The Plotters
Un-Su Kim
Doubleday
Reseng is an assassin, a thirty-something veteran of the Library, a clearing house for assassinations across South Korea. The Library is owned by the curmudgeonly Old Raccoon, a recluse who commissions work without ever seeming to leave the place. All assassinations are guided by Plotters, faceless people working behind the scenes of the Meat Market where anyone and anything can be bought and sold for the right price. Reseng has known no other life. He’s seen too many former colleagues and victims pass through the crematorium run by the legendary Bear to think of such tepid concepts as loyalty and love. Only the next job and the pay it brings matters to him.
Perceptive, darkly humorous and at times profoundly moving . . .
Old Raccoon has a rival in his former protege Hanja, the smooth corporate face of modern Korea. Hanja is more than ready to oust Old Raccoon and take over the market. As the conflict between the two begins to heat up Reseng doesn’t know which side to back. An encounter with three young women in the shape of a cross-eyed librarian, a shop girl with an unexpected background, and her disabled sister precipitates a crisis. They know far too much about Reseng for comfort. The women may just be the ultimate Plotters because they have a plan which, if it succeeds, will rock the dark world of the Meat Market to its foundations—and Reseng is just the guy they need to bring it off.
Un-Su Kim’s The Plotters is a highly original take on the classic assassin for hire story. Perceptive, darkly humorous and at times profoundly moving, the story of Reseng has an everyman appeal.
