The Devil of Nanking

Starred review from January 31, 2005
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. Agent, Kim Witherspoon. (Apr. 30)

Forecast:
Advance praise from Tess Gerritsen, Harlan Coben, Minette Walters and Val McDermid will alert their fans to this novel's high quality.

April 1, 2005
Although Hayder departs from her popular series featuring DI Jack Caffery tracking down serial killers ("Birdman"), her latest novel -first published in Great Britain under the title "Tokyo" -is another powerfully written, haunting thriller. Grey Hutchins, a young Englishwoman who had been the victim of a traumatic rape and institutionalization, becomes obsessed with the atrocities committed by the Japanese in Nanking in 1937. Traveling to Tokyo, she tracks down an elderly Chinese scholar who survived the massacre and who may have a film of the event. Grey tries to gain his trust; rebuffed, she takes a job as a hostess and meets a powerful gangster, an old man in a wheelchair rumored to use a strange elixir to maintain his health. Flashing back and forth between Grey's present-day quest (as recorded in her journal) to the Japanese invasion of Nanking (as recorded in the survivor's diary), Hayder's novel moves beyond the mystery and suspense angles into larger issues of history, memory, and power. Although horrific events are described, this work is not forensically gory like Hayder's Caffery series. Recommended for most fiction collections. -Beth Lindsay, Washington State Univ. Libs., Pullman

Copyright 2005 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

February 15, 2005
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.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2005, American Library Association.)