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Title: Murder at Pearl Harbor

Author: Jim Walker

Narrator: Richard Ferrone

Format: Unabridged

Length: 11 hrs and 8 mins

Language: English

Release date: 12-06-11

Publisher: Recorded Books

Ratings: 4.5 of 5 out of 2 votes

Genres: Fiction, Historical

Publisher's Summary:

The Mysteries in Time series recreates some of the most dramatic events in American history and infuses them with an intriguing spiritual dimension. In November, 1941, U.S. Naval intelligence intercepts Japanese plans to attack Pearl Harbor. When Aki Kawa, one of the language specialists who deciphered the plans, is murdered, it is up to her colleague, Gwen Williams, to find out what Aki really discovered before her death.

Members Reviews:

frustrating

I have many complaints about this book, including those already listed. But one of the most frustrating things is that Gwen is some super woman and all the men fall so short of anything brave or smart except Sam. And of course Sam has his own set of flaws that only Gwen can fix with all her wisdom. I really can't believe that Jim Walker is a man. Is this just a pen name?

The good thing about this book is that it is not filled with profane language and explicit intimacy. I feel like the whole book is a fake. A quasi christian man/woman author trying to please the right demographic group to sell the most books.

Implausible, complex, clichéd ... but other than that, okay

Could we please have some sort of moratorium on the plot device of a hunky young naval officer, son of a gruff-but-ultimately-loving admiral, in a doomed love affair with a Japanese girl in Hawaii in the last days before the Pearl Harbor attack? It probably wasn't original when it featured in the 1976 filmMidway (Collector's Edition)and it has also been a major part of at least two recent murder mysteries -- this one, and Max Allan Collins'The Pearl Harbor Murders(2001), a book that has more in common with this one than just the title.

Considering that Collins' mystery and this one are built around the same set of real-life facts, events, and personalities, I was surprised by how much poorer a job Walker did with it all than Collins did. Some of the things "historical figures" do in this book struck me as uncharacteristic, based on what I've read about them in real life. One or two, in fact, seem to show up for no other reason than to have one more "historical figure" cameo. And speaking of "uncharacteristic," how likely is it that a naval intelligence specialist would reveal so much of her operation to a reporter she's barely met? And was naval intelligence HQ at Pearl Harbor really so easy to break into (by crawling through the air ducts, speaking of clichés)?

Without giving anything away, I'll say that one fairly substantial subplot involving an "historical figure" is largely irrelevant to the novel. It could have been left out altogether without weakening the narrative. As another reviewer notes, everything that happens in this book before the action shifts to Hawaii could have been summarized in much less space -- especially since much of what we're left with from that section are unresolved plot threads. As it is, the title murder doesn't even happen until the second half of the book. Instead, we get long descriptions of irrelevancies, like one character getting dressed, or another drinking a glass of milk.

I have some other problems with the plot too, but listing them would give away too much of the solution to the mystery.

Finally, one of the things I really liked about the Collins book was the way it wove the "atmospherics" of pre-war Hawaii into the story.