A mystery in black and white

Ok, here's the hook, the first-ever bank heist in North Korea with one of the robbers mowed down in the street outside the bank by an off-course bus, but wait, there is no body, and what about the beautiful Kazakh bank manager. Two weeks after the heist, the case lands on the desk of Inspector O, (but do THEY really want it solved, or not?) O ponders the corundum as he again considers plans for a never to be built book shelf for his office. Ok, the pace is slow and things are seldom as they seem but it is North Korea after all.

This is a solid proceedural written by James Church, who claims to have been an intelligence agent who now uses a pseudonym. At first glance I might have passed on this one but the pace and language of the first few pages sucked me in and I enjoyed it.

This is the second Inspector O mystery. The first was A Corpse in the Koryo, released in 2006. Glenn Kessler reviewed this one for The Washington Post and wrote:

"But the book has also caused a stir among Asia specialists because it offers an unusually nuanced and detailed portrait of one of the most closed societies on Earth -- North Korea. Much like Martin Cruz Smith's novel "Gorky Park," which depicted life in the Soviet Union in the early 1980s through the eyes of police inspector, "A Corpse on the Koryo" provides a vivid window into a mysterious country through the perspective of its primary character -- Inspector O."


I think the point he makes about the book is why I took to Hidden Moon, it was a peek into one of the most closed societies in modern times.