Synopses & Reviews
With the redolent atmosphere of Ian Rankin and the spine-chilling characters of Thomas Harris, Mo Hayder's
The Devil of Nanking, takes the reader on an electrifying literary ride from the palatial apartments of yakuza kingpins to deep inside the secret history of one of the twentieth century's most brutal events: the Nanking Massacre.
A young Englishwoman obsessed with an indecipherable past, Grey comes to Tokyo seeking a lost piece of film footage of the notorious 1937 Nanking Massacre, footage some say never existed. Only one man can help Grey. A survivor of the massacre, he is now a visiting professor at a university in Tokyo. But he will have nothing to do with her.
So Grey accepts a job in an upmarket nightspot, where a certain gangster may be the key to gaining the professor's trust. An old man in a wheelchair surrounded by a terrifying entourage, the gangster is rumored to rely on a mysterious elixir for his continued health.
Taut, gritty, sexy, and harrowing, The Devil of Nanking is an incomparable literary thriller set in one of the world's most fascinating cities Tokyo from an internationally best-selling author.
Review
"A superb third thriller from Hayder....Served up with explicit gore that is not for the faint-hearted, but even more haunting than it is shocking as the author urgently addresses basic, agonizing existential issues." Kirkus Reviews (Starred Review)
Review
"Although the narrative...takes a while to pick up steam, it ends up delivering a potent punch." Booklist
Review
"This book is deeply felt and haunting. It is elegiac and important. Most of all, it sticks with you well after the last page is turned." Michael Connelly
Review
"A haunting, lyrical, disturbing, important, suspenseful, wonderfully written and beautiful book. You will love reading it, and you wil not soon forget the experience." Harlan Coben
Synopsis
Grey, a young Englishwoman with a troubled past including a dramatic mental breakdown and a Carrie-like shame about sexuality, has just arrived in Tokyo, penniless, unprepared, and on a mission. For years she's been obsessed with a rare, possibly fictitious film artifact
a film made by the Japanese during the Nanking massacre, depicting a very specific incidence of torture. Flunking out of graduate school because she did nothing but obsess over the film, she thinks she has found the man who possesses it Shi Chongming, a Chinese survivor of the massacre now teaching at Todai University in Tokyo but he will have nothing to do with her. Then an attractive stranger becomes her angel hooking Grey up with a place to live, and a job that will have unforeseen consequences, in a high-class hostess bar. Shy and schoolteacherish in dress, Grey gradually learns to embrace her femininity, just as it becomes clear that an old, decrepit, but incredibly powerful yakuza gangster, one of the club's regulars, is the key to gaining Professor Shi's trust, because he has something the professor wants an elixir of unknown origin, which is keeping his decrepit body alive. If Grey can get the formula, the film is hers. It's a devil's bargain but who, really, is The Devil of Nanking?
Synopsis
Spine-chilling characters take readers on an electrifying ride deep inside the secret history of one of the 20th century's most brutal events the Nanking Massacre in 1937 as a young Englishwoman obsessively searches Tokyo for film footage of the massacre and its survivors.
About the Author
Mo Hayder lives in London, England. After leaving school at fifteen, she worked as a barmaid, security guard, film-maker, hostess in a Tokyo club, educational administrator and teacher in Vietnam. She now writes full time.