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Loading... December 6by Martin Cruz Smith
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will love Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. Everything Smith writes is good. This one is set in Japan just before Pearl Harbor. Harry grew up in Japan with absent missionary parents, and feels more Japanese than American. Dragged back to the States in his teens, he's returned to Japan as an adult, and is struggling as a business man, and con man, as war brews.  mulliner | Nov 29, 2009 |  Solid historical suspense/spy tale of an American in Japan on the brink of Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor. A page-turner. (  ) ShellyS | Aug 13, 2009 | Very interesting depiction of the clash of cultures leading up to the attack on Pearl Harbor. Harry moves fluidly from one culture to the next, playing them against each other. (  ) nancylombardo | Jun 3, 2009 | This was an unexpectedly enjoyable book. Set in Tokyo the day before/of the Pearl Harbor attack, it tells the story of Harry Niles, drifting between that fateful day and Harry's past as a missionary's son gone wrong. Harry rejects his parents' mission, pseudo-adopted by the characters of Tokyo's seedy Asakusa district. He learns much from his friends and his life here, along the way mastering many useful if talents, not the least of which is the art of survival in tough circumstances. He has pick-pocketed, conned, and gambled his way through life. The question is: will Harry, deeply flawed but still likable, make the right choices as Japan self-destructs and the world faces war? (  ) cfink | Jan 31, 2009 | A very interesting story that takes place in Japan right before Pearl Harbor. ( ) pzmiller | Mar 9, 2008 |  no reviews | add a review
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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
(retrieved from Amazon Fri, 24 Apr 2009 07:57:54 -0400)
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