The critics' quotes on the cover compare Mo Hayder to Thomas Harris (Silence of the Lambs). At the very least her psychopaths are equally repulsive, and you want to make sure your stomach can handle the grisly things contained in these pages.

Grey, a physically and mentally scarred young British woman comes to Japan to meet a Chinese guest professor at Tokyo University, who she believes possesses a film documenting the horrors committed by the Japanese army in Nanking 1937. Her story is interspersed by chapters from the professor's diary of that period, and a few flashbacks into her own past. Most of the novel is a rather slow read, seems to rely on some rather big coincidences, and you cannot really feel involved with the characters before their background and motivation is revealed. Near the end though, the pace picks up, the puzzle pieces fall into place, you get to know why Grey is so obsessed with the horrible details of the Nanking Massacre, you get to see the film, and as with any serious thriller, you wish that you had not.