Tokyo (novel)

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Tokyo
Author Mo Hayder
Country United Kingdom
Language English
Genre(s) Thriller novel
Publisher Bantam Press
Publication date 4 May 2004
Media type Print (Hardback & Paperback)
Pages 409 pp
ISBN ISBN 0-593-04969-1
Preceded by The Treatment
Followed by Pig Island

Tokyo is a 2004 novel by British crime writer Mo Hayder. It was shortlisted for the Crime Writers' Association Gold Dagger award, as well as several others. (For the US market, the title was changed to "The Devil of Nanking," which had been Hayder's working-title for the book.)

[edit] Plot introduction

The story is about a young woman (nicknamed 'Grey' by a fellow patient in a mental hospital) who is obsessed with the 1937 Japanese invasion of Nanking, also known as the rape of Nanking. She travels to Japan in order to find a professor said to have rare footage from the massacre of a baby being cut out of a woman's stomach by a Japanese soldier, and surviving. Grey is obsessed with this idea to the point she tried it out on her own unborn child (who did not survive), and also joins a Host Club in order to have an address and money in order to pursue the reluctant professor.

[edit] Major themes

The book deals with the evils of ignorance, Grey being a homeschooled child whose mother heavily censored everything she came into contact with, the politics of modern day yakuza, and the glitzy underground nightlife of Tokyo, as well as the buildup and reality of the massacre of Nanking and the effect it still has today.