Customer Reviews

The Devil of Nanking

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

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.

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

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.

My jatlagged mind must have led me to include this book, under the blander latter title of "Tokyo", among my purchases at Narita upon departure after a whirlwind 1-week professional tour of Japan. Little did I know what a gem I would discover on a sleepless journey back to Atlanta! Impossible to put down, "Devil of Nanking" exposed me to Mo Hayder, an author of impossibly tormented powers of description and plot-building. After "Devil", I moved quickly to her only other two books available, "Birdman" and "The Treatment". How I suffered until I got my hands on "Pig Island" this year! I am currently savoring the novel as if it were the finest foi gras, to be rolled over and swallowed one morsel at a time... not for the faint of heart tho'; I am 47 and have had to sleep with the lights on!

A masterpiece, plain and simple. Gray is a wonderful character whose motivations are as touching as they are disturbing. The ending is both shocking and moving. I've never read anything like it. Mo Hayder has become an instant favorite.

Mo Hayder's 'The Devil of Nanking' is an excellent read. The main character, Grey, a fish-out-of-water visiting Tokyo for an ultimately disturbing reason is so wonderfully written. She makes mistakes & does some odd things, but we never lose interest or sympathy for her. This novel covers a subject you think you may not be interested in, but it really grips you and doesn't let go. I found it wandering through a bookstore, bought it on impulse & then read it in about 2 days. I don't want to say anything much about the story because I don't want to give anything away. I am an avid reader & have read many, many books & I would put this one up against any of them. Read this book! You will not be sorry!!!

Where has this book been hiding for all of these years? This is one of the best thinker-thrillers that I have read in a long time. It had all of the adventure, history, asian thought, insight, intrigue and horror of a good detective novel. I liked the characters, especially the imperfect, yet gutsy, Grey, who stops at nothing to gain the truth. Mo Hayder has the courage to write about subjects that most folk just hide their heads in the sand over. Haunting? That is putting it lightly. I can't wait to read Pig Island.--Doug Setter, author of: One Less Victim

TOKYO (as it is known in the UK) is identical in all but title to the more aptly named Devil of Nanking, and for me consolidates Mo Hayder as one of the very best thriller writers around today. Her more mainstream novels Birdman and The Treatment were excellent but this one is even better, despite it being a wholly different kind of story and one which you will probably be thinking about a year or more from now. It's one of those rare occasions when I was yearning to reach the end (to find out what happens) while knowing at all times that I will be a little bit emptier for doing so, because I knew that the chances of my next reading material being as entertaining as this are very slim. What a treat it is to be seduced, mesmerised and teased by the written word! Mo Hayder's is an exceptional talent, her research is comprehensive and convincing, her ability to create a sense of atmosphere a cut above the majority of her peers. I can vouch for at least some of this novel's authenticity as I lived in Tokyo for most of the 1990s myself, so little corporate touches such as Pocky's, Lawson Station and the Maranouchi Line bring back memories of a city that changed my life for the better, even if this tale might lead you to think only of its darker sides.

Although the violence of Hayder's first two books is less graphic here, she manages to build a story once again around a somewhat taboo subject. In her debut novels we had to come to terms with paedophilia and necrophilia, in The Devil of Nanking the subject matter is arguably the lowest and most repellent form of human activity; what makes it all the more shocking is that her fictional tale is based on events that supposedly did take place. But what I enjoyed most was Hayder's skill at leaving the worst atrocities unwritten, at implication rather than description, at leaving the reader to imagine some of the events which, as we know, is invariably more horrifying than actually knowing. One of the scariest characters in this novel is a `person' with a variety of noms-de-plume including The Nurse and The Beast of Saitama - and trust me when I suggest that The Nurse makes Luca Brazzi seem like your fairy godmother in comparison. That's one of the enduring memories of the book for me, the fact that some of the `events' were never explicitly described so you are left to complete them in your own mind, and this uncertainty makes them even more horrific than they would have been had they been explained in full by the writer. Delicious, old-fashioned and how it should be done in my humble opinion.

The Devil of Nanking is chilling, haunting, gritty yet lyrical, stylish and suspenseful, very moving and thought-provoking but ultimately it is a real treat to be entertained in this way with the reader having to fill in some of the crucial gaps and being more emotionally disturbed as a consequence. A thriller of the highest order and one that you should add to your `must read' list without a doubt.

I read this book several years ago and I still think it is one of the most original novels to come out in recent years and certainly unusual. Not for the faint of sensibility but fiercely unique, the author addresses an infamous historical event in all of its horror (the rape of Nanking) and skillfully brings it into modern Japan and into an amazing story. Truly worth reading.

I think other reviews have already covered all the good points. Just wanted to add 5 stars to the count as this was my first time to read a Mo Hayder book and it was good. Really good. Could not put it down good!