A Corpse in the Koryo An Inspector O Novel [Paperback]

On the surface,A Corpse in the Koryois 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; 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 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.
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.

. . . an outstanding crime novel. . . . a not-to-be-missed reading experience.
---Library Journal(starred)

Inspector O is completely believable and sympathetic . . . The writing is superb, too . . . richly layered and visually evocative.
---Booklist(starred)

. . . an impressive debut that calls to mind such mystery thrillers as Martin Cruz Smith'sGorkyPark. . . .
---Publishers Weekly(starred)

Inspector O is a complex, nuanced figure who understands that the regime he serves is corrupt, brutal and mendacious, but he remains loyal.... I think many North Korean officials today are an echo of the conflicted nationalist Inspector O. ???The New York Times