Five Decembers

Joe McGrady, the protagonist of James Kestrel’s Edgar Award-winning novel Five Decembers, is a hard-boiled Honolulu police detective operating in the tense weeks leading up to the attack on Pearl Harbor. He embodies the classic traits of a traditional pulp crime hero—possessing a sharp wit, an undeniable charm, a tough exterior, and a willingness to bend rigid bureaucratic rules when the situation demands it. Underneath that rugged shell, however, McGrady is deeply human, driven by an unyielding moral compass and a romantic heart, heavily tied to his devotion to the woman he loves back home.

When he is assigned to investigate a brutal homicide on a local farm, his quiet determination to do the right thing propels him out of his familiar territory and across the Pacific. As the narrative expands into a sweeping historical epic, McGrady evolves far beyond a standard noir cliché, anchoring the story with a grounded, convincing perspective that maintains its resilience even as the devastating theater of World War II rises against him.