Tokyo is a 2004 novel by British crime writer Mo Hayder

Mo Hayder

Mo Hayder is a British author of crime and thriller fiction.She is the author of eight novels. Her debut, Birdman, was published in January 2000 and was an international bestseller. Her second novel, The Treatment, was a Sunday Times bestseller and won the 2002 WH Smith Thumping Good Read award....

. It was short-listed for the Crime Writers' Association

Crime Writers' Association

The Crime Writers Association is a writers' association in the United Kingdom. Founded by John Creasey in 1953, it is currently chaired by Peter James and claims 450+ members....

 Gold Dagger

Gold Dagger

The Gold Dagger Award was an award given annually by the Crime Writers' Association for the best crime novel of the year.For its first five years, the organization's top honor was known as the Crossed Red Herring Award....

 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 mental hospital patient) who is obsessed with the 1937 Japanese invasion of Nanking, also known as the Rape of Nanking

Nanking Massacre

The Nanking Massacre or Nanjing Massacre, also known as the Rape of Nanking, was a mass murder, genocide and war rape that occurred during the six-week period following the Japanese capture of the city of Nanjing , the former capital of the Republic of China, on December 13, 1937 during the Second...

. She travels to Japan in order to find a professor said to have rare footage of the massacre detailing an event that she could not otherwise prove occurred. The professor decides that he will only show her the tape if she was to procure an unknown ingredient of Chinese medicine from the local Yakuza group. After being recruited into a host club, Grey finds her chance.

Major themes

The book deals with the evils of ignorance, Grey being a home-schooled child whose mother heavily censored everything she came into contact with, the politics of modern day Yakuza

Yakuza

, also known as , are members of traditional organized crime syndicates in Japan. The Japanese police, and media by request of the police, call them bōryokudan , literally "violence group", while the yakuza call themselves "ninkyō dantai" , "chivalrous organizations". The yakuza are notoriously...

, and the glitzy underground night-life of Tokyo

Tokyo

, ; officially , is one of the 47 prefectures of Japan. Tokyo is the capital of Japan, the center of the Greater Tokyo Area, and the largest metropolitan area of Japan. It is the seat of the Japanese government and the Imperial Palace, and the home of the Japanese Imperial Family...

, as well as the build-up and reality of the massacre of Nanking and the effect it still has today.