- Tokyo (novel)
infobox Book |
name = Tokyo
title_orig =
translator =
image_caption =
author =Mo Hayder
cover_artist =
country =United Kingdom
language = English
series =
genre =Thriller novel
publisher =Bantam Press
release_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 writerMo Hayder . It was shortlisted for theCrime 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.)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 , and also joins a Host Club in order to have an address and money in order to pursue the reluctant professor.
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.
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