Review
With Inspector O, James Church has crafted the quintessential quiet man trying
his best to do his job within a corrupt and volatile political system while not
allowing its values to reset his own moral compass. The narrative says it all as
O's first person account unveils a man of few words – indeed the dialogue is
spare almost to the point of stark – but with incredibly picturesque and
insightful observations. O is a man of his country; one gets a picture
of a land of lean beauty and unforgiving climate, and of his own personal
history but not of his country's political regime.
As a low-to-mid level officer in North Korea's Ministry of Public Security, O's
job is whatever his superior, or his superior's superior, tells him it is. As
the book opens O is staking out a man, a foreigner of indeterminate national
origin, who is visiting the capital...
Beyond the Book
North Korea
James Church paints a grim picture of what life is like and how a government
agency functions within North Korea. It is a picture in bold contrast to the one
portrayed by the official
website of
the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPR). The ideals, as stated by Kim
Il-Sung, predecessor to current leader Kim Jong Il, are that, "the superior
organism always help [sic] the inferior one. The superior always assist [sic]
the subordinates and he goes always to the working areas to understand the real
situation and take [sic] the correct measures to solve the problems; he gives
preference to the political work, to the people's work in all the activities,
and improves the enthusiasm and the creative initiative of the masses to
accomplish...
