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A Novel
by Kang Jiyoung
When a middle-aged widowed loses her job at the butcher shop, she's at a loss as to how to provide for her family—until she's offered a position that puts her carving skills to new uses in this darkly humorous bestselling Korean thriller.
Mrs. Shim needs money. She's lost her husband and her job, and she's got three mouths to feed at her kitchen table. If she doesn't find work soon, she and her children are going to lose their home.
So when she answers a vague job ad for the Smile Detective Agency, Mrs. Shim expects the job will be some kind of cleaning position. But when they only ask her questions about her experience as a butcher and what she can do with a cleaver, she begins to realize they want her to do a very different kind of cleaning—they want her to be an assassin. Too scared not to take them up on their offer, she agrees to the position.
And Mrs. Shim soon finds that her new job isn't so different from her old one in the butcher shop, quickly becoming the agency's best contract killer—but her rise to the top hasn't gone unnoticed. Jealous of her talents, her agency's competitors—and even her own colleagues-- begin pointing fingers (and knives) in her direction.
If she wants to keep her job, her family, and her reputation intact, Mrs. Shim is going to have to take out the secretive leader of a rival agency. But when she has the chance to strike, she's stunned to find a familiar face at the end of her blade.
As it turns out, this just may be one mess she can't cut her way out of ...
"A struggling mother turns to contract killing to support her family in this darkly funny thriller...a rich narrative stuffed with surprises and grim humor. It's a sharp and satisfying crime novel." —Publishers Weekly
"Told in a series of intertwined vignettes...this is a dark, disturbing book about love, loss, jealousy, friendship, and perseverance. The decidedly odd characters are riveting, with revealing descriptions of Korean culture. A fine pick for fans of quirky horror and gory mysteries." —Booklist
This information about Mrs. Shim Is a Killer was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Kang Jiyoung is a Korean writer based in Paju, near Seoul. Most of her fiction features female assassins. She is the author of the story collections Goodbye Paradise, Time for Dogs to Eat, and The Killer's Shopping List, and her novels include Quarantine Station of New Culture, Elza's Ha-yin, Circus in the Dark Forest, Frankenstein Family, Yawning is Delicious, Pheromone Boutique, and The Shop for Killers, which was adapted for television by Disney+.
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