Bookstore and blog for fans of international mysteries and thrillers
Travel Through the Looking Glass to Totalitarian North Korea
The Inspector O Mystery Series by James Church
Books in this Series
Excerpts from Reviews
''It's no stretch to describe Church as a latter-day John le Carre.'' – Tampa Tribune
"With wit and efficiency, Church masterfully evokes the challenges of enforcing the law in an authoritarian society and weds the intriguing atmosphere to a fast-moving and engaging plot."–Publishers Weekly
“Hidden Moon’s often sharp repartee is reminiscent of Raymond Chandler’s dialogue, while the corrupt North Korean bureaucracy provides an exotic but entirely convincing noir backdrop. . . . Like Marlowe and Spade before him, Inspector O navigates the shadows and, every now and then, finds truth in the half-light.” –The Wall Street Journal
"...the real pleasure of Hidden Moon is its conversations, loaded down with layers of secrecy and suspicion that surface words are meaningless in the face of buried intention. Thanks to Church, mystery readers are learning about the minds and hearts of North Koreans –and putting a human face on a world so far away."
–The Baltimore Sun
“The central character is a Pyongyang police officer, the likeable Inspector O, who knows that in North Korea mysteries are never solved, just absorbed into larger mysteries…. Mr. Church keeps his own counsel, so it is not known how he comes by his information, but the scenic details and atmospherics suggest more than a passing acquaintance with the realities of life in North Korea.” –The Economist
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.
Highly recommended to espionage enthusiasts, noir fans, all who are interested in life behind the curtain in totalitarian states, especially fans of Martin Cruz Smith's Arkady Renko, Eliot Pattison's Shan Tao Yun and Qui Xialong's Inspector Chen Cao.
Lovely, spare prose very evocative of people and place. O's ironic sensibility makes him a terrific narrator. Life through-the-looking-glass in a paranoid society where up is down and black is white is convincingly portrayed. Church has brilliantly adapted the standard police procedural form to accommodate the special difficulties of a criminal investigator working in an authoritarian state. These novels have all the suspense and intrigue we expect from the genre with an additional tension: will the investigator survive the investigation or will he find himself imprisoned or worse for asking the wrong question or uncovering the wrong person's secret?
Well-written. Chilling and engrossing. A fine book.
When the secret police pick him up from his mountaintop retirement retreat, Inspector O expects something bad—interrogation, imprisonment—and gets something worse: a top politician is suspected of murder and O has been appointed lead investigator. The Man with the Baltic Stare (2010, Inspector O #4)
A Corpse in the Koryo (2006, Inspector O #1)
A PUBLISHERS WEEKLY 'TOP 100' BOOK in 2006
A CHICAGO TRIBUNE 'BEST MYSTERY/THRILLERS' BOOK in 2006
Lovely writing. Atmospheric. A world rarely seen. Convincing detail. Engrossing mystery.
One small surveillance job initiates a maelstrom of betrayal and death.Hidden Moon (2007, Inspector O #2)
I love the way this author writes. Highly suspenseful. Church raises conversation to an artform.
When the bank robbery case lands on O's desk, he recognizes it for what it is: a case the political higher-ups want filed and forgotten. Bamboo and Blood (2007, Inspector O #3)
