The Old Woman With the Knife by Gu Byeong-mo

 

First Line: So this is what it's like on the subway on Friday nights.

 

Hornclaw lives modestly in a small apartment in Seoul, South Korea, with her rescue dog Deadweight. All those around her would expect the sixty-five-year-old to slow down and live out the rest of her days quietly. But Hornclaw isn't a typical older woman. She's an assassin.

For forty years, she's killed with ruthless efficiency, knowing little about her targets. But an unexpected injury brings her to a connection with a doctor and his family-- her next targets. This could very well be the final chapter, not only of her career but of her life.

~

The story of a sixty-five-year-old female assassin captured my imagination, so I opened The Old Woman With the Knife with a great deal of anticipation. We learn almost the entirety of Hornclaw's life: her childhood, her work as a "disease control specialist," some of her targets that she's killed, and her growing awareness that her skills are diminishing almost as quickly as she begins feeling compassion for others.

The story weaves between two major plotlines: her growing connection with the doctor and his family and her realization that she has an enemy who wants to kill her. How she manages to deal with both is compelling, but no matter how well-written the story is-- and it is-- the tone is so dispassionate that I had a very difficult time connecting with Hornclaw and, by the book's end, was left feeling disappointed. Your mileage may certainly vary, and I hope that it does.

The Old Woman With the Knife by Gu Byeong-mo

Translated from Korean by Chi-Young Kim

eISBN: 9780369718853

Hanover Square Press © 2022

eBook, 191 pages

 

Thriller, Standalone

Rating: C

Source: Net Galley

The Island of Sea Women by Lisa See

 

First Line: An old woman sits on the beach, a cushion strapped to her bottom, sorting algae that's washed ashore.

 

When orphaned Mi-ja, daughter of a Japanese collaborator, shows up, Young-sook's mother takes the girl under her wing against the wishes of Young-sook's grandmother. There on the Korean island of Jeju, the women in Young-sook's family are haenyeo-- divers who make their living from what they harvest from the sea. 

 

Young-sook and Mi-ja become the best of friends, as close as sisters, and together they learn to dive and to experience the Japanese occupation of their island, of World War II, and the Korean War and its aftermath. Their lives encompass everything, from the deepest sorrow to profound joy, and-- ultimately-- to the horror that will rip them apart.

 

~

 

Spanning the decades from 1930 to 2010, The Island of Sea Women is a fascinating story of the women sea divers living on the Korean island of Jeju-- women who are now rightfully considered a cultural heritage treasure. On Jeju, these divers (haenyeo) are the heads of their households. Their men take care of the children, cook, and sit under trees and gossip while the haenyeo are the breadwinners. I couldn't get enough of the depiction of their culture. What they ate. What they believed. (For example, the word for grandmother in their language also means goddess.) What they wore. And--most importantly-- their diving. These women had no modern diving equipment. They braved incredibly cold temperatures; their hearing would become damaged from the water pressure during their dives. Possibly the two most profound things I learned is how they looked out for each other and how they carefully farmed both land (dry fields) and sea (wet fields), ensuring that neither would ever be stripped of its bounty and destroyed. 

Where The Island of Sea Women fell slightly--ever so slightly-- flat for me was in the story of the friendship between Young-sook and Mi-ja. It was a bit soap-opera-ish because it was clear from the beginning that the friendship between the two was not as magical as it was advertised. When something truly horrific occurs on Jeju, Young-sook holds Mi-ja responsible and refuses to have anything else to do with her. She closes her eyes and ears to any attempts Mi-ja or her family members make to try to tell her the truth. Honestly, I wanted to shake a little sense into her.

But regardless of how I felt about Young-sook, nothing could keep me from reading this book to the very last word. The haenyeo culture of Korea is incredible, and Lisa See enriched my world by telling me about it.

The Island of Sea Women by Lisa See

eISBN: 9781501154874

Scribner © 2019

eBook, 383 pages

 

Historical Fiction, Standalone

Rating: A

Source: Purchased from Amazon.

Jade Lady Burning by Martin Limón

Title: Jade Lady Burning
Author: Martin Limón
ISBN: 9781569470206
Publisher: Soho Crime, 2003 (Originally published 1992.)
Trade Paperback, 224 pages
Genre: Police Procedural, #1 Sueño & Bascom mystery
Rating: A-
Source: Purchased at The Poisoned Pen.

First Line: Ernie and I finished the black-market case in Pusan, did a little celebrating, and caught the Blue Line night train back to Seoul.

It's not often that you'll see me reading books set in Asia during the Vietnam War era whose main characters are young men more concerned with having fun in the red light district than anything else. But in my quest to be a more complete armchair traveler, I've been branching out. I'd heard good things about Martin Limón's series from trusted sources, and I had the vague notion that these books were about more than two young men spending all their money on wine, women and song in Seoul. I was right.

The bizarre murder of a young Korean prostitute has the Eighth Army command spluttering and twitching. Although the investigation should have been left to the Korean police, the young woman was known to have many clients amongst the American servicemen stationed in and around Seoul. The Korean media would have a field day with this American angle, so the Eighth Army's criminal investigation division takes charge. Sergeants George Sueño and Ernie Bascom are put in charge of finding out who murdered the young woman.

Their investigation leads them to Itaewon, the section of Seoul known for alcohol, music and prostitution. It is a neighborhood with which the two are very familiar. Sueño is Hispanic, from East LA. He appreciates the housing, the regular meals, and the pay of Army life. He speaks some Korean and is often told that he's "too soft" on the natives. This is probably because he sees the country differently from most:

I loved Korea. It was a whole new world of different tastes and smells, and a different, more intense way of looking at life. People here didn't take eating and breathing for granted. They were fought for.

He also sees his job differently from most. He doesn't want to focus solely on black market cases, and "phone in" his results. He truly cares:

I owed something to Miss Pak Ok-suk and Mr. Watkins. Not because they were friends or relatives but just because they had been assigned to me: my responsibility. I'd be damned if I'd take the easy route and not do my best for them.

There's a lot to like about Sergeant George Sueño. On the other hand, I felt that his partner, Ernie Bascom, was greatly under-utilized almost to the point of being a non-entity. There was just enough information given about him to lead me to believe I might be looking at a prime crime fiction psychotic.

The pace of the book seemed very leisurely most of the time, but I didn't really mind because Limón had immersed me in a completely alien atmosphere, and I wanted to check everything out slowly. As the two investigators strolled through bars asking questions and sometimes accepting propositions from the prostitutes they talked to, I wasn't concerned with their morals. They were no different than tens of thousands of other young men finding themselves with money in their pockets and light years away from home.

What did concern me was the clipped, almost military flow of the language that transported me into the midst of an absorbing mystery in unfamiliar country-- a mystery populated with interesting people, in particular Sergeant George Sueño. I definitely want to continue with this series, one reason being that I have to find out if I'm right about Ernie Bascom!

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