Bamboo and Blood

James Church (pseudonym) is, according to the Christian Science Monitor, "one of the most respected analysts of North Korea in the Western intelligence community, with extensive experience both inside and outside that country." It is the little details of daily life in one of the most isolated and secretive countries in the world that bring his stories such richness.
Inspector O, James Church's North Korean protagonist, has gone back in time -- making this a prequel of sorts to his other novels in this series (Corpse in the Koryo and Hidden Moon). All the essential elements are there: clues that aren't supposed to be followed, cases that aren't supposed to be solved, intricate maneuvers and manipulations aplenty. Set during the famine years of the 90's in North Korea, people talk about loved ones starving to death with seeming resignation. There simply is no food--and that is the driver behind what turns out to be intricate attempts to buy, bribe or blackmail other countries into giving North Korea food. It strains credulity to someone raised in an ostensibly democratic society like the United States that Inspector O does not seriously consider defecting when he is given ample motive and opportunity. He is the most dogged of investigators following each thread until he can weave them into whole cloth, in spite of people kidnapping and even trying to kill him. As a reader, I am drawn in with him, never giving up on trying to figure out how everything is connected, even though the odds are against a solution.
Reviews from Publishers Weekly,  Christian Science Monitor, and Kirkus are all uniformly laudatory.