Mo Hayder’s THE DEVIL OF NANKING starts off slow but builds relentlessly, irrevocably through its parallel storylines into a remarkable construction of terror, grief and redemption. Grey is the curiously named protagonist of the story, a young woman who has been damaged by her parents, someone who has spent time in a mental institution, and one who is on a quest to find out details of The Nanking Massacre (or The Rape of Nanking, as it used to be known).

Sadly, this was a real event. In December 1937, the Japanese Army invaded Nanking (or Nanjing) and committed numerous atrocities, including rape and murder of civilians to the tune of some 300,000 dead. It is a particular type of atrocity that occurred here which intrigues Grey, something she reads in a book that her parents insist never actually existed. Her quest involves trying to prove the truth of this atrocity and to prove to herself that she didn’t just imagine the whole thing.

This leads her to Chinese professor Shi Chongming, who is teaching in Japan and who survived the Massacre. He has a record of the incident in question in the form of an old film. Grey must view it. But in order to do so, she must convince Chongming, who has his own agenda, and one which will place Grey in very serious peril.

Grey’s story is set in contemporary Japan, where when she’s not sparring with Chongming, she works as a platonic hostess at a nightclub. She lives in an unlikely sprawling inner-city mansion, and has a few quirky roommates. Her tale is told in counterpoint to the journals of Chongming, dated 1937, as he witnesses the storming and destruction of his hometown by the Japanese Army. His journal entries are especially moving because we see his youthful optimism contrasted to the fears of his less academic wife, now trapped in a city by Chongming’s own hubris. Eventually these two stories merge, as they are wont to do, and it’s then that the fireworks of evil and brutality really spark.

Hayder is a strong writer, and manages to give two vastly different registers to her two vastly different co-protagonists. But the book suffers from a bit of padding and an unfortunate level of prurient interest that distracts from the book’s message. In the first hundred or so pages, we are told of an atrocity so horrifying that Grey herself could not believe it occurred, but once it is revealed, well … yeah, it’s horrifying, but perhaps we didn’t need the hype. Still, this has a decent historical element, scenes of real creepiness and suspense, and a plot that will keep you reading late through the night. –Mark Rose

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