Asian Trips - A Corpse in the Koryo (Inspector O Novels)
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List Price: $13.95
www.asiantrips.info Price: $11.16
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Manufacturer: St. Martin's Minotaur
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.6
EAN: 9780312374310
ISBN: 0312374313
Label: St. Martin's Minotaur
Manufacturer: St. Martin's Minotaur
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 288
Publication Date: 2007-09-04
Publisher: St. Martin's Minotaur
Release Date: 2007-09-04
Studio: St. Martin's Minotaur
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Editorial Reviews:
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"On the surface, A Corpse in the Koryo is a crackling good mystery novel, filled with unusual characters involved in a complex plot that keeps you guessing to the end."
---Glenn Kessler, The Washington Post
One of Publishers Weekly Top 100 Books of 2006
One of Booklist’s Best Genre Fiction of 2006
One of the Chicago Tribune’s best mystery/thrillers of 2006
Sit on a quiet hillside at dawn among the wildflowers; take a picture of a car coming up a deserted highway from the south.
Simple orders for Inspector O, until he realizes they have led him far, far off his department’s turf and into a maelstrom of betrayal and death. North Korea’s leaders are desperate to hunt down and eliminate anyone who knows too much about a series of decade’s-old kidnappings and murders---and Inspector O discovers too late he has been sent into the chaos. This is a world where nothing works as it should, where the crimes of the past haunt the present, and where even the shadows are real.
Author James Church weaves a story with beautifully spare prose and layered descriptions of a country and a people he knows by heart after decades as an intelligence officer. “. . . an outstanding crime novel. . . . a not-to-be-missed reading experience. ”
---Library Journal (starred)
“Inspector O is completely believable and sympathetic . . . The writing is superb, too . . . richly layered and visually evocative.”
---Booklist (starred)
“. . . an impressive debut that calls to mind such mystery thrillers as Martin Cruz Smith’s Gorky Park. . . .”
---Publishers Weekly (starred)
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: Unique New Voice
Comment: A Corpse in the Koryo (2006) introduces Inspector O, a state police officer, in North Korea. After an odd assignment to photograph a car speeding through the mountains at dawn, Inspector O realizes he and his superior, Pak, have become involved in a power struggle between rival military and intelligence forces. In this closed society, everyone is spying on everyone else, selling information or buying it. O writes the shortest reports possible, knowing that details invite questions, but always "forgets" to wear his lapel portrait of the Leader. Though Inspector O searches for justice in an ever-shifting reality, cases are rarely solved in his world. In constant pursuit of an ever-elusive cup of tea, O worries chips of hardwood, smoothing the edges to get to the heart of the wood, and dreams of someday building a bookcase. This is an excellent first novel, beautifully written in an unique voice that brings an unfamiliar world to life.
http://www.stopyourekillingme.com/C_Authors/Church_James.html
Customer Rating:
Summary: Dark, Moody, Mysterious Delving into a Closed Society
Comment: Quiet, slow, scraping away one layer at a time, deeper and deeper into the depths of a society where no one can be honest, where everyone must lie, where everyone lives in quiet fear, all all all the time. Unimaginable but for an author like Church to lead the way, ever more deeply into how human beings survive, live, grow, and find their ways to one another. I appreciated this chance to wonder what it might be like to be born and live in this dark lost hole in the human community.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Extremely Disappointing
Comment: I am often attracted to mystery/thiller stories based in other countries or times since the setting can have such a strong influence on the development of the characters and the story itself. By its description this book had all the earmarks of something totally unique. Set in North Korea around an investigator who must deal with a whole set of political circumstances that would not usually be seen in novels set in the western world. However, while the setting was conveyed effectively, the story is a huge snooze. Nothing really happens or is resolved so that at the end I could not figure out why I had read it. It certainly didn't make me want to try the next one in the series.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Enjoyable yet easy to put down
Comment: I enjoyed reading 'A Corpse in the Koryo', yet after reading a chapter or two, I wouldn't get back to the book until a week later. I think that was because the mystery itself was not too compelling, rather it was the description of life in North Korea that was engaging. In fact, trying to learn about North Korea from a different angle than history, news reports, or gulag memoir was the reason I bought the book. Because North Korea is so closed, I have no idea whether Mr. Church was accurate in describing the mindset of a police detective there (or the mindest of many different types of people in N Korea), but it is unique to see someone try. Inspector O certainly seemed way too independent than I imagine a detective being in North Korea. Who knows?
As someone who lives in China currently, I find Qiu Xiaolong's books to be better 'red' mysteries, but not entirely accurate of life in China now.
Probably will buy Church's next book, though, as I am still curious about descriptions of the place.
Customer Rating:
Summary: He's real, to a point, Lord Copper
Comment: Inspector O is my favorite sort of North Korean, as he is James Church's. Read the book and immerse yourself in the society. The plot ultimately had some problems at the end that made me want to go back and re-read the book to see what evidence had failed to grab me along the way and alert me to the outcome, but the journey is far more important than the destination here for readers who want to know about this strange country. Very, very much recommended. -Bradley Martin, author, "Under the Loving Care of the Fatherly Leader: North Korea and the Kim Dynasty"
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