- Hardcover
- Publisher: Harper Collins Canada (Mar 3 2005)
- ISBN-10: 0002007215
- ISBN-13: 978-0002007214
- Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #468,157 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Publishers Weekly
From its start in 1937, as the Japanese overrun the Chinese port of Nanking and massacre hundreds of thousands, to its narrative core in 1990, as a disturbed young British woman who calls herself Grey searches for the hidden truths that made her the mentally fragile person she is, Hayder's third book (after 2002's The Treatment) is a thriller of rare art and gripping excitement. Hayder, one of the rising stars of British crime fiction, teaches at a university in Bath and has worked as a hostess in a Tokyo nightclub. Both experiences add to her book's unusually rich atmosphere. Grey, who lives on the fringes of the academic world, tries to find out in Tokyo whether a piece of 16mm film taken during the Nanking atrocities actually exists--and whether it will ease her pain. When an elderly Chinese professor, a survivor of Nanking, at first refuses to help her, she drifts into a well-paying job as a night club hostess. (Russian twin sisters Irina and Svetlana teach her the tricks of the trade. "You gotta look sophisticated," Svetlana tells her earnestly. "You wanna wear my belt, eh? My belt is gold. Black and gold nice!") Eventually, the story becomes a beautifully paced, three-way duel among an aged Japanese gangster who wants to live forever; the Chinese professor, with secrets too horrible to hide any longer; and Grey, a courageous young woman unlike any other heroine you're likely to find in a thriller.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.
From Booklist
Seeking confirmation of an atrocity committed by Japanese soldiers during the 1937 invasion of Nanking, troubled young Englishwoman Grey Hutchins tracks down a Chinese survivor who might have film of the massacre. But when she finds Shi Chongming teaching at a Tokyo university, he offers no help--until Grey takes a job at a hostess club frequented by an old Yakuza don. Chongming, it turns out, needs access to the strange medicine the mobster takes to stave off death. If Grey can deliver the information he needs, Chongming promises, he will show her his secret film. Although the narrative--split between the professor's haunting 1937 diary and Grey's contemporary Tokyo journal--takes a while to pick up steam, it ends up delivering a potent punch. Hayder fancies she is withholding more plot twists than she actually does, but Grey and Chongming's affecting stories of weakness and loss redeemed by their obsessive quests for truth and justice make up for a twinned mystery that's not too difficult to dope out. Frank Sennett
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.
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First Sentence
To those who fight and rage against superstition, I say only this: why? Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
To those who fight and rage against superstition, I say only this: why? Read the first page
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Most helpful customer reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Mo Hayder is a dark magician,
By
This review is from: Devil of Nanking (Hardcover)
I have read Hayder's other books with painful pleasure, but this newest release takes her writing to a completely different level. It is a dark tale of the walking wounded, obsession, and culture. Her characters are marvelously complex, and her writing is dark yet crystalline. Mo Hayder deserves to be among the best of our fiction writers. A chilling masterpiece.
5.0 out of 5 stars
I could not put this book down!,
By MOSSY (New Brunswick) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Devil of Nanking (Hardcover)
Mo Hayder is an excellent writer. Her ability in writing to keep you captivated with images and a variety of emotions is remarkable. The reader is given a sample to let the imagination go and at the same time be haunted by being aware of what occured. The Devil of Nanking was the first book of Hayder's that I read. It was recommended by a guest on the Nation's broadcasting company to read over the holidays. I look forward to reading her first two.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Words cannot describe.....,
By A Customer
This review is from: Devil of Nanking (Hardcover)
It's very rare that I read a book which stirs up emotions such as anger, sadness, contempt, and curiosity, all at once. Through this novel, Mo Hayder has engrained the brilliance of her writing permanently in a reader's mind - a brilliance which makes you shake your head in awe, shudder to the bone, and fear for the true nature of human beings.
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