did his usual thorough homework before and during his writing of this alternate-history thriller. I didn't much care for the ending. But while reading the book, up to the very end I was utterly convinced! Weak 4 stars, brought down a bit by the ending. Recommended for Martin Cruz Smith fans who are looking for a standalone beyond the Arkady Renko novels.
November 8, 2011
December 6 is not a perfect book, it was a little too gritty in places for my taste, but, nevertheless, it was a great read. A lot of people can write. And some work very hard to develop their craft. But Martin Cruz Smith is, in my opinion, one of those supremely talented writers that every generation seems to have only a very few.
What I particularly marvel at in Smith's writing is the extraordinary creativity he puts into his sentences. He approaches each sentence thoughtfully and uniquely - truly uniquely, both in structure and in perspective. I also admire how he flushes out important scenes, brushing on layer upon layer of richness, weaving actions, thoughts, and dialogue in some truly memorable portraits - for example, if you read December 6 and come to the scene in the Willow House between Harry, his girl friend, and Ishigami - just consider how long the scene lasts and all the territory of emotions, character development, and tension that were covered. And then ask yourself how on earth did that scene come to be written or even imagined.
What I particularly marvel at in Smith's writing is the extraordinary creativity he puts into his sentences. He approaches each sentence thoughtfully and uniquely - truly uniquely, both in structure and in perspective. I also admire how he flushes out important scenes, brushing on layer upon layer of richness, weaving actions, thoughts, and dialogue in some truly memorable portraits - for example, if you read December 6 and come to the scene in the Willow House between Harry, his girl friend, and Ishigami - just consider how long the scene lasts and all the territory of emotions, character development, and tension that were covered. And then ask yourself how on earth did that scene come to be written or even imagined.
November 5, 2019
Martin Cruz Smith is best known for the eight bestselling novels (with the ninth now on the way) about police detective Arkady Renko in the USSR and, later, Russia. However, he has written nearly two dozen other books, including two other series of thrillers and a number of standalone novels. December 6 is one of the standalone efforts, and it's a worthy one. It's a thriller set in Imperial Japan.
A talent for historical research
Smith's Arkady Renko novels have attracted praise for the depth of his research. He won several literary awards for the books. And his talent for digging below the surface of the historical record shows brightly in December 6. The date, of course, is the day before Imperial Japan attacked the United States at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, as 1941 drew to a close.
A thriller set in Imperial Japan on the eve of Pearl Harbor
Smith takes us behind the scenes in the repressive, militaristic society of the Empire of Japan through the eyes of an expatriate American named Harry Niles. Harry is the son of Protestant missionaries who left him largely on his own growing up in Tokyo. Rebelling against his rigid, clueless parents, Harry soon proved himself adept as a pickpocket, a conman, and a courier among underworld figures. Unlike his parents, he became bilingual in Japanese and came to know the complexities of Japanese society.
A con man enlisted to investigate fraud by the Allies
As the novel opens, Harry, now thirty years old, has become a wealthy businessman, largely through illegal activity. He owns a popular bar. Meanwhile, his boyhood friends have followed other paths: one is a rising officer in the Japanese navy, a second has become a yakuza, and a third, a sadistic bully, has become a sergeant in the army. These connections give Harry insight into the country's preparation for war. And his friend Gen, the naval officer, enlists his help to investigate possible fraud by the American and British oil companies that have been caught up in the Allied blockade and oil embargo. (Japan had signed the Tripartite Pact with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy in 1940.)
The US oil embargo was decisive
Many historians have asserted that the US oil embargo was the decisive measure that pushed Japan to war. By the end of 1941, the shortage of oil in the islands was so severe that private automobiles were running on charcoal. To compound the problem, the blockade had cut off food shipments. Millions were already suffering.
Americans tend to forget that by late 1941 Japan had already been at war in China for ten years, having invaded Manchuria in 1931. The infamous Rape of Nanking had taken place in 1937. And that event figures as a central element in Smith's novel.
Two leading historical figures enter the tale
In the course of his investigation, Harry becomes acquainted with one of the central figures of the war: Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto. He has also come to know the prime minister, General Hideki Tojo, although from afar. Tojo merely makes a cameo appearance, but Harry's interaction with the admiral is notable. Involving these two historical figures in this thriller set in Imperial Japan is a natural. It adds depth to the picture Smith paints of the nation as it set out to war.
A talent for historical research
Smith's Arkady Renko novels have attracted praise for the depth of his research. He won several literary awards for the books. And his talent for digging below the surface of the historical record shows brightly in December 6. The date, of course, is the day before Imperial Japan attacked the United States at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, as 1941 drew to a close.
A thriller set in Imperial Japan on the eve of Pearl Harbor
Smith takes us behind the scenes in the repressive, militaristic society of the Empire of Japan through the eyes of an expatriate American named Harry Niles. Harry is the son of Protestant missionaries who left him largely on his own growing up in Tokyo. Rebelling against his rigid, clueless parents, Harry soon proved himself adept as a pickpocket, a conman, and a courier among underworld figures. Unlike his parents, he became bilingual in Japanese and came to know the complexities of Japanese society.
A con man enlisted to investigate fraud by the Allies
As the novel opens, Harry, now thirty years old, has become a wealthy businessman, largely through illegal activity. He owns a popular bar. Meanwhile, his boyhood friends have followed other paths: one is a rising officer in the Japanese navy, a second has become a yakuza, and a third, a sadistic bully, has become a sergeant in the army. These connections give Harry insight into the country's preparation for war. And his friend Gen, the naval officer, enlists his help to investigate possible fraud by the American and British oil companies that have been caught up in the Allied blockade and oil embargo. (Japan had signed the Tripartite Pact with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy in 1940.)
The US oil embargo was decisive
Many historians have asserted that the US oil embargo was the decisive measure that pushed Japan to war. By the end of 1941, the shortage of oil in the islands was so severe that private automobiles were running on charcoal. To compound the problem, the blockade had cut off food shipments. Millions were already suffering.
Americans tend to forget that by late 1941 Japan had already been at war in China for ten years, having invaded Manchuria in 1931. The infamous Rape of Nanking had taken place in 1937. And that event figures as a central element in Smith's novel.
Two leading historical figures enter the tale
In the course of his investigation, Harry becomes acquainted with one of the central figures of the war: Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto. He has also come to know the prime minister, General Hideki Tojo, although from afar. Tojo merely makes a cameo appearance, but Harry's interaction with the admiral is notable. Involving these two historical figures in this thriller set in Imperial Japan is a natural. It adds depth to the picture Smith paints of the nation as it set out to war.
August 22, 2015
Jako dobar politički krimić alternativne povijesti Japanskog napada na Pearl Harbor.
July 27, 2015
I enjoyed this for its look into the culture and society of pre -WWII Japan through the eyes of the lead character - Harry Niles. The novel kept me engaged until the end where Mr. Cruz Smith seemed to run out of steam (IMO). But the first 90% of this novel makes up for the the final bit. I enjoyed the way he switched between the grown Harry Niles dealing with the race to war and the younger harry Niles on the verge of manhood set in the 1920s as it helps to explain how he became the man we see as an adult.
December 17, 2009
Avoid the Kingston Pierce synopsis above if you're allergic to spoilers. I'm afraid that if you read it, you'll find very little left to discover in this slight book.
Cruz Smith's protagonist here (Harry Niles) is a Japanese-raised gaijin gambler, but he thinks, reacts, and speaks with the voice of Arkady Renko, Cruz Smith's Gorky Park series detective. (I somehow suspect that this is Cruz Smith's own voice.)
The author unspools the plot and main character cleverly by interposing flashbacks with Harry's present plight... how to get out of xenophobic Tokyo before the US and Japan go to war. But then the title already tells you all you need to know, Harry's looking for an exit on the very eve of Pearl Harbor and with all the flashbacks, "24" this ain't.
The atmosphere is well-drawn and the backstage information offered about access to oil predetermining the outcome of the war in the Pacific is intriguing, even if you might be left to wonder whether this represents more 20/20 hindsight than insight. Alas, Cruz Smith has to keep the smoke and mirrors going because ultimately if Niles cannot find a way out of Tokyo alive -- and this conflict is but an early blind that Cruz Smith quickly abandons -- our intrepid hero, like the book itself, simply has no place to go.
Cruz Smith's protagonist here (Harry Niles) is a Japanese-raised gaijin gambler, but he thinks, reacts, and speaks with the voice of Arkady Renko, Cruz Smith's Gorky Park series detective. (I somehow suspect that this is Cruz Smith's own voice.)
The author unspools the plot and main character cleverly by interposing flashbacks with Harry's present plight... how to get out of xenophobic Tokyo before the US and Japan go to war. But then the title already tells you all you need to know, Harry's looking for an exit on the very eve of Pearl Harbor and with all the flashbacks, "24" this ain't.
The atmosphere is well-drawn and the backstage information offered about access to oil predetermining the outcome of the war in the Pacific is intriguing, even if you might be left to wonder whether this represents more 20/20 hindsight than insight. Alas, Cruz Smith has to keep the smoke and mirrors going because ultimately if Niles cannot find a way out of Tokyo alive -- and this conflict is but an early blind that Cruz Smith quickly abandons -- our intrepid hero, like the book itself, simply has no place to go.
July 3, 2012
It's 1941 and the world is teetering on the brink of another world war. Martin Cruz Smith delivers another sizzling historical thriller with a fascinating cast of characters. Harry Niles, the son of American missionaries, lives in Tokyo. He grew up in Japan during the 1920s and speaks fluent Japanese. Equally important, he understands the culture. He can't decide what to do about Michiko, his beautiful hot-tempered lover. Michiko believes he's going to leave her. He says he won't, but ...
Deftly folding in back story, Cruz Smith shows us Harry's unusual (to put it mildly) childhood. With his parents off preaching the Gospel, Harry lived with an uncle, but spent most of his time with his Japanese playmates. By chance he stumbled into a brothel one day and made two new friends, an older Japanese man (an artist) and a beautiful young Japanese woman.
But by 1941 Harry is older and wiser, a grifter with a good heart. That's why Ishigami, a member of Japan's elite fighter force, is trying to kill him. If Michiko doesn't kill him first. And then there's the affair Harry's carrying on with the British Ambassador's wife. Convinced that the Japanese are about to bomb Pearl Harbor, Harry is desperate to get out of Japan.
You know what happened on December 6, 1941, but don't let that stop you. Sit back and enjoy the ride. Martin Cruz Smith will keep you on the edge of your seat.
Deftly folding in back story, Cruz Smith shows us Harry's unusual (to put it mildly) childhood. With his parents off preaching the Gospel, Harry lived with an uncle, but spent most of his time with his Japanese playmates. By chance he stumbled into a brothel one day and made two new friends, an older Japanese man (an artist) and a beautiful young Japanese woman.
But by 1941 Harry is older and wiser, a grifter with a good heart. That's why Ishigami, a member of Japan's elite fighter force, is trying to kill him. If Michiko doesn't kill him first. And then there's the affair Harry's carrying on with the British Ambassador's wife. Convinced that the Japanese are about to bomb Pearl Harbor, Harry is desperate to get out of Japan.
You know what happened on December 6, 1941, but don't let that stop you. Sit back and enjoy the ride. Martin Cruz Smith will keep you on the edge of your seat.
February 7, 2009
The day before Pearl Harbor as seen from the perspective of an American living in Tokyo. Martin Cruz Smith always seems to be able to find a unique viewpoint in his thrillers, making them much more than the standard "spies, girls, and guns" fare that permeate the genre. Instead, like John Le Carre, Smith uses the thriller as a means to explore the intersection between corruption and selflessness. Harry Niles is a man apparently driven by self-interest, and certainly not above breaking all kinds of laws in the pursuit of that self-interest, and yet he is drawn into a situation here where he finds himself, albeit reluctantly, elevated to the status of hero. The fact that his mission - to thwart the plan for attacking Pearl Harbor - is doomed to failure from the outset, makes his increasingly desperate attempts both poignant and nail-bitingly suspenseful. There is a good deal of graphic violence in the novel (mostly involving samurai swords and severed heads), but the plot and characterization kept me turning pages.
March 19, 2021
Am I the only one who often finds Goodreads website difficult to use?
I wrote a review of this book but then changed the edition from paperback to hardcover and the review disappeared.
Sigh.
This is definitely worth a read. Like much of the best fiction, one gets not only the story but a view into the times and place it is set in. In this case Japan the days before WWII.
I wrote a review of this book but then changed the edition from paperback to hardcover and the review disappeared.
Sigh.
This is definitely worth a read. Like much of the best fiction, one gets not only the story but a view into the times and place it is set in. In this case Japan the days before WWII.
August 6, 2017
I enjoyed this book. It was fascinating to read about Japanese culture in the 1920s and in the build up to Pearl Harbour. The European characters were a little caricatured but the Japanese ones much more interesting.
December 7, 2023
Initially this seemed a difficult book to penetrate, with little explanation or preamble to get it going. However, once orientated, the story gradually drew me in, as both the setting and the characters were gently revealed. A fascinating insight into Japanese culture, and possible motivation for the Pearl Harbour bombing (I guess mostly fiction), with a slowly building tension.
November 9, 2014
Martin Cruz Smith's Gorky Park is a tour de force. He captured the delicate balance of the consummate Russian soul - the self-doubt and growth that emerges in the conflict between spiritualism and modern scepticism, for example. December 6 is set in a different world - Japan immediately before Pearl Harbor, told by an American born and raised Japanese. Harry Niles, the protagonist, exhibits some similar internal conflicts, torn between loyalties to two women, two cultures, two societies, but this reader was left ultimately confused about his choices and ultimately, him. With Smith, maybe that was part of the point. An interesting foil to See's Shanghai Girls (read last month) and Golden's Memoirs of a Geisha (delicious, read a few years ago), both of which cover the Asian theater in pre-WWII. (Didn't know that the nape of a woman's neck is considered eminently sexual in Japan - the only Japanese guy I knew was fascinated with corn-fed American tits)
Quote: "...said Harry, who thanked God for women, or else the world would be full of proud men sitting on their thumbs."
Quote: "...said Harry, who thanked God for women, or else the world would be full of proud men sitting on their thumbs."
January 9, 2009
Something different from the creator of Arkady Renko. December 6 looks at world history in 1941 from Japan's point of view, mediated by con man Harry Niles, the son of American missionaries in Japan. Despite his passport, Niles is Japanese: reared in the culture and having absorbed its ideals and values. But as a round-eye and rogue, he's also never fully accepted. Martin Cruz Smith's book largely takes place in the days leading up to the bombing of Pearl Harbor, with flashbacks to Harry's childhood offering perspective and background. The suspense (Which side will Harry choose? How will he fit into historical events?) is nicely maintained right up to the end of the book. The characters (especially Harry, Michiko and Ishigami) are nuanced and unforgettable. The level of detail testifies to careful research by Smith. This was a quick read that kept me up later than usual a few nights. Yet, when all was said and done, I didn't want to move on.
June 3, 2016
Piacevole, ben scritto, ambientato con cura, insomma un ottimo libro di evasione per una serata rilassante.
June 6, 2018
So much happening in fateful day.
November 8, 2022
Martin Cruz Smith goes far, in both time and space, from the Arkady Renko series he’s famous for, but definitely not in harrowing situations he takes us. With the Happy Paris night club in pre WWII Tokyo, we have echos of Rick’s Café in Casablanca, but Rick never was or ever wanted to be Moroccan. Owner, Harry Niles, in many ways is more Japanese than American. We flash back often to his 1920s childhood, as his missionary parents traipse Japan seeking converts, he remains in Tokyo with his drunkard uncle, attending Japanese schools, living a near feral and definitely delinquent street life. As the title implies war is looming, which is far from the only danger this reluctant American faces. His girlfriend isn’t shy about threatening murder-suicide. Both sides seem to turn on this gambler. As he says, if you look around and can’t find who is the mark, you’re the mark. Add to that, a homicidally insane neo-samurai colonel in the Japanese army, is seeking revenge against Harry for a wrenching occurrence during the Rape of Nanking some years earlier. Harry describes his situation like being on a tightrope with a madman. The final hundred or so pages are definitely in edge of your seat country. Deep inside this ultimate antihero is a moral compass he can’t seem to shake, despite himself. So, we find we can’t help but root for him. But the book ends on December 7th (our side of the Dateline), leaving us with the uneasy feeling December 8th will not end well for many a character.
August 12, 2018
A very well researched and involving novel taking place in Japan immediately prior to the bombing of Pearl Harbor features, history, conflicting cultures, love and political intrigue. Harry Neil, a playboy, gambler, and son of missionaries to Japan is doing his best to make money and keep the peace in more ways than one. Watching him try to save Japan from going to war as he struggles to save his own skin and the life of his paramour is educational, entertaining and will keep you on the edge of your seat.
August 2, 2024
This was a bit different kind of book by Martin Cruz Smith. He spends a lot of time establishing the atmosphere and scenery of pre-war Japan, which I enjoyed, although I thought it went a bit too far in featuring the quirks of the Japanese society. Having lived in Japan for a decade, I understand the temptation to introduce these to a Western audience. In this case, though, it resulted in severely delayed action. In fact, I found that the first half of the book was at times tediously slow.
February 20, 2018
It's Chinatown in pre-war Tokyo. A brutal thriller where the identity of the murderer is never a secret, and the real mystery is who is the Saint Christopher of the antihero Harry Niles.
December 18, 2023
3,5/5
Era un 4 fino all'arrivo delle ultime due pagine, dove ho trovato il finale un po' deludente e sbrigativo. Peccato, perché il resto della storia mi ha coinvolto molto.
Era un 4 fino all'arrivo delle ultime due pagine, dove ho trovato il finale un po' deludente e sbrigativo. Peccato, perché il resto della storia mi ha coinvolto molto.
January 29, 2025
Set in Japan on the day before Pearl Harbor, this story of revenge, murder, loyalty, otherness, and love did not miss a beat.
January 1, 2020
Outstanding Cruz Novel
A view of Japan pre bombing of Pearl Harbor that is compelling. Cruz is in top form with rich dialogue and characters. Poignancy and brutality, mixed with just a bit of hope.
A view of Japan pre bombing of Pearl Harbor that is compelling. Cruz is in top form with rich dialogue and characters. Poignancy and brutality, mixed with just a bit of hope.
November 12, 2024
Decent thriller shows Cruz Smith can do more than just Arkady Renko novels, interesting premised executed pretty well.
January 20, 2013
While I've read many of Martin Cruz Smith's books, this was the first of his non-Arkady Renko books that I've read. Even though it wasn't quite the type of book I normally read, I definitely enjoyed it - and I have to say, it didn't seem anything like a typical MCS novel (and while I love MCS, this actually wasn't a bad thing). This book is weird, almost surrealist. It follows the life of an American fellow living in Japan in the days leading up to Pearl Harbor, interwoven with tales from this fellow's youth. Oh, and did I mention that this guy accidentally caused the Japanese to attack Pearl Harbor? And that there's a crazed modern samurai running about lopping people's heads off with a sword? It's almost Murakami-esque.
January 27, 2016
Cruz Smith created the endearing and ambitious Arkady Renko from Gorky Park to Wolves Eat Dogs, a great character. His take on a wild American boy growing up in Tokyo and working as a jazz bar owner and scam artist in Tokyo at the brink of WWII is interesting. Harry Niles is compelled to stay outside American and Japanese cultures while dangling a young Japanese women on the end of his attraction and endearing himself with a young British redhead who yearns for life without her British husband. The plot centres on Harry's misadventures and the chase of a Japanese general involved in the Nanjing massacre in 1937-38. The real general involved in Nanjing was far more murderous and imbued with the way of the Samurai. An interesting story but not compelling.
January 6, 2017
Smith is a venerable author, highly skilled with an amazing breadth of research and some excellent plot twists. The development of the main character – the con man Harry Niles living in Tokyo at the outbreak of World War II—is first rate. Smith expertly builds sympathy for Harry who thinks of himself as an amoral rogue but is really highly ethical and irrepressibly kind, but always believable and in character. The novel is a little slow to get into, but eventually all the various threads come together to lead to an explosive—and satisfying—end. Smith is certainly a marvelous author to learn from. I hope to read at least one more of his books this year.
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