Search - The Devil of Nanking

The Devil of Nanking
 
The Devil of Nanking
Author: Mo Hayder

Book Information
Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Book Type: Paperback
Rating:

ISBN-13: 9780143036999 - ISBN-10: 0143036998
Publication Date: 5/30/2006
Pages: 432

Book Description:
Grey has a lot to prove and even more to hide. A young Englishwoman obsessed with a past she cannot understand, she comes to Tokyo seeking a rare piece of film footage that has been lost for decades, showing a specific horrifying incident during the notorious 1937 Nanking Massacre. Some say the film never existed. Only one man can help Grey. A survivor of the massacre, 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.

When Grey accepts a job as a hostess in an upscale nightclub catering to Japanese businessmen and welathy yakuza, she meets a certain gangster who may be the key to her quest - an old man in a wheelchair surrounded by a terrifying entourage, rumored to rely on a mysterious elixir for his continued health. As the professor pressures Grey to find out more about the elixir, Grey's housemate, a handsome, laconic American dilettante, becomes unnervingly fascinated with her and the troubling past that she has kept concealed from everyone else. Grey is faced with the serious dangers of charming her way into a circle of gangsters, master manipulators, and possible murderers. It's a devil's bargain - but who, really, is the Devil of Nanking?

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Top Member Book Reviews

Catherine M. (KittyJ) wrote on 3/11/2007...

2 member(s) found this review helpful.

Grey, an Englishwoman fighting her own devils, comes to Japan looking for a piece of rare film footage shot during the 1937 Nanking Massacre and ends up working in a hostess bar. Shi Chongmimg a reclusive scholar who is one of the massacre's few survivors haunted by atrocities he witnessed. The story alternates between the interaction of these characters in present day Japan and Chongming's wrenching account of 1930's Nanking. The Devil of Nanking is a pitch-perfect spine-chilling tour de force, dazzling and creepy and very difficult to put down.

Emmagene D. wrote on 10/6/2006...

2 member(s) found this review helpful.

A little hard to get into to start with, but well worth sticking with.

(TheLankyYankee) wrote on 7/24/2006...

2 member(s) found this review helpful.

Intriguing, disturbing and different. I was swept up in the story of this lonely girl and her mission in Japan, which kept me going until the last page.

Heather K. (VivaLaVole) wrote on 12/9/2007...

1 member(s) found this review helpful.

Oh boy ... this is a heck of a read. Amazing sense of menace throughout ... eerie, terrifying, beautifully written.


Please Rate these Book Reviews

W. R. (NYbooks) wrote on 5/27/2007...


This is a book that will STAY WITH YOU FOREVER. Why? I can't say without spoiling the plot. A woman investigates the existence of a war tape. Not for the squeamish.

Timothy R. (KENTUCKYREDBONE) - KY wrote on 12/12/2006...


Read a couple pages and it seemed like a typical oriantal type plot.I got it and some others from a sale the library was haveing!


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