Bamboo and Blood: An Inspector O Novel (Inspector O Novels) [Hardcover]

James Church (Author)

Book Description

Series: Inspector O Novels | Publication Date: November 25, 2008

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.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. Church once again does a brilliant job of portraying the dysfunctional, paranoid society of modern North Korea in his third novel to feature Inspector O of the ministry of public security (after 2007's Hidden Moon). When a foreigner O has been assigned to watch turns out to be working for Israeli intelligence, O and his supervisor, Pak, come under the scrutiny of a rival security service. To complicate matters, Pak asks the inspector to investigate the murder of a North Korean diplomat's wife in Pakistan, but O is restricted to merely collecting facts about the dead woman. O's efforts to actually solve the crime lead to dangerous encounters with his country's special weapons program. While the espionage elements compel, the book's main strength, as with its predecessors, derives from the small details that enable the reader to imagine life in North Korea—and from O's struggles to maintain his principles and integrity. (Dec.)
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From Booklist

*Starred Review* It is brutal winter in North Korea, the first winter after the death of Beloved Leader. His son and successor is grieving, and the country’s survival is threatened by famine and infrastructure collapse. Even in Pyongyang, government employees are hungry and cold. Word of mouth from the countryside and their own experiences cause Inspector O and Chief Inspector Pak to fear that the nation has “fallen apart.” But even as the country lurches toward collapse, foreigners interested in guided missiles stream into North Korea. O is sent to Geneva, ostensibly to ensure that the head of a diplomatic delegation doesn’t defect. There, Swiss, Israeli, and North Korean agents alternately charm and menace him, and O doesn’t even know what his superiors really want of him. The sketch of the most secretive country in the world is as spare and elegant as a Japanese painting. The machinations and motivations of the unseen politicians who pull O’s strings can’t be fathomed. Pak, O’s politically astute superior, often speaks in what sound like Zen koans. O is left to rely on himself and the wisdom of his animist-woodworker grandfather for guidance. Bamboo and Blood, the third in this outstanding series, invites readers to take a step through the looking glass. Thoughtful crime fans will love what they find. --Thomas Gaughan

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: Minotaur Books; First Edition edition (November 25, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312372914
• ISBN-13: 978-0312372910
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.9 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #842,008 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Inspector O is a reading pleasure!, March 26, 2009

By 

James Neville (Katy (Houston), TX) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Bamboo and Blood: An Inspector O Novel (Inspector O Novels) (Hardcover)

Bamboo and Blood by James Church is "an Inspector O" novel. I did not know what that meant when I picked it up but I soon found out. The prologue starts, "The Russians... think they are the only ones who know the cold," then jumps right into action.

I've been reading mysteries placed in Red China, Thailand, and now, with Inspector O, in Red Korea. Who knew it would be so entertaining, so warm, so enigmatic, so humorous? (Not giving away the plot here, OK?) Suffice it to say missles are involved (somewhat) and that I'm going to read more by the author, James Church.

Church's bio asserts a) His name's a pseudonym, b) He was with Western intelligence for decades in Asia, and c) Many of the events in the story really happened. That's nice but what I care about is the story engaged me from the start and I want to read more. All good mysteries have a mystery, yes, it's how they work, but the reason we read them is the milieu, characters, surprises, new perspectives.

I remember the same thrill first reading Len Deighton's novels about East and West Berlin. That's the closest I can come to sharing the feel of Bamboo and Blood, except now it's North and South Korea.

Inspector O is a reading pleasure!

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Enigmatic as the country, April 20, 2009

By 

Avid Reader (Franklin, Tn) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Bamboo and Blood: An Inspector O Novel (Inspector O Novels) (Hardcover)

The idea of a North Korean inspector/detective is great. We (in the West) have trouble imagining earnest, hard-working investigators working to solve crimes in a nation that does not follow the rule of law. That is the first and primary paradox in both the Inspecter O series and the Gorky Park type books set in the former USSR.

The author depicts a totalitarian stranglehold where the army spies on the police, schools are empty because teachers and students are quietly starving to death, orders can mean the opposite of what they say and innocence can mean guilt. It is a land of subtlety and nuance as is the book. The ever-present drabness and bitter cold was an integral part of the psyche, yet another obstacle to overcome in order to survive.

The story (***** Warning - Plot talk - ******) centers around talks on North Korean atomic weapons and attempts to either advance or derail the talks. All the while, Israeli agents attempt to offer a trade: Cessation of missile technology in exchange for money and aid. In the midst of the cloak and dagger sleuthing, Inspector O is told to investigate the death of a woman who may have been in Pakistan. He is given no details. In other words, he is NOT to dig too deeply. He travels to New York and Zurich, observing the abundance of the West with distant melancholy. Yet he refuses to defect, whether out of duty, honor or lack of choice we can't be sure. As he probes deeper, he must watch the shifting alliances within the regime, each scheming to survive the long, dark winter. The search for loyalties is as difficult as the elusive search for the dead woman.

My Grade - A+

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Mixed Bag, July 10, 2009

By 

Zoeeagleeye (Belfast, ME United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Bamboo and Blood: An Inspector O Novel (Inspector O Novels) (Hardcover)

It was a mixed bag for me. Yes, the guy can write. He has wit and some depth and he knows his wood. What he can't do is make much of the action plausible. He may have been a former spy, certainly not a former English teacher, for he embraces the "fallacy of imitative form," which is to say that in order to portray the cryptic, he writes cryptically. This does not work out well for the reader in terms of comprehension. In his head I suppose it all makes sense, but in mine, it doesn't. There are too many "why's" for me: Why didn't O know who Sohn was? I did. Why was Dilara even involved? Just so O could have some sex and be hit on the head? Rather irrelevant and not funny. I mean, she isn't even described. Why would M. Beret be an assumed name when his actual name and position are public knowledge? What's with the stupid woman on the bench who thought O was Chinese? Irrelevant and superfluous. Just as was O's trip to NY.

But the author's most tiresome habit (besides a love affair with non sequiturs) is interspersing a great deal of prose between normal dialogue: Let's say a character asks, "What are your reasons?" Here will follow descriptions of weather, street, facial tics, funny remarks, philosophical statements, observations of character for 100-200 words. Paragraph. Then, "They are not for you to know." Hmmm, what isn't for you to know? So you have to hurry back up to the first sentence of the preceeding paragraph in order to remind yourself of how the dialogue started. Of course, it doesn't stay with you because the interspersed prose is so riveting.

Who is the mutual friend who sent O the wood? I could come up with at least three possibilities, none of them terribly fitting. Why does O burn the wood? The girl murdered in Pakistan is a shaggy dog. Really, the entire book is about a low level inspector being surprised to be chosen to go to Geneva to pass along exactly one sentence to the Americans. That's it. Instead, he delivers his sentence to the Swiss but does not repeat it word for word, which is odd, especially since his boss loves code. Then he returns to North Korea fairly clueless.

The cold (it's either raining or snowing) permeates the book, as does the despair and dullness of the citizens of NK and this also leaks out to the reader. There is not one happy or near-normal person in the book. It suffers due to the very lack of contrast. Unrelenting depression and anxiety can eventually be tuned out -- which I did -- but I couldn't have done it had these moods been expanded with contrasting upbeat qualities like joy or playfulness, at least a few times.

For me, the characters were so opaque that they and the book never came to life. Yet I truly enjoyed a great deal of the author's prose. It was the little originalities that delighted me: Says O, "I told you I lost my temper. Not lost, actually. More like I folded it up and calmly put it in my pocket." I will do that with Bamboo and Blood.