12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Action and excitement in blackmarket Korea, July 23, 2005
This is an excellent sequel and follow-up to Jade Lady Burning, Mr. Limon's first novel, and I was thrilled to get to ride again with two of my favorite rogues, military investigators George Sueno and Ernie Bascom. I love these two characters and I love Mr. Limon's novels! This sequel has even more action than the original and is a fun and exciting romp through the seedy world that springs up around military bases in Asia, indeed military bases since time immemorial everywhere. Having been stationed in Asia in the Eighties myself as a Naval officer and having spent time in Korea, I can attest to the absolute and amazing authenticity of Mr. Limon's writing. I am in awe of how well he has captured and portrayed that unique world with it's complicated bubble economy of vice, innocence, predation, humor, money, face, need and desire. In this outing our protagonists Ernie and George are set up by a prostitute and the result is a murdered British soldier; Ernie and George have to work with the local Black Marketeers, the Slicky Boys, to unravel the crime.
For those of you who have served overseas, grab this book immediately, for you will absolutely love it. It lovingly and accurately paints with words a world that most us would have terrible trouble untangling, let alone articulating, in our own minds. For those of you who haven't been able to serve or travel overseas, this is an excellent book with, without a doubt, the best depictation of the Korean/American military economy ever written. It's simply an amazing portait and haunting in it's evocative power. Yet it's also a lot of fun, a little more light-hearted than Limon's other novels, and I would unreservedly recommend it to anyone. But please remember the book deals with an extremely foreign culture and our culture's attempt to interact successfully with it; there is as much Korean social mores and value here as American. This is deliberate, and is meant to broaden horizons and appreciation of an extremely complex setting.
I still find it mind-boggling that this author seems to have been so completely overlooked. I also, despite not often speaking about other's reviews, wonder why the publishing world's reviews are so tepid. I have had problems with the reviews from Publisher's Weekly and Library Journal; they do not do this writer justice and I am puzzled by this. The books are exceedingly well-crafted, the characters finely detailed, believable, and convincingly human, the atmosphere and setting as expertly drawn as any writer has accomplished. To put my concerns in context, I have read thousands of books and thousands of reviews, and I have never often though, "wow, that review is off the mark!"
I can't help but think that perhaps the subject matter is offensive to some and that colors their perception of Mr. Limon's accomplishments as a writer. The book does cover the military, the personal excesses found within any military organization, prostitution, black marketeers and many other politically incorrect and abhorrent issues. It also, beneath it's surface story, does so with a tenderness and understanding that I find remarkable and commendable. So I will take a rare public stand here and say I take exception to some of the Editorial Reviews. Their remarks are not off mark often, but they are in this case. This is an excellent book, an excellent writer, and I sincerely believe that you will completely enjoy yourself with this one.
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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Dialogue and atmosphere are truly authentic., September 16, 1998
By A Customer
This review is from: Slicky Boys (Mass Market Paperback)
This story truly took me by surprise. Most novels on Korea by Americans portray Koreans as cardboard characters with little insight into their lives. Slicky Boys breaks new ground on novels set in Korea. Limon obviously was a keen observer of the language, culture, and the tensions between the US Military and the host nation, cira 1974-1979, during his tours as a CID agent. He particularly excels at poking good natured fun at the Eighth Army's 40 year obsession with catching petty blackmarketers, which continues to this day. Slicky Boys is not only a joy to read, it also serves as a social history of a byegone era in Korean-American relations.
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Captures a world long gone, June 18, 2001
This review is from: Slicky Boys (Mass Market Paperback)
While a mediocre mystery, Slicky Boys is first-rate sociology. No other author, journalist or academic has captured with such authenticity and even-handedness the world of a US Army base town in South Korea in the 1970s, when 19 year-old GIs were the biggest spenders in the country. Limon catalogs the prejudices, virtues and vices of both Americans and Koreans. More importantly, he carefully observes how their mutually-exploitative alliance plays itself out on a personal level.
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