Devil of Nanking

Description

Richard Bernstein raved in “The New York Times that Mo Hayder’s writing “is crisp and tart…her book gripped the mind even as it quickened the pulse.” With the redolent atmosphere of Ian Ranking and the spinechilling characters of Thomas Harris, her new novel. “The Devil of Naking takes the reader on an electrifying literary ride from the decadent hostess bars and palatial apartments of yakuza kingpins in tokyo to deep inside the secret history of one of the twentieth century’s most brutal, shameful events: the Nanking Massacre. Grey has a lot prove and even more to hide. A young Englishwoman obessed with a past she cannot understand, she come to Tokyo seeking a rare piece of film footage that has been lost for decades, showing a specific incident dring the notorious 1937. Nanking Massacre. Some say the film never existed. Only one man can help Grey. A survivor of the masscre, he is now a visiting professor at the university of Todai in Tokyo. Immersed in his textbooks and wary of strangers, he will at first have nothing to do with her. Grey accepts a job as a hostess in an upmarker nightspot catering to Japanese businessmen and wealthy yakuza, where a certain ganster may be the key to gaining the professor’s trust–an old man in a wheelchar surrounded by a terrifying encourge, rumored to rely on a mysterious elixir for his continued health. It’s a devil’s bargain–but who, really, is the Devil of Nanking. The Devil of Nanking is a tour de force that confirms Mo Hayder as a thriller writer of the first order.