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.
Rating: 
Summary: No good deed goes unpunished should be the subtitle.
Review: I ate up "December 6" by Martin Cruz Smith. Smith is the author of "Gorky Park" and "Polar Star" with the Inspector Arkady Renko of the Moscow PD character. I'm a fan of the Renko series. "December 6" is a historical, intrigue novel set in 1941 Tokyo days before the Pearl Harbor attack. The main character Niles is an American expat club owner who grew up in Japan. He is neither totally American or can ever be Japanese, but he loves Japan and the Japanese. Think Rick in "Casablanca" and you have most of the character. The whole story takes place in about four days (with flashbacks for background) as Niles tries to get out of Dodge, avoid his enemies, and help his friends. No good deed goes unpunished should be the subtitle. I'm a sucker for historical novels. I found the pre-war Tokyo and China setting to be very interesting having been to Japan and read a bit on the political history of the period. However, I believe the author verges on histrionics in his explanation of the embargo as the cassus belli. Recommended.
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: 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: 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: Mr. Smith Does His Homework
Review: I've always enjoyed Smith's books because they immerse you in a new world. He paints word pictures of a place and time so vivid that you actually seem to know them. This isn't just praise of Smith's writing expertise (although that is great) but of his incredible research talent. He must totally immerse himself in a historical environment before he puts a word on paper. I knew little about pre-war Japan before reading "December 6". With a fast-paced plot and Japan-raised American Harry Niles as guide, I was whisked through a crash course in Japanese history, culture, and psychology. Like most historical fiction, it requires some suspension of disbelief (gee, how DID Harry bump into all of the key figures in Japan that day?). I find so few books that so convince me of their time and place that I'll willingly ignore some plot contrivances.
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: The day before the Day of Infamy
Review: Martin Cruz Smith composes a complex and fantastic story surrounding December 6th in Japan seen through the eyes of roguish American entrepreneur Harry Niles. Niles, a Japanophile, was raised according to local customs by missionary parents and spent most of his life in Japan. While his parents were out preaching Christianity to an unwilling flock, Harry was minded by his often inebriated uncle. In other words he was running wild through the streets of Tokyo's pleasure district, Asakusa. He would spend time picking pockets and running errands for the girls of a local dance hall. Although considered a gaijin (foreigner) and kept at somewhat of a distance, he forged many important and lasting friendships with his group of mates. Fast forwarding, Harry is now a gambler and the owner of the Happy Paris, a nightclub with his fingers in many illicit activities. With the winds of war blowing, as an American Harry realizes that he'll have to flee Japan. Promised a seat on a plane out of Tokyo by Japanese big shots, he must first put his vast affairs in order. He must skip out on his Japanese mistress, Michiko, a suicidal and beautiful Communist sympathizer. He must break ties with his paramour, the British ambassador's wife. All the while he is being pursued by a fanatical and homicidal colonel who fancies himself as a samurai and seeks vengeance against a slight perpetrated by Niles. Niles also has conned the Japanese Navy into believing that desperately needed oil shipments have been diverted by the U.S. to a secret storage area in Hawaii. Not wishing to see his beloved Japan drawn into a conflict it cannot win against the U.S., he unwittingly helps push the attack on Pearl Harbor. Smith creates a kaleidoscope of action against the backdrop of pre-war Japan in a manner that keeps the reader in suspense till the very end. This was a very nicely crafted novel.
Rating:
Summary: Martin Cruz Smith's best novel to date
Review: Martin Cruz Smith has set his newest novel, DECEMBER 6, in Japan on the eve of Pearl Harbor. He tells the story of Harry Niles, the American son of missionaries who left him to grow up on the streets of Tokyo. Now a 30-year-old man, Harry owns the Happy Paris, a tearoom he transformed into a "...bar stocked with scotch instead of sake and a red neon sign...," in Tokyo's "Azakuza" district. The saloon is a hangout for Western journalists, a meeting place for expatriates, and a watering hole for those on the move through Japan. Harry, had a tough time growing up in the "Hell's Kitchen" area of Tokyo. Always a gaigin (a foreigner) among his schoolmates, he was never really accepted and was the target of the samurai and Shinto games they played. He calls himself a philosopher and says, "My talent is speaking more Japanese than most Americans and more English than most Japanese. Big deal." He is neither a Westerner nor is he Japanese. But Harry is an expert con man. He has his own business, he is part of a network of acquaintances and loves his mistress, Michiko. His life is full, and he is as content as anyone who lives the nightlife on the fringes of any society. Everyone Harry knows believes that Japan and the United States will go to war. The only question for them in December, 1941 is when. And although Harry thinks he has a plan to prevent an attack by the Japanese on Americans, he also has a ticket in his pocket for the last plane out of Tokyo. "Well, it may be petty of me," Harry declares, "but I still want to come out of this war alive." In alternating narratives of Harry the boy juxtaposed against Harry the club owner, Smith paints an extraordinary picture of life in Japan before the bombing of Pearl Harbor and captures the essence of that strange, exotic country on the brink of war. For the verisimilitude of DECEMBER 6 Smith says, "I was able to visit Japan with a guy I met who lived there during the time of the story...[and for his research he] reads newspapers of the time and memoirs of people who lived through the era [he is] writing about." Smith lives up to his reputation for presenting readers finely wrought suspense-thrillers. And, in DECEMBER 6, he goes over the top. His deft interweaving of an historical abomination with the romantic tale of a man without a country is both moving and thought provoking. Fans and newcomers to Smith's work will not be disappointed in this, his best novel to date. --- Reviewed by Barbara Lipkien Gershenbaum
Rating:
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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