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A Corpse in the Koryo (Inspector O Novels) Paperback – September 3, 2003

by James Church (Author)
3.8 3.8 out of 5 stars 308 ratings
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"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, 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's Gorky Park. . . ."
---Publishers Weekly (starred)

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Previous page
  1. Book 1 of 6
    Inspector O Novels
  2. Print length
    288 pages
  3. Language
    English
  4. Publication date
    September 3, 2003
  5. Dimensions
    5.55 x 0.72 x 8.31 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    0312374313
  7. ISBN-13
    978-0312374310
  8. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

Review

"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

“This is a fine, intelligent, and exciting story that takes us into the netherworld of contemporary North Korean communism. It evokes the gray milieu without ever overstepping its mark, allowing us to see it from the inside rather than the outside, wherein the humanity of all the characters, both good and evil, is apparent. Inspector O is a particularly wonderful creation, a true mensch attempting to hold on to his humanity in a world where humanism is under constant attack. Subtlety is the method, and the result is fantastic work that should mark the beginning of a brilliant career for James Church.” ―Olen Steinhauer, author of Liberation Movements

“For over fifty years Americans have tried to understand the world of North Korea. James Church does a better job of describing the isolated, impoverished, corrupt, and out- of-touch life in the North than anything I have seen. This novel is a must-read for anyone who would understand how precarious the dictatorship is.” ―Newt Gingrich, author of Winning Back the Future and Never Call Retreat

“A gripping story of mystery and intrigue. The laconic Inspector O follows in the traditions of Inspector Arkady Renko, operating in a world of complexity and danger we're meeting here for the first time.” ―Don Oberdorfer, author of Tet!

“Church's debut thriller breaks new ground. O is an original. This is an expert take on a complex, brutal, and mystifying society. Immerse yourself in it.” ―Marshall Browne, author of Eye of the Abyss and the Inspector Anders series


“The Corpse in the Koryo is a spellbinder. Bloody and chilling, yet subtle in its psychological detail, with an amazing understanding of North Korea.” ―Ezra F. Vogel, Henry Ford II Professor of the Social Sciences, Harvard University Asia Center


“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. . . . 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.” ―Booklist (starred review)

About the Author

James Church (pseudonym) is a former Western intelligence officer with decades of experience in Asia.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Minotaur Books; First Edition (September 3, 2003)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 288 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0312374313
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0312374310
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 2.31 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.55 x 0.72 x 8.31 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    3.8 3.8 out of 5 stars 308 ratings

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James Church

James Church

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Customer reviews

3.8 out of 5 stars
3.8 out of 5
308 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Gary Griffiths
5.0 out of 5 stars Red Noir
Reviewed in the United States on January 26, 2007
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If you thought the Soviet Moscow of Martin Cruz Smith is a bleak place, it is freaking Disneyland compared to James Church's oppressive North Korea in this intelligent and intricately plotted mystery depicting life inside one of the globes most closed and sinister societies. Likewise, Smith's sullen Inspector Arkady Renko is a regular Adam Sandler next to the cynical, irascible Inspector "O" of "A Corpse in the Koryo."

It is in this unusual setting that Church layers an unsettling mystery that sinks the reader deeper into intrigue and complexity with each passing chapter. The wily Inspector "O" is sent out one early summer money with a strange but simple assignment: watch the main road from the south leading to North Korean capital Pyongyang, and photograph "a car". While Dirty Harry wouldn't put up with such obscure orders without a complete explanation, this is, after all, North Korea, the tyrannical playground of deceased mad man Kim Il-sung and his dangerously wacko son Kim Jong-il. It is a country of hope long burned out and forgotten inspiration. A country so poor that, in a darkly humorous subplot, "O" spends seeks fruitlessly for an elusive cup of tea. While is the familiar American crime novels of New York, LA, or Chicago political corruption and questionable motives might run as undercurrent, in Church's North Korea, the graft and turpitude is blatant and acknowledged. One wonders why even bother with a police department, as party members and government officials seems to move and act with absolute impunity. But back to the story, the corpse of an identified westerner turns up in a room of the Hotel Koryo, an enclave for foreigners and their ever-present Korean spies in downtown Pyongyang. "O" soon finds out that the murder is the least of his worries, as people close to him are turning up dead and he fins himself in the middle of high-powered scheming where few are who they seem and no one can be trusted.

In short, a brilliant debut, but one word of warning: anyone with fantasies of idyllic Communistic worker paradises risk having their illusions shattered by Church's jagged-edged expose of a nightmare only Karl Marx could appreciate. For the rest of us, a refreshing if sobering mystery on uncommon quality.
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Mary Whipple
4.0 out of 5 stars "It's not that we don't like foreigners...It's ourselves we don't like. In our minds, we are small, quivering, cowering dogs."
Reviewed in the United States on August 29, 2009
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Author "James Church," a former western intelligence officer with "decades of experience" in Asia, including, presumably, North Korea, provides a stunning and profoundly interesting portrait of "real life" in this secretive and sometimes paranoid country. Inspector O, the main character in Church's novel, works for the North Korean Ministry of People's Security, but even at the level of inspector, he has no idea why he is assigned many of his tasks, nor does he know why he is often sent from the capital, Pyongyang, to outposts like Manpo and Kanggye on the Chinese border. He can trust no one, and he must constantly watch his back to ensure that he does not accidentally discover information about crimes that he does not even know exist.

Though the inspector is inured to a life of uncertainly and to the inexplicable behavior of his superiors, most readers of mysteries have developed a set of expectations about plots and characters. This one ignores the "rules"--and may be all the more fascinating, as a result. The biggest mystery here, in fact, is what is the mystery? Neither Inspector O nor the reader has any idea what is going on or why. Any suggestion of a plot becomes even more ephemeral when it is interrupted regularly by an interrogation taking place in Prague by an Irish security official who is interviewing Inspector O, though we don't know why. The ambiguities of the plot are paralleled by the ambiguities of character. Inspector O is "round" enough to keep readers interested--he is iconoclastic and refuses to wear his badges, and he is the grandson of a man who was a hero of the revolution--but we learn almost nothing else about him, other than the fact that he would love to spend his time creating furniture.

The action begins when Inspector O is asked to observe and photograph a luxury car emerging from a tunnel in the countryside, and continues with the discovery of the body of a Finn in the Koryo Hotel in Pyongyang. Soon, the violence increases with additional murders in other parts of the country to which O is sent. The rivalry between Kang, Deputy Director of the Investigation Department, and Kim, from Joint Headquarters, with O's Ministry of People's Security continues throughout the novel, and O is caught in the middle, never sure whether he can trust anyone, even Pak, his superior in the ministry. The possible involvement of non-communist countries in a conspiracy involving representatives from some of North Korea's ministries raises intriguing questions and suggests that North Korea may not be as monolithic as we have previously thought.

While I appreciated the picture of North Korea and life within it and found the book stimulating, I still don't feel that I know Inspector O very well. Still, I have purchased the remaining two novels in the series because the series is so different and provides apparently reliable information about life in North Korea. Existential in its concepts and dark and ironic in its execution, THE CORPSE IN THE KORYO provides the interested reader with new ways of thinking about a "mystery nation," and offers a new way of thinking about its goals--and our own. n Mary Whipple

 Hidden Moon: An Inspector O Novel (Inspector O Novels) , #2 in the series
 Bamboo and Blood: An Inspector O Novel (Inspector O Novels) , #3 in the series
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Andrew Desmond
3.0 out of 5 stars The Inspector from North Korea
Reviewed in the United States on January 18, 2017
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“A Corpse in the Koryo” is both clever and puzzling. Clever in the sense that the book is well written in a sparse but elegant style; puzzling in that the plot is very complex. It begins to all come together at the end but, even then, not to my complete satisfaction.

This book is the first in the series that introduces the reader to Inspector O. It also introduces the reader to the horrible and byzantine politics that are the norm in North Korea. Inspector O works in the Ministry of People’s Security and what begins as a routine murder investigation turns into something far more diabolical. There are conflicting political agenda that threaten not just the investigation but even O’s life. Under the circumstances, he handles matters very adroitly.

Although I have no knowledge of North Korea beyond that of most people, I found James Church’s description of places and events as quite plausible. I’m not sure if the author has travelled beyond the DMV or not. Regardless, his prose certainly captures a country that is very different from anywhere else on earth. He is to be commended.

I look forward to further adventures with the redoubtable Inspector O.
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Denise Spicer
5.0 out of 5 stars Exceeded expectations!!!
Reviewed in the United States on May 9, 2024
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Arrived early. As described. I would say in fact I would say even better! Thanks!
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Top reviews from other countries

Jippu
4.0 out of 5 stars What do North Korea and Finland have in common?
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 4, 2016
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It is an intriguing idea to write detective novels about a North Korean police inspector. But it seems that James Chruch is well equipped, although dis Inspector O is a somewhat improbable person. Chruch explains his quirks by the fact that his granfather was a revolutionary hero, but that would not weigh not so much in reality, considering O's independence and suspicious behavior (and actual treasonous behavior). There aremany funny details about everyday life in North Korea which must be taken by face value, and the competition between different security services sounds plausible. The actual cases are always a little vague and unclear in details, but involve upper echelons and the power struggles between them, in which O gets involved. This first story i quite complicated but everything is cleared (almost) in the end. Unfortunately a very nice main character is killed. The interest in fifferent wood pieces is fascinating. There is, for a Finn, an additional interest in the fact that the plot involves a half-Finnish, half Korean girl from lake Keitele and Finland does have an important role in the chain of events leading to the murders. Finland and North Korea would seem to be somewhat similar countries... . .
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Nicholas Walker
5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 8, 2014
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Really good book, but the ending lets it down a bit. Got here in perfect condition, fast.
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Brooklynnative
3.0 out of 5 stars This book is interesting if you have been to North ...
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 27, 2015
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This book is interesting if you have been to North Korea and know some of the places. But the story line is a bit confused and not compelling after a while. One was interesting but not sure I would bother with another.
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Jesse Taylor-Billington
4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent read, a new perspective on North Korean society.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 8, 2018
Verified Purchase
While this is a work of fiction, it's clear that the author has some experience of the workings of North Korea. It was quite refreshing to read something based around the North's society that doesn't try to brow-beat the reader into seeing things from one perspective or the other. The author not only writes a good story, but he also quietly goes about informing the reader of the idiosyncrasies of day-to-day life as he encountered it in North Korea.
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Zebedee
4.0 out of 5 stars Great read. Perhaps more could have been made of the ending.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 25, 2013
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Very enjoyable read. Kept you thinking about hardship of life in North Korea but also the intriguing layers upon layers of intrigue in Korean political life. Interesting but although final ending was not entirely predictable it fell a bit flat as though more could have been made of this.
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