A Corpse in the Koryo

by James Church

Book Overview

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;...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0312374313
• ISBN13: 9780312374310
• Release Date: September 2003
• Publisher: St. Martins Press-3PL
• Length: 288 Pages
• Weight: 0.15 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.5" x 8.3"

Customer Reviews

Raymond Chandler in Pyongyang???

A remarkable and unexpected book, featuring the most unlikely of protagonists in Inspector O, a latter-day Sam Spade or Philip Marlowe. Except that Inspector O is North Korean, a servant of the world's last Stalinist state and a government that makes Idi Amin's Uganda seem rational and enlightened. Somehow, the hard-boiled Inspector O rises above it all, a knight errant seeking to maintain and assert his own integrity amidst the madness. The plot here is riveting, and the setting, by definition, is flat-out fascinating, eye-opening. This is not your father's Charlie Chan or Mr. Moto: James Church (nom de plume for a Western intelligence officer with wide-ranging field experience in Asia) is committing some of the best detective fiction extant. The fact that a new Inspector O novel is forthcoming is a cause for celebration.

Nothing is a straight line. Everything is circles,overlapping cicles that bleed ino each other.

The setting plus intrique/mystery is what makes this worth your time. The North Korea setting is done in a way that conveys the author's intimate knowledge, not only of its beauty but her people, and at last: her bureaucracy. Place in Inspector O, an Arkady Renko cousin, and mix where up, down, left, right are not always as they should be, and if they are , then is when your hair stands on end. The diaogue is excellent: "...I don't draw diagrams. I don't connect dots. Unnecessary, because I know that nothing is a staight line. Everything is circles, overlappingcircles that bleed into each other.....To solve a case you have to put wind into a jar. For me, life consists of badly limited possibilities, but I know the parts are endlessly rearranged, always shifting, always changing." So if your looking for an intellectually stimulating change- go to North Korea with Inspector O. The setting is worth the price alone. Well Done. I would like to see more of Inspector O.

Red Noir

If you thought the Soviet Moscow of Martin Cruz Smith is a bleak place, it is freaking Disneyland compared to James Church's oppressive North Korea in this intelligent and intricately plotted mystery depicting life inside one of the globes most closed and sinister societies. Likewise, Smith's sullen Inspector Arkady Renko is a regular Adam Sandler next to the cynical, irascible Inspector "O" of "A Corpse in the Koryo." It is in this unusual setting that Church layers an unsettling mystery that sinks the reader deeper into intrigue and complexity with each passing chapter. The wily Inspector "O" is sent out one early summer money with a strange but simple assignment: watch the main road from the south leading to North Korean capital Pyongyang, and photograph "a car". While Dirty Harry wouldn't put up with such obscure orders without a complete explanation, this is, after all, North Korea, the tyrannical playground of deceased mad man Kim Il-sung and his dangerously wacko son Kim Jong-il. It is a country of hope long burned out and forgotten inspiration. A country so poor that, in a darkly humorous subplot, "O" spends seeks fruitlessly for an elusive cup of tea. While is the familiar American crime novels of New York, LA, or Chicago political corruption and questionable motives might run as undercurrent, in Church's North Korea, the graft and turpitude is blatant and acknowledged. One wonders why even bother with a police department, as party members and government officials seems to move and act with absolute impunity. But back to the story, the corpse of an identified westerner turns up in a room of the Hotel Koryo, an enclave for foreigners and their ever-present Korean spies in downtown Pyongyang. "O" soon finds out that the murder is the least of his worries, as people close to him are turning up dead and he fins himself in the middle of high-powered scheming where few are who they seem and no one can be trusted. In short, a brilliant debut, but one word of warning: anyone with fantasies of idyllic Communistic worker paradises risk having their illusions shattered by Church's jagged-edged expose of a nightmare only Karl Marx could appreciate. For the rest of us, a refreshing if sobering mystery on uncommon quality.

A look inside North Korea

This is really outstanding. I picked this up after seeing it mentioned in a newspaper article, and didn't put it down until I finished. At a basic level, it is a startling but entirely plausible depiction of daily life in contemporary North Korea. I have no experience in North Korea so cannot assess its accuracy, but most of the key elements ring true: the factionalism, the bureaucracy, the bungling, the corruption, the role of personal connections, the brutality, and the lack of resources. One of the most features of this depiction is that the author does it entirely through the dialogue, the action, and the details, not through the long and pedantic expository passages that are usually the downfall of novels that seek to introduce the reader to another society. Thus, for example, the protagonist's effort to cross an intersection without using a pedestrian underpass turns into a wonderful lesson in daily life in Pyongyang. The characters all seem authentic. They are not automatons dedicated to Dear Leader, or closeted reformers who all secretly yearn for change. Rather, they struggle to make the most of a very bad situation, without giving much thought to great and abstract issues. Again, I have never been to North Korea, and have only met a few North Koreans, very briefly and quite some time ago, so I can't give a definitive assessment, but based on my previous experience in another socialist country before it began to reform in earnest, it all rings true. The book stands on its own as a good novel, which cannot always be said about detective fiction set in exotic or historical locations. The protagonist and other main characters are all fully realized and three-dimensional. Even minor characters like hotel clerks, cleaning ladies, and tour guide who appear only briefly are deftly sketched and vivid. The protagonist, while not a hero in the typical sense and in some ways not even very likable, is nevertheless a sympathetic character, as are many of the other main characters. Along those lines, the complex narrative structure is quite clever, a sort of story within a story and it's a pleasant surprise that someone who appears to be a first-time author pulls off such a feat. The author, like Xiaolong Qiu, also pulls off the difficult feat of writing a gripping police procedural in a setting where at some level there is no procedure as we would understand it, and where the resolution of the case has more to do with the configuration of the players involved and their relative power. I'm not sure I followed all the twists of the plot, and am unclear about how at least a few of the characters fit in, but in this Kafkaesque world, it didn't matter. This success at writing a procedural in a setting without procedure stands in contrast with many of the procedurals I have read that are set in Italy. In those procedurals, personal connections also seem to be as important as the facts, and yet with the exception of the Inspector Montalb

Wonderful thriller

I read A Corpse in the Koryo a year ago in manuscript form, sent to me my Mr Church's editor. I loved it. Inspector O is an endearing character, with a mix of necessary pragmatism and romanticism, as well as authentic complexity. It's not just the milieu (North Korea) that appeals--though that certainly does, taking the reader to a place few know at all. More, it's the writing--a beautifully honed minimalism that nonetheless evokes its scenes with great detail. I love it when writers are able to leave room for the reader's imagination. It takes talent to know where to leave those spaces, and James Church has plenty of such talent. If you like fine writing, eye-opening characters and locales, and a quiet but purposeful intelligence wrapped inside a thrilling story, get ready to go to Church.