Bookstore and blog for fans of international mysteries and thrillers
Time & Place: present-day, Pyongyang, North Korea and various cities in Eastern Europe
Plot: Inspector O's orders were simple: 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, that is, 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.
Excerpts from Reviews
Publishers Weekly: *Starred Review* In an impressive debut that calls to mind such mystery thrillers as Martin Cruz Smith's Gorky Park, the pseudonymous Church, a former intelligence officer, provides a rare look into one of the world's most closed societies, North Korea. When Inspector O, a state security officer, is called on the carpet for botching a sensitive surveillance assignment, O soon realizes that competing forces in the military and intelligence hierarchies set him up to fail and that his personal and professional well-being depend on his walking a tightrope. The detective's pragmatic if unwavering commitment to the ideals of pursuing justice in the face of serious obstacles makes him a heroic figure who's well suited to carry future entries in what one hopes will be a long-lived series. Despite the exotic setting, Hammett and Chandler would have had no problem appreciating this hard-boiled narrative.
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Booklist: *Starred Review* Inspector O, a North Korean state police officer, is given an unusual assignment: go to a certain part of a certain road at dawn and photograph a certain vehicle. Little does he suspect that this seemingly inconsequential task will escalate into a case that will lead him to risk his job, and his life. The (pseudonymous) author, a veteran intelligence officer, has intimate knowledge of Asian life and politics, and it shows: he gives the North Korea setting a feeling of palpable reality, depicting the nature of daily life under a totalitarian government not just with broad sociopolitical descriptions but also with specific everyday details. Inspector O is completely believable and sympathetic, a working cop who isn't entirely sure he believes in the things his government tells him to believe in. Comparisons to J. Robert Janes' series set in occupied France and costarring Gestapo detective Kohler are inevitable, but there is also a little of Martin Cruz Smith's early Arkady Renko novels here. The writing is superb, too, well above the level usually associated with a first novel, richly layered and visually evocative. –David Pitt
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
The Washington Post : "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
Library Journal: *Starred Review* ". . . an outstanding crime novel. . . . a not-to-be-missed reading experience. "
A Corpse in the Koryo (2006, Inspector O #1)
by James Church
A PUBLISHERS WEEKLY 'TOP 100' BOOK in 2006
A CHICAGO TRIBUNE 'BEST MYSTERY/THRILLERS' BOOK in 2006
ABOUT THE BOOK
Books in this Series
Inspector O Uncovers Cover Up of Decade's-Old Kidnappings
Lovely writing. Atmospheric. A world rarely seen. Convincing detail. Engrossing mystery. Highly recommended to spy novel enthusiasts, international noir fans, and all who are interested in life behind the curtain in totalitarian states.
One small surveillance job initiates a maelstrom of betrayal and death. 
WHO IS INSPECTOR O?
Secret Policeman Pounds Beat, Ponders Mysteries of Universe
Inspector O of the Ministry of Public Security knows how to keep a secret—it's a survival strategy in paranoid Pyongyang, North Korea. O also knows
he should keep his politically incorrect thoughts to himself, especially when being threatened by someone a few rungs higher up the secret-police career ladder, but he just can't resist poking his opponents with a verbal stick. Fortunately, O's status as a grandson of a Hero of the Revolution provides him some protection from the revenge of petty bureaucrats. But there is no protection from his own dangerous determination to use his investigations to uncover truth, not bury it.
