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Review: Take note of Cruz Smith's 'December 6'
By L.D. Meagher "December 6"
(CNN) -- In an exotic city percolating with intrigue, an American bar owner works all the angles. Even as war clouds gather, he's playing every side against each other. No one knows where his loyalties lie, but everyone is sure he will always look out for himself. In the end, he will surprise them all. And himself. No, this isn't "Casablanca." It's Tokyo. The bar owner is Harry Niles. He's not so much an expatriate as a non-patriate. The son of American missionaries, he grew up on the streets of Tokyo's sleazy entertainment district. He considers himself as much Japanese as American, though the Japanese would argue the point. So would the Americans. Harry is the brilliantly realized protagonist of "December 6," the new novel by Martin Cruz Smith. He's a hustler and a gambler and a fixer, a bridge between two cultures that are hurtling toward war. No one trusts him, but everyone counts on him. He has friends in high places. And low ones. Eventually, like Rick's bar in "Casablanca," everyone shows up at the Happy Paris, usually seeking a favor. They are drawn by the booze, the jazz music, and the enchanting Michiko, whose sole purpose is to stand next to the jukebox and select the next record. After hours, she and Harry retreat to his apartment upstairs. Well-drawn charactersSmith masterfully portrays the people and the places of Harry's world. Each page seems suffused with the aroma of burning joss sticks and frying tofu. In quick, powerful strokes, he draws characters of flesh and blood and loves and hates and hormones. "Michiko was complicated," he writes. "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 ..." Michiko is only one of Harry's problems. There's the diplomat's wife he's seeing on the side, and the two members of the "Thought Police" who follow him everywhere, and the childhood friend who has him doing favors for the Japanese navy. Then there's the army officer, a self-styled latter-day samurai, who wants Harry's head. Literally. War looming in backgroundAnd then, there's the war. This is December 6, 1941, after all. Harry doesn't know what's about to happen, but he knows something is up. He desperately needs to find a way out of Tokyo. Preferably with his head and privates intact. Smith flashes between scenes from Harry's childhood and scenes from the day before the "day that will live in infamy." In the process, the portrait of the hustler and his milieu is built layer upon layer, until, at the climactic moment, events take a turn that surprises not only the reader, but Harry, too. "December 6" is beautifully written, skillfully plotted and crammed with enough unforgettable characters to populate half a dozen "Casablancas."
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