by Mo Hayder
First published 2004
Grey arrives in Tokyo with a single purpose: finding film footage that documents the 1937 Nanking Massacre. The young Englishwoman believes this lost piece of evidence holds the key to understanding her obsession with an unclear past. She tracks down a massacre survivor who now teaches at a Tokyo university, but he refuses to help her. Desperate, Grey takes a job at an expensive nightclub where she hopes to connect with a powerful gangster who might influence the professor. The wheelchair-bound crime boss controls his empire through fear and relies on a strange elixir to maintain his health. As Grey moves deeper into Tokyo's criminal world, she must navigate the dangerous territory between the yakuza kingpin's palatial domain and the professor's guarded memories. Her search for historical truth becomes entangled with present dangers as she discovers what people will do to protect their secrets from one of the twentieth century's most violent chapters.
Genres: historical-fiction, 20th-century, mystery, crime, thriller, 21st-century
Vibes: dark, emotional, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: obsession, secrets
Setting: Japan, Nanking, Tokyo
Period: 1937, 20th-century
363 pages · Hardcover · Harper Collins
Content warnings: violence