“The Plotters” by Un-su Kim (translated by Sora Kim-Russell)

Kim’s novel is full of suspense and killing. It reads fast. The hero, Reseng, is an orphan trained as an assassin. His boss and adopted father, Old Raccoon, is a polio-crippled librarian. “Had Reseng continued to grow up in the orphanage, where divine blessings showered down like spring sunshine and kindly nuns devoted themselves to the careful raising of orphans, his life might have turned out very differently. Instead, he grew up in a library crawling with assassins, hired guns, and bounty hunters. Just as a plant grows wherever it sets down roots, so all your life’s tragedies spring from wherever you first set your feet.” Seoul’s underworld is the Meat Market, where murderers, arms dealers, kidnappers, and other crooks shop their wares. But behind it all are the plotters. “To the plotters, mercenaries and assassins were like disposable batteries. After all, what use would they have for old assassins? An old assassin was like an annoying blister bursting with incriminating information and evidence…. Plotters hated when lowly assassins took it upon themselves to change the plot. It wasn’t about pride. The problem was that if the plot changed, then the people waiting at their various posts would need new cues, and everyone’s roles would get out of sync. If incriminating evidence got left behind or if things went sour, then someone else would have to die in order to cover it up. And sometimes that someone was you. Changing the assigned plot was not just a headache but a potential death sentence…. Not that anyone could have said where the plot originated or what its ultimate goal was. No one ever knew the full truth. In the plotters’ world, everyone avoided having any more information than absolutely necessary. The more information you had, the easier it was to become a target. Ignorance was survival. You couldn’t just pretend, you had to genuinely not know. Why would anyone bother asking how much you knew when they could simply kill you?” Kim’s plot is filled with other unforgettable characters. There is the pet crematorium operator shaped like Winnie-the-Pooh, who offers soju to the gods, the cross-eyed librarian’s assistant, who never reads, but gives insightful book recommendations, and the wheelchair-bound knitter, obsessed with Barbie and Chester Cheetah. “In the end, none of us can leave the place we know best, no matter how dirty and disgusting it is. Having no money and no other means of survival is part of the reason, but it’s never the whole reason. We go back to our own filthy origins because it’s a filth we know. Putting up with that filth is easier than facing the fear of being tossed into the wider world, and the loneliness that is as deep and wide as that fear.”