2005 read: UK crime fiction writer Mo Hayder's interesting look at ignorance and the damage it can cause and continue to cause (hint hint Nazi sympathisers). 'Grey' a one-time mental hospital patient is obsessed with the 1937 Japanese invasion of Nanking, also known as the Rape of Nanking; this obsession leads to her personally investigating what happened during that invasion, and investigation that puts Grey, possibly up against the Yakuza!Some key themes are worked through in this book, and ev...

رواية شيطان نانكنغ للمؤلفة البريطانية مو هايدر تجسد مأساة بشرية تتكرر في أكثر من زمان ومكان. مأساة أسرة صغيرة راحت ضحية لحرب أحرقت الأخضر واليابس بلا هدف سوى إشباع النزعة الشيطانية لدى فئة أسائت استغلال السلطة والقوة. تدور أحداث الرواية في فترتين زمنيتين: ثلاثينات القرن الماضي عندما اكتسح الجيش الياباني الأراضي الصينية وصولا للعاصمة القديمة نانكنج، والفترة الثانية سبعينات القرن الماضي حيث كانت بطلة الرواية جراي تسعى لإثبات وقوع مجزرة نانكنج التي راح ضحيتها مئات الآلاف من المدنيين الصينيين على يد...

A 'thriller' devoid of thrills. Wanted to give up halfway due to the borefest of characters, foreshadowing that's obvious to all but the MC (who just happened to excel in the tasks required of her, by the way) and convenient plot train. There is food for thought but it's undermined by the easy coincidences and my inability to empathise with the MC; her feelings were understandable but the plot armour she's wearing just felt like a cop-out most of the time.I plodded on to the finish line; the end...

Finished this a few days ago, and it might be my favorite book of the year. Terrifying. Expect a review next week!

Love, love, love. Mo spent time being an escort in Tokyo, so she knows what she's talking about. I think this is a fantastic book, mostly because it's so different from her other stuff. Really shows amazing range on her part. My only quibble is that as horrible as the twist is, it's not as horrible as I was expecting, but that's only because I always expect something nasty from this author. And I mean nasty in a good way, not nasty like when your mother tells you not to touch something.Highly re...

”You can be brave and confident as you like, you can convince yourself that you’re invulnerable, that you know what you’re dealing with. You think that it won’t ever really get too serious--that there’ll be some kind of a warning before it goes that far, danger music, maybe, playing offstage, the way you get in films. But it seems to me that disasters aren’t like that. Disasters are life’s great ambushers: they have a way of jumping on you when your eyes are fixed on something else.” Rape of ...

Mo Hayder delivers the most thought provoking thriller I have ever encountered. Set in 1990 Tokyo with roots that take you back to the 1937 Nanking massacre, this account is positively chilling. Three voices have entered my head.Grey: is a personally troubled, young student from London, with a highly unstable past and a vested interest in her research of war atrocities, most notably the 1937 Nanking Massacre. She has come to Tokyo in search of Shi Chonming, a Nanking survivor, who Grey believes ...

Man, what is it with the Japanese?Surely there are good and bad people in every culture. But the bad Japanese? These are in a league of their own. I have read accounts and seen documentaries of Japanese POW camps. Their torture techniques were elaborately conceived to not only inflict physical agony but also emotional degradation.Now google Nanking if you dare. The images are straight out of hell.Hundreds of thousands of men, women and children massacred in 1937. The lucky ones were killed immed...

This book somehow manages to be both a mystery/thriller AND a cross between literary and historical fiction at the same time. I was just riveted from page one. It's hard to believe this is the same author as "Ritual" which was exciting but certainly not written at this level of detail. I completely trusted the world and characters this author has created.I don't give 5 stars very often and though this had a few holes (mostly to do with wanting more details but not needing them) "Devil of Nanking...

Ugh. Grey (not her real name) is on a mission to uncover the truth about Nanking. Why, you wonder? Well, as a teenager, Grey got knocked up, and then figured that the only way to deal with this was to cut open her own womb. She thought the baby would be fine, because she had read that some babies survived this when the Japanese army did the same thing to pregnant women in Nanking. Supposedly she believed this because her parents had homeschooled and completely sheltered her, to the point that sh...