The Devil of Nanking [Audiobook, CD, Unabridged] [Audio CD]

Mo Hayder (Author), Josephine Bailey (Narrator)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 1, 2005

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.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

"Dazzling... extremely creepy book... the diabolically gifted British author spins a fascinating mystery from the legacy of Japanese atrocities during World War II (A)."
—Entertainment Weekly

"A haunting, lyrical, disturbing, important, suspenseful, wonderfully written and beautiful book."
—Harlan Coben --This text refers to the Mass Market Paperback edition.

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. Josephine Bailey has won ten AudioFile Earphones Awards and a prestigious Audie Award, and Publishers Weekly named her Best Female Narrator in 2002. Her native British accent has been used in many audiobooks and voice-overs, including The Wild Thornberries, Uncle Gus, and Disney-Dreamworks projects. In addition to her award-winning voice work, Josephine is involved in television, film, and theater. On television she has played parts in Robin Hood, A Tale of Two Cities, and Sword of Freedom. In film she was featured in Shadow Hours, Life's a Circus, and Corridors of Blood. Her theater experience includes lead roles in Betrayal, Otherwise Engaged, and Blithe Spirit. Josephine received her training from the Corona Stage School in London and the Tracy Roberts Actors Studio in Los Angeles. Josephine currently resides in South Carolina. Simon Vance, a former BBC Radio presenter and newsreader, is a full-time actor who has appeared on both stage and television. He has recorded over four hundred audiobooks and has earned over twenty Earphones Awards from AudioFile magazine, including one for his narration of Theft by Peter Carey. A twelve-time Audie finalist, Simon has won three Audie Awards, including one for Great Expectations by Charles Dickens, and the 2008 Booklist Voice of Choice Award. He has also been named an AudioFile Golden Voice as well as an AudioFile Best Voice of 2009.

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Product Details

• Audio CD
• Publisher: Tantor Media; Unabridged edition (July 1, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 140010162X
• ISBN-13: 978-1400101627
• Product Dimensions: 5.4 x 6.5 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (25 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,711,048 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars If you are looking for a cozy mystery, this isn't it, June 23, 2006

By 

Texas Reader (Houston, Texas) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Devil of Nanking (Mass Market Paperback)

Mo Hayder is one of the finest contemporary writers. Her books take you squirming and screaming to places you have never been. With a literary style, her damaged, but persevering, characters explore the depths of evil. The Devil of Nanking is an excellent novel. If it's possible, the book is even more gruesome than The Birdman and The Treatment. But this is an author who tackles the most difficult subjects. The Devil of Nanking is a fast-paced thriller into the exotic lands of Tokyo in the 1990s and Nanking during World War II.

13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars "Ignorance is not the same as insanity.", May 25, 2007

By 

Mary Whipple (New England) - See all my reviews
(TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (COMMUNITY FORUM 04)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)   

This review is from: The Devil of Nanking (Mass Market Paperback)

A disturbed, young British woman, known only as Grey, arrives in Tokyo after a long hospitalization in a psychiatric unit. She has been hoping for nine years to find a piece of film recording the Nanking Massacre in China by the Japanese in 1937, a massacre of 300,000 people, which the Japanese deny happened. Needing a very specific bit of information that she believes is in the film, Grey contacts Shi Chongming, an elderly Chinese professor at a Japanese university, whom she believes has the missing film. She eventually agrees to try to unearth information he wants about a life-saving medicine used by an ailing Japanese gangster in exchange for information about the Nanking film.

Grey is a fragile and interesting character, bearing both physical and emotional scars, and when she is accepted as a hostess at the "Some Like it Hot" nightclub, run by the unforgettable Strawberry Nakatani, who believes herself a Marilyn Monroe look-alike, she meets the ailing gangster, Junzo Fuyuki. Other intriguing peripheral characters add to the drama: Jason, an American with a pre-occupation with death and a sexual fetish for "weirdos" like Grey; a pair of Russian twins, who are also hostesses; and Ogawa, the transvestite nurse of the gangster, who lurks in the background and acts as an enforcer. The various settings, especially that of a falling-down house occupied by Grey, Jason, and the Russian twins, showcase the bizarre characters and their actions.

The point of view alternates between Grey, as she tries to gain control of her life by finding this mysterious film, and that of Shi Chongming, who recounts in painful detail his memories of the Japanese invasion of Nanking and the attempts that he and his wife Shujing make to to stay alive. The author's ability to present both internal action and external terror is admirable, creating both tension and heart-stopping suspense, though she does resort to obvious foreshadowing to keep the reader going: "I knew that the answer I wanted was very nearby," for example, and "I was sure, without knowing why, that just behind those blinds...."

The plot and characters are intriguing for the first two-thirds of the book. Then, as the exact nature of Grey's quest on behalf of Shi Chongming becomes clearer, the plot veers into stomach-turning sadism and perversion. Sensational deaths and ankle-deep gore increase as Grey's shocking "crime," Fuyuki's pathology, and Shi Chongming's "sin" come together in dramatic fashion. Not for the faint of heart, this pop novel is nightmare-inducing, filled with pathological behavior and grotesque deaths, minutely described. (3.5 stars). Mary Whipple

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Historical Mystery/Thriller, June 9, 2006

By 

Shogun Len "tokieyasu" (Arizona) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Devil of Nanking (Mass Market Paperback)

The author did an excellent job writing a book that combines an excellent history of WWII China, the Rape of Nanking, and a look at modern Tokyo Nightlife. I was surprised that the writer was able to pull off combining all of these things, but she did and did it well. The book was hard to put down. I highly recommend it.