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Summary: Great story! One of this year's best novels.
Review: The story is set in Tokyo on December 6, 1941. Harry Niles owns the Happy Paris saloon in the Asakusa district, a nightless city where sheltered libidos roam unfettered. Harry learned to adapt early in life growing up as the gaifin son of American missionaries in post WWI Japan. In flashbacks we see how much Harry will take and improvise to avoid submitting when his boyhood "friends" make him the target of their samurai games. The same friends are in his life on December 6th": Hajimai, a soldier about to ship out and Gen, an aide to Admiral Yamomoto who recognizes and uses the talents of Harry the businessman. They are hooked up with Col. Ishigami, a sadistic veteran of the rape of Nanking who is particularly good at beheading people with his saber. While trying to wrap things up over the weekend and make the Monday morning clipper flight to Hong Kong, Harry will confirm his suspicions that Pearl Harbor is to be attacked. Again through flashbacks we learn how powerbrokers on both sides of the coming conflict know Harry and why he knows things they would like to know. His relationship with Michiko, the part Communist part geisha "Record Girl" who tends the Happy Paris jukebox, and efforts to stay out from under Ishigami's sword are part of a pace that keeps you excited and surprised by what happens next. The ending is jst plain phenomenal. Smith puts his hero in a box he'll never get out of. Then ... I'll say no more except that you'll want to experience the finale for yourself. P.S. Smith has created his best ever character in Harry Niles, and John Slattery (narrator of the audiobook) captures Harry's personality perfectly with a comfortable, believable delivery of the con man's lines combined with unobtrusive yet distinct voices and accents that set Harry apart from the rest of the cast. I hope there's a movie and Slattery gets the part.
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Summary: The latest from America's best...
Review: The latest entry from America's smartest writer is one of his finest to date...
No one working in American fiction strikes me as a more capable, inventive master of the modern genre novel...
And no one gives you as many of those shock-of-recognition "epiphanies" that leave you shaking your head at the author's brilliance.
Cruz Smith is the finest novelist working in America today. Period.
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Summary: Great!!!
Review: I have enjoyed all of MCSmith's books. I guess I started with Gorky Park years ago. His writing is intense, you need to look between the lines and and keep thinking all the time. I was glad for the ending--almost didn't happen!! I also thought of Cabaret and Casablanca as similarities of pre-war situations. I liked it!!
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Summary: I'm Just Wild About Harry
Review: There's no hero like a flawed hero, and Harry Niles is perfectly flawed. The reader herself isn't sure about Harry...does he have feelings for America (he is an American, but was raised in Japan), or has Japan stolen his soul? His love affair with a strange Japanese girl has a violent passion that intrigues, and "friends" from his past make for exciting and unexpected moments. Martin Cruz Smith has an elegant style of writing that adds something lovely to this story of an onlovely time.
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Summary: M. C. Smith exposes the failings of the Yamato spirit
Review: Dec 6 to me is a new version of the Story of the 47 Ronin and how the gestalt of the 47 Ronin plays out as Yamato spirit in pre-WWII Japan. Indeed at the books beginning we find Harry Niles playing the 47 Ronin's "evil" lord Kira. and appropriately his school mate enemy-friend, Gen plays the heroic Oishi. The general plot of the 47 Ronin is presented early on in Dec 6 and serves well for understanding how the Yamato spirit drives the militant Japanese and the resulting subtle actions and interactions of the characters in the book. M.C. Smith's version of the 47 Ronin shows the horrific consequences of the rigid demands of the Yamato spirit. Ironically it is perhaps best said by Smith's Adm. Yamamoto "Whenever I mention oil, the army says not to worry because we Japanese have Yamato spirit. Yamato spirit, Yamato spirit, that's all the army knows. They say Japan is so different, so superior, we will necessarily win. You know, I have seen the cherry trees in Washington, and they are just as beautiful." (December 6; page 147)
The writing, characterization and plotting are top notch. Kudos to Martin Cruz Smith. I only hope we havn't seen the last of Harry Niles (One also wonders at the similarity between Harry Niles and Harry Lime of the Third Man fame)
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Summary: His best yet
Review: After reading Gorky Park many years ago, I knew I chanced upon a very good writer. I went back and read his very early books that not many people have read and saw how over time Smith kept improving as a writer. I still chuckle when I think of the russian police officer walking around Havanna in his topcoat.(Havanna Bay) December 6 is I believe his best book to date. Very clever, creative and believable. If you haven't discovered Smith yet, now is the time to read December 6 and then go back and read all his others.
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Summary: Splendid Thriller Of Espionage, Theft and Sex in Japan
Review: Martin Cruz Smith has wrought yet another spellbinding, well crafted thriller in his latest, "December 6". Here he introduces us to roguish Harry Niles, the prodigal son of American missionaries and owner of the "Happy Paris", an American jazz-styled bar whose main attraction is the beautiful disk jockey Michiko; Harry's paramour. Harry is caught up in an interesting dilemna, how to flee Japan in the company of his other lover, the British Ambassador's wife, before Emperor Hirohito's military
forces launch their surprise attacks on British and American territories in the Pacific and East Asia. He's also been busy conning the Japanese Navy into thinking that Hawaii has secret tanks filled with oil that should have been shipped to Japan. But that's not the least of his worries. A homicidal Japanese colonel, a war hero newly returned from the China front, is in hot pursuit of Harry, hoping to avenge his honor and dignity, which he believes Harry stole one night on the outskirts of Nanking. Harry is a complex, fascinating character, torn between his love for Japanese culture and his American heritage, hoping to prevent a war between both nations. But regrettably, his schemes have led inexcuriably to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, placing both himself and Michiko in grave danger. How Harry manages to resolve these dilemnas is told in a swiftly paced, succinct resolution which will leave the reader breathless. Those interested in learning about life in Japan prior to December 7, 1941 as well as devout fans of Smith's oeuvre will not be disappointed with this well written thriller.
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Summary: Another winner from Martin Cruz Smith
Review: I will always gladly pick up anything new from Martin Cruz Smith, as he has never really disappointed me yet. His Arkady Renko novels (including the classic Gorky Park, and fascinating but convoluted Havana Bay) have gotten plenty of praise, and I also loved Rose. Perhaps more than anything, Smith is known for painstaking research. He developed a wonderful setting for each of his densely-plotted books. Moscow in winter, a North Sea fishing boat, a grimy English mining town, and tropical Havana all come alive in the pages of Martin Cruz Smith novels. In December 6, he turns his trained eye upon Japan at the outbreak of WW II, and his character Harry Niles will draw inevitable parallels to Bogart's Rick of Casablanca fame. Niles is a nightclub owner as well, and in a society where children aspire at an early age to "die for the emperor" Niles is always reminded that he is an outsider, or a "gaijin", even among a society he loves. He senses war about to break out, has a seat on the proverbial "last plane out", but immerses himself in a ruse designed to try and trick the Japanese authorities into calling off the attack which he believes will doom the empire. We all know the attack takes place, and the outcome (some here have criticized Smith for making his characters so sure of the exact outcome of the war on the day it breaks out), but how it happens still holds your interest throughout the novel. After reading a Martin Cruz Smith novel, and this one is no exception, you remember the setting, and you vividly remember certain scenes (a flashback to Nanking involving a pivotal conflict with a fanatical general stick in my head), but you remember little about the various twists and turns of the plot. The tea houses, nightclubs and palaces of Tokyo come alive in his descriptions. I was a little disappointed in the ending, as Smith is not a writer who likes to tie up everything with a bow at the end, but I still recommend the book as a great historical glimpse at a fascinating culture swept up in the hysteria of the war. He made me care about the characters, including Harry and his pragmatic mistress Michiko. 5 stars, maybe 4 1/2 if Amazon let me, but a fast-paced and enjoyable read.
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Summary: Interesting concept but....
Review: Author Martin Cruz Smith had a great idea for his novel: What was it like to be in Japan, specifically Tokyo, in the 48 hours before Pearl Harbor. From this setting the author has concocted a tale of intrique, mystery, and sometimes confusion, all through the eyes of Harry Niles, son of Baptist missionaries in Japan, who has become more Japanese than American. Some flashbacks illuminate his early years and suggest some of the reasons why Harry turned out to be an owner of a nightclub, a person who wheels and deals with both Japanese officials and Westerners, and manages to juggle a couple of love affairs--if that is the right term for Harry's involvement.
The good things about December 6 include some fairly convincing atmospherics of pre-war Tokyo, a story that in the last third of the book moves briskly and with some excitement, and an ending that fits the protagonist and the various people who have an "interest" in Harry. The book points out the strains of the economic straightjacket that Japan found itself on the eve of WWII, caused by the restrictions on oil imports, and thus the use of inefficient charcoal burners to provide fuel for essential transportation and other limitations.
What is less fulfilling is the idea that Harry, shadowy character that he is, would be able to pull together enough information (and guesses) to predict the attack on Pearl Harbor. Harry acts as if he is the Savior of Mankind, even attempting to gain access to the American ambassador, who is playing golf and ignores him, about the dastardly plot underway. Although Harry is satisfying as a character, many of the others are cardboard cut-outs, e.g. the American ambassador, the dialogue occasinally lapses into expressions that were not common until late in the 20th Century, and the character of Ishigame, the Japanese officer whose great talent is severing heads, and his pursuit of Harry because of "lost face" in an earlier encounter with Harry during the "Rape of Nanking." [Yes, Harry did get around, a fly on the wall of history!].
Most readers will find the book an interesting snapshot of Japan in late 1941, the nuanced protrait of Harry and some of his associates, including the mysterious Michiko--the girl friend from hell. But one is left with the impression: Couldn't this have been a better novel with a little less derring-do and a bit more research on the actual events of the pre-Pearl Harbor days?
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Summary: Not a ggod book
Review: This has got to be the worst book that i have ever read in my life.
I bought it because i like history.
I did not bye it for kids smoking, prostitutes, needless profanity, sexual inuendo, sexual discriptions in detail, [...] women, Oh And My Favorite Harry as a kid has a little girl shove his hand up her dress.
I just hope that those that reade this book think that that is what really happened.
So many historical inacurracies.
This Is The First book i never finished reading
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