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    A Corpse in the Koryo: An Inspector O Novel
    A Corpse in the Koryo: An Inspector O Novel
    A Corpse in the Koryo: An Inspector O Novel
    Ebook358 pages6 hours

    A Corpse in the Koryo: An Inspector O Novel

    By James Church

    3.5/5

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    About this ebook

    Against the backdrop of a totalitarian North Korea, one man unwillingly uncovers the truth behind series of murders, and wagers his life in the process.

    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 decades-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. A corpse in Pyongyang's main hotel---the Koryo---pulls Inspector O into a confrontation of bad choices between the devils he knows and those he doesn't want to meet. A blue button on the floor of a hotel closet, an ice blue Finnish lake, and desperate efforts by the North Korean leadership set Inspector O on a journey to the edge of a reality he almost can't survive.

    Like Philip Kerr's Berlin Noir trilogy and the Inspector Arkady Renko novels, A Corpse in the Koryo introduces another unfamiliar world, a perplexing universe seemingly so alien that the rules are an enigma to the reader and even, sometimes, to Inspector O. 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. This is a chilling portrayal that, in the end, leaves us wondering if what at first seemed unknowable may simply be too familiar for comfort.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMacmillan Publishers
    Release dateOct 17, 2006
    ISBN9781429936552
    A Corpse in the Koryo: An Inspector O Novel
    Author

    James Church

    JAMES CHURCH (pseudonym) is a former Western intelligence officer with decades of experience in Asia. He has wandered through Korea for years. No matter what hat he wore, Church says, he ran across Inspector O many times.

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    Reviews for A Corpse in the Koryo

    3.5/5

    19 ratings10 reviews

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    • 1/5
      Novel set in North Korea, and follows a convoluted trail to the eventual end. Not sure if this was the author's way to portray North Korea, or just the style of writing. Probably won't read this author again.
    • 3/5
      A Corpse in the Koryo is the first book in the Inspector O series. Inspector O is a North Korean police officer silently railing against the system, yet forced to do just enough to keep himself out of a prison camp. Inspector O is first sent on a mysterious job where he is told to photograph a car coming out of a tunnel, when and if that car ever appears. Fast forward to the discovery of an unidentified man with false Finnish identification papers, found at the Koryo, the main luxury hotel in Pyongyang. Every intelligence agency seems interested in this man. Inspector O never knows who he can trust but he's pretty sure he can trust no one. The story is told in alternating chapters of Inspector O's investigation and thoughts and an ongoing conversation between Inspector O and Western intelligence agent, Richie Molloy.

      I thought I would like this book more than I actually did. I was interested in reading a mystery set in North Korea. I really did enjoy the wit of Inspector O. He's a rebel who often “forgets” to wear his Leader pin and he's been known to leave notes for the Secret Police to “be neater” next time they ransack his room. His now-deceased grandfather provides an interesting back story about the inspector as a boy.

      The negatives of the book include a messy and complicated plot that seemed redundant in many places. It's not a traditional mystery but more of an espionage novel. A Corpse in the Koryo was a very complex novel to grasp but I enjoyed the character enough to commit to one more book in the series.
    • 4/5
      I have to admit, I never entirely got caught up in the plot, which was a little bit confusing and convoluted. But I thought Church did a great job with atmosphere and scene-setting (it helps that I've been completely obsessed with North Korea ever since I read Nothing to Envy) and I thought Inspector O was a great character. I will definitely be checking out more books in this series.
    • 4/5
      I find it hard not to be fascinated on some level with North Korea. It's not something I indulge often, because there's such a high pathos level about the place, but it does draw the attention. How must it be to live in a country so rigidly controlled, and to be so close to other places that were so similar culturally, and yet so much better and more sane places to live? It boggles the mind.I'd heard of this book rather a while ago; in fact, I have this feeling I bought it for my friend Greg as a present at some point. I finally got around to giving it a try, after the new Kim took over and was settling into the news, and I remembered it. Turns out that it's quite a good story, a mystery that's really a sharp look at the society in which it's set.Inspector O, a member of the Pyongyang police force, is sent off his beat to take pictures one morning of a car speeding along a road heading up from the south towards the capital. When his camera doesn't work, he gets called into a meeting with two government operatives from different agencies, Kang and Kim, and is then caught in a slowly revealed struggle between them that carries O around the country, dealing with everyone from other police forces to lawless border town residents to resident aliens.The story isn't a total success - the framing story, where O is telling his story to an Irish agent after all the events of the story, seems particularly unnecessary, and things are opaque for rather longer than was probably called for, pacing-wise - but on the other hand, the characters and their environment are well-sculpted. Church was a former intelligence officer in the area, and his experience certainly shows through in his observations of the society, and all the myriad ways people work around the state's crushing powers. O himself is probably the best example of this, in that he's probably the most overtly against the power structures in the story; he doesn't wear his Dear Leader pin, he keeps around contraband in his office drawers, he hews to a desire to deal with the woodworking his grandfather loved during and after his army surface.But it may just be that we see the most of O's breaks from authority; certainly, we get the sense that pretty much everyone is trying to work around the rules in one way or another, from importing Western porn to cars to cigarettes, to being able to criticize the state, but only in situations where the massive security apparatus can't see it, ideally. And they see a lot; we see a lot of them, indeed, including around the titular corpse. However, O and the others don't really seem to want to leave. They're proud of their country and what it does. They just want it easier on themselves.On the whole, this book definitely feeds the fascination with the little hermit country and its people, but it's still a somewhat uneven first effort plot-wise. Perhaps Church will do better in his next book in the series, but this one is still of interest to people who want to understand North Korea more.
    • 4/5
      An interesting mystery/political thriller that succeeds in creating a distinctive, claustrophobic, and mostly dreary narrative world. Whether the novel accurately reflects what it's like to live in North Korea, I have no idea - and frankly, I doubt any of the authors or public figures whose names are attached to the jacket blurbs know either. The marketing for the book emphasizes that the author worked as an intelligence officer and has traveled widely in Asia; but since his (or her) identity is secret, there's no way to tell whether those experiences should really lend the book credibility. Taken on its own terms, the story has a lot of nice touches - for example: the narrator's inability to obtain a cup of tea shows how even basic comforts are out of reach in a dysfunctional totalitarian state, and how few people share with anyone else without an expectation of payback. The beauty of the land, and the narrator's lyrical appreciation of it, provides one of the few lightening elements in an otherwise bleak story. I found it difficult to make sense of one of the novel's key conceits - that the narrator is recounting his story in an interview with an agent of some foreign government or network -- and ultimately I didn't grasp where that strand of the plot went - though perhaps I missed something, or perhaps it's a set up for a subsequent novel. Despite that misgiving, I liked the story well enough that I'll probably try the second in the series to see if the books get stronger or the character grows.
    • 5/5
      Outstanding writing and characterization. This mystery, the first in a series about Inspector O, has inspired me to read more about North Korea, including Nothing to Envy: ordinary lives in North Korea by Barbara Demick.
    • 1/5
      As a reader of books set in Asia, as a fan of mysteries, I wanted to like this book. But find I can't say anything good about it. There's a lot of talking, a lot of traveling around, "clues" being dropped, but without much point. It all comes to naught. I picked this book up because of mentions elsewhere on LT and only read the "praise" on the back cover after I finished the book. That's when I saw a comment from that illustrious and accomplished writer Newt Gingrich - "This novel is a must-read for anyone who would understand how precarious the dictatorship is." All I can say to that is - Hogwash!!My recommendation - don't bother. Life is too short.
    • 3/5
      This is a mystery set in modern day North Korea. It is also the start of the Inspector O series. I really wanted to like it more than I did. The setting intrigues me, The writing was good, it flowed well and made as much sense as the story allowed. That was my biggest problem with the book. There were a lot of cryptic comments, a lot of aimless wandering around, and a lot of verbal fencing - talking about a car wreck and 2 murders as if they didn't happen, then ignoring them. There were power players that didn't have explanations as to why they were there and how they all connected together.I think the author did it to emulate trying to work and live under a dictatorship. And it was effective, it just detracted from the story. The corpse of the title didn't show up until about page 136. Then his murder was a minor plot point, and the killer and the truth about the murder was never really presented. It was all swallowed in politics, and conjecture.The story is of powerful heads of the Ministries of Intelligence (Kang) and Security (Kim) showing up in the office of Inspector O's boss. There is something going on, and they are involved. His boss Pak sends him on a tour of remote areas to escape the Ministry plot. Kang from Intelligence pops up and tells O what to do, the Security people have goons follow O. It seems the Security people really want Kang, the Intelligence guy. It is never explained why O and his boss Pak are drawn in. Or what he is doing on his tour. There is a good bit of detail about his past, his current life and the difficulty of life under the dictatorship. Even the smallest item is considered anti-social if it is different. They have little pay, and few of even the basic essentials to do their job. The cameras may not have batteries, let alone those that work. Their official police cars may not have fuel. The camera incident comes to light because O is sent to a hillside before dawn to take a picture of a car that is expected to pass by. He is to take a picture of the license plate of the car, for someone higher up who wants to use it for blackmail. That is the life of a police officer there, not just keeping the peace, or enforcing the laws, but meeting the needs of those with more power, regardless of what they want.The story is very disjointed and never really explained. At the end O comes up with an explanation but it seems not to really come from the story, just something that is used to end the book. It could have just as easily been a different story and it would have seemed as plausible.Interspersed with the story of O is a section where O is telling the events to a stranger. An Irish agent who is asking questions about the events and recording everything. There is no explanation of why or where they are (until the end) or what the agent wants. Even the retelling makes no real connections.I have the 2nd book in the series and will read it. I usually give a new series 3 books to sort itself out. I hope this one does because it just seems to have the potential to be both good and interesting.
    • 3/5
      This is a mystery where even the mystery remains a mystery. The book is long on atmosphere and local color(lessness), and short on crime. It does make the point that in those countries where law and order are tyrannically upheld, the government tends to be the one that is criminal. For setting, this book gets an A, however. It evokes the depression of life in North Korea -- where everything is scarce, if not totally unavailable, from tea to sympathy, and nothing, but nothing, works. ( Inspector O's constant quest for the elusive tea is a clue that nothing is going to get better.) The multiple layers of bureaucracy and paranoia, the stifling of thought or creativity of any kind, the claustophobia are all thick and believable. Inspector O would be a likeable character, if he wasn't so empty inside, but how could it be otherwise?
    • 5/5
      This is a finely crafted mystery, with wonderful characterizations and an astonishing sense of place. Lyrical and spare in prose, with passages of empathy and great beauty set against a backdrop of brutality. Inspector O is a delight, seeing the hidden grain in both wood and people, and slowly exploring both to find the true underlying forms, the strengths and weaknesses. An excellent read for a quiet place.

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    A Corpse in the Koryo - James Church

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