Hidden Moon: An Inspector O Novel

by James Church

Book Overview

Hidden Moon reads more like a spy novel by a Korean Kafka. Final word: Fascinating. --Rocky Mountain News

In A Corpse in the Koryo, James Church introduced readers to one of the most unique detectives to appear on page in years---the elusive Inspector O. The stunning mystery was named one of the best mystery/thrillers of 2006 by the Chicago Tribune for its beautifully spare prose and layered descriptions of a...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0312387660
• ISBN13: 9780312387662
• Release Date: October 2008
• Publisher: St. Martins Press-3PL
• Length: 304 Pages
• Weight: 0.65 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.5" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

Unuusual insights

I read murder novels for escape, but I also like to learn about different places. This fits the bill and is filled with numerous twists and turns. I look forward to reading more of the Inspector O Novels!

A great follow-up to his first book....

As mentioned in my first review I read his first book more for the insight into North Korea than for the mystery aspect. This book is less about what day to day life is like in North Korea and more about the absuridty of living in a country where nothing is what it seems to be. The character development of Inspector O is outstanding. His constant banter with his boss and others throughout the book brings humor to what otherwise would be a humorless situation. The beginning of the book was a tad slow and then it really picked up and I couldn't put it down until the end.

A smart cop in a mind-bendingly paranoid regime

Church's second Inspector O novel finds the North Korean detective feeling his way gingerly, reluctantly, stubbornly around a sensitive case - a bank robbery, the first ever in Pyongyang. " `There's nothing in the training manual about bank robberies.' I pointed at the green-covered book on the floor behind me. It had been there when I came into the office years ago, and there had never been a reason to disturb it. `That means no standard procedures, no approved plan of operations. I wouldn't know where to start,' " he tells his boss, knowing it's a no-win case, one he's meant not to solve, probably, but to appear to be trying to solve. Probably. Sure enough, things are immediately hinky, with a dead bank robber he's not allowed to see, an attractive bank manager who talks in riddles, a Scottish cop he's expected to baby-sit and a State Security man looking over his shoulder. "Hidden Moon" more than fulfills the promise of Church's first, "The Corpse in the Koryo," with its likable, canny, sardonic protagonist and succinct, witty - sometimes hilarious - prose. Church, the pseudonym of a former intelligence operative in North Korea, paints a detailed, absorbing picture of an authoritarian regime built on shifting sands of paranoia and secrecy.

Even better than A Corpse in the Koryo

The plot this time still is not one that a reader will grasp on first reading. But again the point is, here's what life in North Korea is like, up to a point. I was a big fan of the first installment and like the 2d even more. -Bradley Martin

Challenging, demanding, disjointed with purpose, and darkling bright

Like "A Corpse in the Koryo", "Hidden Moon" creates more questions than it answers. It may not satisfy a reader's need for clarity and closure. Comfort must be found elsewhere. The opening line is a gem: "The afternoon lay strangled in a gloom of Chinese dust." Later, with only the slightest context, "Native to Korea is one venomous snake, whose bite is lethal but which is not aggressive. The tigers left long ago. New bears have been seen." Gentle humor blossoms: "There was an old monk that lived at the temple after the war. No one bothered him. A couple of political types came up that first September and asked him a few questions. When they were leaving, they told me it was my job to watch him. It was funny and we all laughed. Setting a blind man to watch a monk."