December 6
Martin Cruz Smith
 In late 1941, Harry Niles has many of the same problems in Tokyo as Rick Blaine encounters at the same time in Casablanca. Harry's place, the "Happy Paris", a bar-club for American and European expatriates, newspapermen and diplomats, is in Tokyo's entertainment district and it's only 24 hours or so before Japanese fighters and bombers will hit Pearl Harbor. During that time, Niles has to consult with the local US ambassador, get rid of a passionately dangerous lover, shrug off the brutal attentions of the police, escape the vengeance of an aggrieved samurai officer and take himself off the island, the exit points from which are all tightly stoppered. Fortunately, he has the benefits of a largely unsupervised childhood in Tokyo, is highly fluent in the Japanese language and culture, and is subtle, swift and cunning.