MAPACA

Mid-Atlantic Popular &
American Culture Association

James Church, a pseudonym for a former intelligence officer with extensive experience in Asia, has written four Inspector O mystery novels mostly set in North Korea. As the North Korean detective attempts to solve crimes, he encounters corruption, conspiracies, cover-ups, and spies in the midst of an impoverished and politically powerless people. The books render North Korea’s closed society with hard-boiled fiction’s quirky characters, sardonic dialogue, and noir atmospheric characteristics, which seems remarkably appropriate. Inspector O also encounters various governmental agencies which are portrayed as involved in internecine struggles in the face of internal and external developments, as is frequently shown in espionage novels, such as those written by John le Carré. Therefore, these mystery/spy novel hybrids afford a well-informed, generally non-judgmental view of a hidden world. Utilizing statements made by James Church in interviews, as well as a close reading of the books in the series, this paper will argue that Church provides readers with an discerning view of a society and government which is poorly understood in the West. In the course of the series, Inspector O navigates through a hard-scrabble society and a sprawling bureaucracy with self-serving officials while solving seemingly intractable cases. Since his cases invariably are embedded in complex internal and external political struggles, Inspector O also becomes entangled in North Korea’s contentious relations with foreign powers. Thus, careful consideration of the books in the series offers an understanding of changes in North Korean society, government, and foreign policy in the 1990s and the first decade of the twenty-first century.