James Church Books In Order

A Corpse in the Koryo

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. Critical Acclaim for The Corpse in the Koryo

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

Hidden Moon

Hidden Moon reads more like a spy novel by a Korean Kafka. Final word: Fascinating. Rocky Mountain News In A Corpse in the Koryo, James Church introduced readers to one of the most unique detectives to appear on page in years the elusive Inspector O. The stunning mystery was named one of the best mystery/thrillers of 2006 by the Chicago Tribune for its beautifully spare prose and layered descriptions of a terrain Church knows by heart. And now the Inspector is back. In Hidden Moon, Inspector O returns from a mission abroad to find his new police commander waiting at his office door. There has been a bank robbery the first ever in Pyongyang and the commander demands action, and quickly. But is this urgency for real? Somewhere, someone in the North Korean leadership doesn t want Inspector O to complete his investigation. And why not? What if the robbery leads to the highest levels of the regime? What if power, not a need for cash, is the real reason behind the heist at the Gold Star Bank? Given a choice, this isn t a trail a detective in the Pyongyang police would want to follow all the way to the end, even a trail marked with monogrammed silk stockings. I m not sure I know where the bank is, is O’s laconic observation as the warning bells go off in his head. A Scottish policeman sent to provide security for a visiting British official, a sultry Kazakh bank manager, and a mournful fellow detective all combine to put O in the middle of a spiderweb of conspiracies that becomes more tangled, and dangerous, the more he pulls on the threads. Once again, as he did in A Corpse in the Koryo, James Church opens a window onto a society where nothing is quite as it seems. The story serves as the reader s flashlight, illuminating a place that outsiders imagine is always dark and too far away to know. Church s descriptions of the country and its people are spare and starkly beautiful; the dialogue is lean, every thought weighed and measured before it is spoken. Not a word is wasted, because in this place no one can afford to be misunderstood. Praise for Hidden Moon: The book 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 Hidden Moon…
is like nothing else I ve ever read. Church creates an utterly convincing, internally consistent world of the absurd where orders mean the opposite of what they say and paperwork routinely gets routed to oblivion. Hallie Ephron, The Boston Globe Church uses his years of intelligence work to excellent advantage here, delivering one duplicitous plot twist after another…
the author s affection for the landscape and people of Korea is abundantly evident. A stunning conclusion. The Washington Post’…
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 SunCritical Acclaim for A Corpse in the Koryo: 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 The best unclassified account of how North Korea works and why it has survived…
This novel should be required bedtime reading for President Bush and his national security team.’ Peter Hayes, executive director of the Nautilus Institute for Security and Sustainable Development A new offering that reminds you of why you started reading mysteries and thrillers in the first place. Chicago Tribune What’s perhaps most remarkable and appealing about A Corpse in the Koryo is the tremendously clever complexity and deceptions of the plot. The reader is left to marvel at the author’s ability to keep his readers on their intellectual toes for almost three hundred pages. We can only hope that Church has many more novels up his sleeve. Tampa Tribune An impressive debut that calls to mind such mystery thrillers as Martin Cruz Smith s Gorky Park. Publishers Weekly starred review In Inspector O, the author has crafted a complex character with rough charm to spare, and in eternally static North Korea, he has a setting that will fascinate readers for sequels to come. Time magazine Asia edition

Bamboo and Blood

The critically acclaimed A Corpse in the Koryo brought readers into the enigmatic workings of North Korean intelligence with the introduction of a new kind of detective the mysterious Inspector O. In the follow up, Hidden Moon, O threaded his way through the minefield of North Korean ministries into a larger conspiracy he was never supposed to touch.

Now the inspector returns…

In the winter of 1997, trying to stay alive during a famine that has devastated much of North Korea, Inspector O is ordered to play host to an Israeli agent who appears in Pyongyang. When the wife of a North Korean diplomat in Pakistan dies under suspicious circumstances, O is told to investigate, with a curious proviso: Don t look too closely at the details, and stay away from the question of missiles. O knows he can t avoid finding out what he is supposed to ignore on a trail that leads him from the dark, chilly rooms of Pyongyang to an abandoned secret facility deep in the countryside, guarded by a lonely general; and from the streets of New York to a bench beneath a horse chestnut tree on the shores of Lake Geneva, where the Inspector discovers he is up to his ears in missiles and worse. Stalked by the past and wary of the future, O is convinced there is no one he can trust, and no one he can t suspect. Swiss intelligence wants him out of the country; someone else wants him dead.

Once again, James Church’s spare, lyrical prose guides readers through an unfamiliar landscape of whispered words and shadows, a world wrapped in a level of mystery and complexity that few outsiders have experienced. With Inspector O, noir has a new home in North Korea, and James Church holds the keys.

The Man with the Baltic Stare

The mysterious Inspector O is once again drawn into a web of concessions and cover ups in the newest mystery from critically acclaimed author James Church. Autumn brings unwelcome news to Inspector O: wrenched from retirement, he has been ordered to Pyongyang for an assignment. The two Koreas are now cooperating very quietly to maintain stability in the North. Stability requires compromise; stability requires peace; stability requires that O investigate a crime of passion committed by the young man who has been selected as the best leader of a transition government. O is instructed to make sure the case goes away. Then he learns that several groups remnants of the old regime, foreign powers, rival gangs all want a piece of the action, and all make clear that if O values his life, he will not get in their way. O isn t sure where his loyalties lie, and he doesn t have much time to figure out whether tis better to be noble or be dead. Once again, James Church’s spare, lyrical writing illuminates an unfamiliar landscape of whispers and shadows, a place few outsiders have ever experienced. The Man with the Baltic Stare is a chilling, atmospheric noir a fascinating response to the works of Martin Cruz Smith and John Le Carre.