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James Church

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.

Minotaur Books

The Inspector O Novels

A Corpse in the Koryo

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 ACorpse 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. 

Critical 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 GorkyPark." 
--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)

Hidden Moon

“Stellar. . . . A satirical look at paranoid intelligence structures and the snappy, irreverent narration add to the fun” in this international thriller (Publishers Weekly, starred review).

James Church’s Inspector O novels have been hailed as “crackling good” (The Washington Post), while Church himself has been embraced by critics as “the equal of le Carré” (Publishers Weekly, starred review). Now Church—a former Western intelligence officer who pulls back the curtain on the hidden world of North Korea in a way that no one else can—comes roaring back with a new novel introducing Inspector O’s nephew, Major Bing, the long-suffering chief of the Chinese Ministry of State Security operations on the border with North Korea.

The last place Bing expected to find the stunningly beautiful Madame Fang—a woman Headquarters wants closely watched—was on his front doorstep. Then, as suddenly as she shows up, Madame Fang mysteriously disappears across the river into North Korea, leaving in her wake a highly sensitive assignment for Bing to bring back from the North a long missing Chinese security official. Concerned for his nephew’s safety, O reluctantly helps him navigate an increasingly complex and deadly maze, one that leads down the twisted byways of O’s homeland.

Once again, James Church has crafted a story with beautifully spare prose and layered descriptions of a country and a people he knows by heart.

Praise for the Inspector O series

“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

“Inspector O is a complex, nuanced figure.” —New York Times

A Drop of Chinese Blood: A Mystery

Suspicious deaths at a noodle shop lead a PI to a terrifying international conspiracy in this thriller from the author of A Drop of Chinese Blood.

Under the guise of machinery for making dumplings, a Spanish factory near Barcelona is secretly producing a key component in the production of nuclear weapons. When information finds its way to the inboxes of Western intelligence agencies that this “dumpling maker” is meant for North Korea, orders go out that the shipment must be stopped. Either the machine must be disabled while still in the factory, or the transportation route must be discovered so the equipment can be intercepted before reaching its destination. An old friend recruits Inspector O to assist in the complex operation designed to disrupt the plans for shipping the machine.

Carefully planted bits of information and bizarre events have led both the Spanish factory and those trying to intercept the machine to conclude that Japanese criminal organizations are involved in buying and transporting the “dumpling” machine in order to hide the involvement of North Korea. A flurry of murders puts the focus on the northeast Chinese city of Yanji, near the border with North Korea, where O’s nephew Major Bing is the Chief of State Security. Bing has his own problems dealing with a corrupt local mayor who is out for his head, coping with a new deputy who cannot be trusted, and figuring out why a Chinese gangster he’s worked for years to chase away has suddenly returned.

Praise for The Gentleman from Japan

“The deeper you get into The Gentleman from Japan, the more educated you become about the dark complexities of international relations, and the more indebted you are to Church for creating a series that stands out as winningly as this one.” —The Chicago Tribune

“The sixth outing for Church’s wise inspector creates an intriguing synergy, with many insights into international culture and a complex plot.” —Kirkus Reviews

The Gentleman from Japan

A Pyongyang policeman is ordered to make a murder case go away in service of a secret plan to reunite the two Koreas in this “excellent” mystery series (Slate).

Autumn brings unwelcome news to Inspector O: He has been wrenched from retirement and ordered back to Pyongyang for a final assignment. The two Koreas, he learns, are now cooperating—very quietly—to maintain stability in the North. Stability requires that Inspector O lead an investigation into a crime of passion committed by the young man selected as the best possible leader of a transition government. O is instructed to make sure that the case goes away. Remnants of the old regime, foreign powers, rival gangs—all want a piece of the action, and all make it 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 it’s better to be noble or be dead . . .

Praise for The Man with the Baltic Stare and the Inspector O series

“Each Inspector O novel is a strange new trip through the looking glass.” —Booklist (starred review)

“The likeable Inspector O . . . knows that in North Korea mysteries are never solved, just absorbed into larger mysteries. . . . the scenic details and atmospherics suggest more than a passing acquaintance with the realities of life in North Korea.” —The Economist

“Church once again shows an extraordinary ability to bring that enigmatic country to life . . . Satisfied readers will hail Church as the equal of le Carré.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“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

“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.” —The Boston Globe

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