Ping-Pong Heart
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5.0 • 1 Rating
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- $15.99
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- $15.99
Publisher Description
South Korea, 1974. US Army CID Sergeants George Sueño and Ernie Bascom are assigned an underwhelming case of petty theft: Major Frederick M. Schulz has accused Miss Jo Kyong-ja, an Itaewon bar girl, of stealing twenty-five thousand won from him—a sum equaling less than fifty US dollars. After two very divergent accounts of what happened, Miss Jo is attacked, and Schulz is found hacked to death only days later. Did tensions simply escalate to the point of murder?
Looking into other motives for Schulz’s death, George and Ernie discover that the major was investigating the 501st Military Intelligence Battalion: the Army’s counterintelligence arm, solely dedicated to tracking North Korean spies. The division is rife with suspects, but it’s dangerous to speak out against them in a period of Cold War finger-pointing. As George and Ernie go head-to-head with the battalion’s powerful, intimidating commander, Lance Blood, they learn that messing with the 501st can have very personal consequences.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
At the start of Lim n's compelling 11th novel set in 1970s South Korea featuring U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Division agents George Sue o and Ernie Bascom (after 2015's The Ville Rat), Maj. Frederick Schultz makes an official complaint, accusing a prostitute, Jo Kyong-ja, of taking his money without providing the agreed-upon services. When Sue o and Bascom question Jo, she denies the allegation and claims that Schultz was upset when he was unable to perform. Shortly after that interview, someone roughs up Jo, and a few weeks later, Schultz, the logical suspect in that assault, turns up dead himself, the victim of a knifing in a back alley behind a Seoul nightclub. Complicating the murder inquiry is the involvement of the South Korean police and the unsettling revelation that Schultz was doing classified work involving the review of potential irregularities in the running of a military intelligence unit. Major developments in the lives of Lim n's leads complement the intricate whodunit.
