“The Devil of Nanking,” by Mo Hayder (Grove Press, 363 pages, $24)
An emotionally vulnerable young Englishwoman, Grey Hutchins, comes to Tokyo in 1990 in search of a lost snippet of film supposedly shot during the infamous Rape of Nanking in 1937.
The only person who can help her find it is elderly professor Shi Chongming, a survivor of the massacre in which 400,000 Chinese civilians were tortured and killed, but he refuses to do so unless she can help him in a terrible quest of his own. While Hutchins is waiting for his instructions, she moves into a decaying house and takes a job as a hostess in a Tokyo nightclub, where she meets an aged Japanese gangster seeking desperately to prolong his life.
The story is told partly in Hutchins’ voice, in which she gradually reveals the poignant chain of events that led to her obsession, and partly in Shi’s, in the form of a journal that graphically recounts the atrocities committed by the conquering Japanese, deeds so horrible that they have been largely withheld from the Japanese people.
There is a terrible beauty to both narratives as they unfold toward an agonizing but inevitable conclusion, with the two stories dovetailing exquisitely. It won’t be to everyone’s taste, but “The Devil of Nanking” (published in England as “Tokyo”) just may be one of the best books of the year.
“Dangerous Games,” by John Shannon (Carroll & Graf, 248 pages, $25)
Private eye Jack Liffey’s girlfriend, police sergeant Gloria Martinez, wants him to help her find her lovely young niece Luisa, a naive teenager who has left her tiny Paiute reservation to seek fame in the underground adult-movie industry in the San Fernando Valley.
What she discovers instead is a sordid, cruel world in which she is abused in worse ways than she was at home, but she finds an unlikely savior in Rastafarian thug Terror Pennycooke, whose rough exterior hides a gentle and caring heart as romantic as Luisa’s.
Meanwhile, a random drive-by shooting apparently intended for Jack leaves his strong-willed teenage daughter, Maeve, severely wounded. Jack goes after the young Latino gangster Thumb Estrada with vengeance in mind, only to find himself reluctantly taking the boy under his wing.
In fact, the story is filled with such unlikely and arresting alliances, which are explored in satisfying depth. It is another first-rate effort from an author who always deals sensitively and informatively with Southern California’s multicultural society.
“The Poet’s Funeral,” by John M. Daniel (Poisoned Pen Press, 257 pages, $24.95)
Set in 1990 in Las Vegas during the American Booksellers Association’s annual convention, this is a deliciously wicked look at the book world by an industry insider. Like his hero, 5-foot Guy Mallon, John M. Daniel is a bookseller turned small-press publisher.
Mallon got his start in the book business when he stumbled across an extremely rare Jack Kerouac book of poetry at a Santa Barbara used bookstore’s going-out-of-business sale. He put the book – obviously misshelved years ago – back where he found it, bought the shop on the spot, and then sold the Kerouac for enough money to put the bookstore back on its feet.
In the rare-book business, knowledge is nine-tenths of the game. Having the nerve to seize the opportunity is the other 10th. Guy’s first employee, Heidi Yamada, also knew how to seize the moment, first by talking Mallon into hiring her, then into taking her into his bed (not a difficult feat) and finally into publishing her first book of poetry. Yamada eventually left his store, his bed and his imprint.
Both Mallon and Yamada prospered. His publishing firm grew into one of the most respected small presses in the country, while Yamada became the outstanding poet of her generation. Years later their paths cross again at the Las Vegas ABA when Heidi is found dead of an apparent drug overdose on a king-size bed once used by the King himself, Elvis Presley.
It’s murder, of course, and Guy makes for a good amateur sleuth. But the real fun lies in the author’s irreverent, wisecracking look at the world of books and, more important, the imperfect people who work together – more or less – to produce them.
Tom and Enid Schantz write a monthly column on new mystery releases.
