MO
HAYDER - 'Tokyo'
Bantam Books (Paperback) 2004
ISBN: 0-553-84162-1
Tokyo
With this her third novel, Essex born author, Mo Hayder , has followed the maxim 'Write What You Know' to the full. On leaving school at fifteen, she took jobs as diverse as being a barmaid, a security guard, a film maker and - importantly as far as this novel is concerned - a hostess in a Tokyo nightclub.
Tokyo revolves around student Grey Hutchins, who comes to the city from London to fulfil her ambition: discovering the truth behind the slaughter of Nanking in 1937, carried out by the Imperial Japanese Army.
Grey has been fired into action by the
mention of the existence of a cine-film containing footage of the massacre,
which is held by the one man who can help her: a survivor of the carnage
and now a Tokyo university lecturer.
Far from home, penniless and obsessed,
Grey takes a job as a hostess in a nightclub and comes into contact
with a wheelchair-bound gangster and his nurse, with terrifying consequences.
Following her previous bestsellers
Birdman
and its sequel, The
Treatment, Mo Hayder has moved away from the 'traditional'
serial killer plotline with powerful and atmospheric affect. With her
use of tight prose and an ability to maintain a heart-racing pace, the
reader can almost reach out and touch the surroundings and becomes immersed
in the events so that the pages can only turn in a flurry.
With the emotionally damaged Grey as
the 'far-from-the-norm' heroine up against such dangerous adversaries,
the novel turns into a battle of wills that maximises tension and evokes
sympathy and repulsion in equal, if emotionally opposite, degrees. All
of which utilises the author's considerable skill of being able to weave
a tale of complex intricacies with a lightness of touch that can only
enthral at every turn.
The characters are both unique and familiar,
the link between past and present is brilliantly handled and, whilst
the horrible events of the past are described with clarity and precision,
they are never over-played so as to become gaudy.
Tokyo is a novel of immense power that is guaranteed to keep the reader hooked from first page to last.
Order this book online - Linghams
Booksellers
www.mohayder.net
“Thanks
for nice review of Tokyo. Every word is true (!)”
Mo
Hayder - author of Tokyo.
break the rules as I see fit.” - Chris High 2003.