British student, 'Grey', is obsessed with a past she cannot understand. She comes to Tokyo following rumours of a rare piece of film footage shot during the notorious Nanking Massacre in 1937. The film, if it exists, has been lost for decades. Only one man can help: Shi Chongming, now a visiting professor at the prestigious university of Tokyo , is a survivor of the massacre and holds the key to Grey's search. But will he help her? Increasingly desperate in an alien city where she knows no one, Grey accepts a job as a hostess in an upmarket nightspot catering for Japanese businessmen and wealthy gangsters. One gangster dominates. An old man in a wheelchair guarded by a terrifying entourage, he is rumoured to rely on a powerful elixir for his continued health. It is an elixir that others want for themselves – at any price.

Mo Hayder left school at fifteen. She worked as a barmaid, security guard, film-maker, hostess in a Tokyo club, educational administrator and teacher of English as a foreign language in Asia. She has an MA in film from The American University in Washington DC and an MA in creative writing from Bath Spa University UK.

Her debut, BIRDMAN, published in January 2000, was an international bestseller. Her second novel, THE TREATMENT, also a Sunday Times bestseller, won the 2002 WH Smith Thumping Good Read award. Her third novel Sunday Times bestseller TOKYO, was published in May 2004 in the UK, and was nominated for three CWA dagger awards. Tokyo was published as THE DEVIL OF NANKING in the US March 2005.

Mo lives in Bath with partner Keith Quinn and their daughter

Lotte-Genevieve.