The Devil of Nanking

By: Mo Hayder

Narrated by: Josephine Bailey, Simon Vance

Length: 12 hrs and 43 mins

Publisher's summary

With the redolent atmosphere of Ian Rankin and the spine-chilling characters of Thomas Harris, Mo Hayder's The Devil of Nanking, takes the reader on an electrifying literary ride from the palatial apartments of yakuza kingpins to deep inside the secret history of one of the twentieth century's most brutal events: the Nanking Massacre.

A young Englishwoman obsessed with an indecipherable past, Grey comes to Tokyo seeking a lost piece of film footage of the notorious 1937 Nanking Massacre, footage some say never existed. Only one man can help Grey. A survivor of the massacre, he is now a visiting professor at a university in Tokyo. But he will have nothing to do with her. So Grey accepts a job in an upmarket nightspot, where a certain gangster may be the key to gaining the professor's trust. An old man in a wheelchair surrounded by a terrifying entourage, the gangster is rumored to rely on a mysterious elixir for his continued health.

Taut, gritty, sexy, and harrowing, The Devil of Nanking is an incomparable literary thriller set in one of the world's most fascinating cities-Tokyo-from an internationally best-selling author.

©2005 Mo Hayder (P)2005 Tantor Media, Inc.

Captivating

This story kept me coming back to listen every time I had a free second. Such a horrible part of the past that people tried to get rid of. A great and terrible story. A must listen.

Bleak but great!

This was a recommendation from a horror YouTuber. The story was much different than expected. It read as a thriller much more than horror, except for the ending and (shudder) what was revealed on the videotape. The narrator was impressive having to carry so many voices.

Dark and disturbing

I was not familiar with this historical event. The book was incredibly compelling and disturbing at the same time. 

Fantastic

Great story, even though you can already see the ending within the first few chapters. Narration was tremendous. One of the best audiobooks I've ever listened to.

Girl, Interrupted Meets Tojo

I enjoyed this rather strange tale of a young English girl who, when she was even younger, read an account of the Japanese invasion of China, and of the Rape of Nanking in particular. A particularly horrible event stays with her and the people around her think she's daft (and they're not far off the mark). She goes to Japan to search for a film of this horrible event and resolve the inner conflict that was created when she read the account of the incident in Nanking. I don't want to give away the ending, but it is shocking -- even to someone whose jaded modern sensibilities are immune to all manner of illegitimi carborundum. The story is interesting, but I found it hard to get over questions about the protagonist's (i.e., the young lady's) motivation in this story. Her behavior verges toward self-destruction on more than one occasion, and I didn't think she had enough reason to do so. The event was terrible, but it's hard to believe that she built her life around it. I had the impression that the author was trying to create a parallel between the girl and some notion of the Japanese national character. If so, I'm not sure it worked.

The narration (by two narrators) is very good. The male narrator does an excellent version of a Chinese man who speaks English with an accent, but it's extraordinarily authentic.

Overall, though, a good story and it does move along at a good pace, but the details are definitely not for the faint of heart.

The Need for More...

I love a good fiction, especially one that makes me want to learn a foreign language just so I can obtain more knowledge about the events mentioned in this book. I have always been fascinated with this era of time, mostly devoting my macabe curiosity to the Nazi cruelty that occured. My father always told me the Nazis were children of devastation compared to the truly barbaric IJA (Imperial Japanese Army). I had no idea! After listening to this book, I did my research of the massacre that occured in Nanking. It was the most horrifying thing I have seen and read. My girlfriend, who is Chinese, knows a little about the occurance, but was not impressed with the cruelty. She went on stating that this type of brutality has been happening for centuries. I disagreed. This was the 20th century, not the 1300's! The age of industrialism and civilization, not the age of cavemen. The acts commited by the IJA were unspeakable and unforgettable. There still has been no acknowledgement or apology for this from Japan.
I am currently listening to a "how to" book learning basic Mandarin Chinese. I would like to visit Nanking and the surrounding areas. Considering all the talk about China becoming a superpower impresses me greatly. We can learn something from them. Thousands of years of religion, peace and war, education, etc.
The Devil of Nanking had an excellent plot with intense characters. I finished the 13 hour audio in 1 day! I recommend it to anyone whom loves a good mystery filled with suspense, tragedy and love.

Completely Original Thrilling Story

This book is astonishing. Almost a perfect plot. The skill of Mo Hayder as an author shines in this book, you live and breathe the air and hear the sounds and experience fright. I was fascinated well after the book ended. The narrators were remarkable. You will not be disappointed.

Riveting but painful

I had seen Mo Hayder discussing her book and decided I needed to know more. As painful as the novel’s story is, it is not nearly as bad as what actually happened.

The narrators were excellent.

The Devil Of Nanking

Great novel. Explores the cultures of Japan and China, before, during and after World War 2. Brilliantly plotted, the last reveal made me gasp. Intelligent and emotionally strong, If you like thrillers, you won't be disappointed.

Must Read This Review!!!

Reading this book was like hearing all of these ideas- provocative and gritty-sounding and controversial. So my curiosity was piqued from just the “Book Details”.
As I read, I noticed a pattern, a constant hinting about a bit of film (like 8mm), that captured something so atrocious, so immoral and disturbing as to be indistinguishable from legend. Like the Loch Ness Monster or something. Did such a loop of film actually exist somewhere ? So lurid and depraved that it would forever taint the Japanese simply for having their soldiers in Nanking in 1937?
I was definitely curious. And then there was the current dealings with the Yakuza. And ultra high-level criminals - and their creepy entourage of body-guards, and in one case, a great, tall, skinny, mysterious tranny or hermaphrodite Nurse - the only one capable of the creepy things needed to keep an old sadistic soldier alive this long.
All of these elements.
And then the book is over.
It’s like a great big 12 hour long advertisement for a really cool and creepy book.
As if this was just a twelve hour outline, or 12 hrs worth of notes- waiting to be green-lit for an author to write books about. Several cool books- several different, separate books.
But the creativity stopped there. You can basically get the same satisfaction you’d get for reading 12 hoirs, if you just read THIE FOLLOWING PARAGRAPH as an addendum to the information on the back cover:
Like an Egyptian scarab beetle believed to have powers of eternal life, the Ancient, Japanese soldier was keeping his own special war trophy: one of the many Chinese neo nates that - with his bayonet- he’d liberated from a screaming mother, and then cannibalized as she watched. Yes:
While mom died horribly of exsanguination- and helplessness and grief, the last thing she’d see would be the Japanese soldier eating parts of her live baby.
The Kicker: It worked!
The real Kicker: It was a placebo!
Merely The Act of eating a live baby in front of a shocked and terrified young mom gave him such satisfaction that all of his illnesses went away.