Tokyo (novel)

Tokyo is a 2004 novel by British crime writer Mo Hayder. It was short-listed for the Crime Writers' Association Gold Dagger award, as well as several others. Tokyo was reviewed by the internationally read UK newspaper, The Guardian as well as by Kirkus Reviews under its US title.

Plot introduction

The story is about a young woman who is obsessed with the 1937 Japanese invasion of Nanjing, which resulted in the Rape of Nanjing. 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, and the glitzy underground night-life of Tokyo, as well as the build-up and reality of the Rape of Nanking and the effect it still has today.