Rating: 
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.
Rating:
Summary: Well you played it for her . . .
Review: I resisted the characterization of Harry Niles as Rick Blaine and still to some extent continue to do so. He's more a character out of Hemingway, living in Paris or London or Madrid after the First World War. And like the Hemingway men, tragically flawed at several things save survival. For Harry is really the best at surviving. Additionally I mistook the juxtaposition of the tales of Harry the scoundrel adult bar owner and Harry, the Charles Dickens street urchin as being whimsical at best, boring at worst. I was mistaken and seeing what Harry is and then seeing how he got there was fascinating and fulfilling. This book grows on you, slowly at first, then by leaps and bounds. It is a mystery, romance, war story and to be truthful it went from "interesting" to "riveting" in about 200 pages. Like all Cruz-Smith exploits, it is both well written while at the same time being very well researched. Other reviewers have given the plot so let me just leave you with this. In a strange (still) land at a time no one is too certain about what really went on, Cruz-Smith makes you feel at home. Larry Scantlebury. 5 stars.
Rating: 
Summary: A Mesmerizing Look Into Pre-war Japan
Review: Many of the other reviewers here have already hit some of the flaws in December 6 right on the head: not everyone is really going to know, four years in advance, just how the war will end. And the closing of the novel leaves too much unanswered, with some characters' fates not clearly delineated. What really made December 6 an interesting read for me were the flashback chapters which alternated with the present-day chapters (i.e., 1941). It is these chapters that show the young Harry Niles, outwardly a gaijin in a country that will never fully accept him, but inwardly just as Japanese as his ethnically Japanese friends. Smith renders with unsparing detail the artsy community of Asakusa and the people who are the greatest influences on the young Harry Niles, the witty artist Kato and the beautiful Oharu. These chapters do a remarkable job of drawing parallels between what happens to Harry in 1941 and his childhood, and showing just how and why Harry the boy becomes the man he is by the time Japan bombs Pearl Harbor. Overall a very absorbing read, even if flawed, for anyone who is interested in the years that led up to the clash of Japan's empire and America's "Arsenal of Democracy."
Rating: 
Summary: Interesting but flawed
Review: Probably the single most important thing a book can do for you is hold your interest, and this one does. You can get a good idea of the plot by reading one of the other reviews on this site. I've already given this book my praise, that it holds your interest. It's more interesting to me to discuss the flaws. Flaw number one is the godlike omniscience of the hero, Harry Niles. He KNOWS exactly how history will unfold. He knows that America will win the war. It's a slam dunk. And he focuses on oil oil oil oil and oil as the five reasons that America will win. Isn't that topical. It seems to me that the victory over Japan was not a slam dunk. America was aided greatly by breaking the codes and therefore knowing when and where and with what strength Japan would attack. It is just too damn easy, after the fact, to say with certainty how things would develop. Let me suggest a reasonable alternative ending to that war. Let's say that FDR had a more conciliatory personality. He may have arrived at a negotiated peace that allowed Japan, and for that matter Germany, to hold on to some of their early winnings. What I'm saying is that the nearly unconditional surrender of the Japanese and Germans was not a foregone conclusion in 1941, but to Harry Niles it was. Funny how strong hindsight can be. In fact, several other characters in the book also had the same certainty of Japan's ultimate and total defeat, and this greatly impacted the big surprise ending. Sorry, but it's just a bunch of bull. My other complaint with this book is that it has what I call a "too cute" ending, which is rampant in modern novels. They don't tell us how things end. The author leaves us hanging, and we are supposed to draw our own conclusions. What happens to Harry Niles and his girlfriend Michiko? He's writing the damn story so he can tell us the damn ending, doncha think? We're supposed to operate on hints and figure it out for ourselves? No. No. No, I don't think so. Tell us the damn ending. You brought us this far, so tell us your damn ending. Don't just say "guess, stupid".
Rating: 
Summary: Deception
Review: Amazon also sells this book under the title "Tokyo Station." They won't tell you this, and if you order the book and you've read "Tokyo Station" and complain to Amazon, you'll be told you should have read pages from inside the book before ordering. This, I imagine, will be true for other books published under more than one title. So beware.
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