The Law of Lines
A Novel
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- 19,99 €
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- 19,99 €
Publisher Description
From the award-winning author of The Hole, a "Simmering" (New York Times Book Review) and "Compelling" (Wall Street Journal ) thriller—"A mystery masterpiece . . . Hye-young Pyun at her best" (Books & Bao), named a "Best International Crime Novel of 2020" (CrimeReads) and selected as one of "Our 65 Favorite Books of the Year" (LitHub)
The Law of Lines follows the parallel stories of two young women whose lives are upended by sudden loss. When Se-oh, a recluse still living with her father, returns from an errand to find their house in flames, wrecked by a gas explosion, she is forced back into the world she had tried to escape. The detective investigating the incident tells her that her father caused the explosion to kill himself because of overwhelming debt she knew nothing about, but Se-oh suspects foul play by an aggressive debt collector and sets out on her own investigation, seeking vengeance.
Ki-jeong, a beleaguered high school teacher, receives a phone call from the police saying that the body of her younger half-sister has just been found. Her sister was a college student she had grown distant from. Though her death, by drowning, is considered a suicide by the police, that doesn't satisfy Ki-jeong, and she goes to her sister's university to find out what happened. Her sister's cell phone reveals a thicket of lies and links to a company that lures students into a virtual pyramid scheme, preying on them and their relationships. One of the contacts in the call log is Se-oh.
Like Hye-young Pyun's Shirley Jackson Award–winning novel The Hole, The Law of Lines an immersive thriller that explores the edges of criminality in ordinary lives, the unseen forces that shape us, and grief and debt.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this enigmatic tale of two South Korean women dealing with tragedy, Shirley Jackson Award winner Pyun (The Hole) fails to sustain the energy from the dramatic opening developments in the lives of Se-oh Yun and Ki-jeong Shin. The anxious Se-oh, whose mother died when she was eight, doesn't like to stay away for too long from the small, rundown house she shares with her father. One day, she returns from an errand to find the house devastated by a gas explosion, which the police suspect may have been the result of a suicide attempt by her father, who unbeknownst to her was in debt. She suspects, however, someone tried to kill her father. Meanwhile, high school teacher Ki-jeong learns that her college student sister has been found dead in the Namgang River. The drowning, which could have been either accident or suicide, elicits conflicting feelings, given how often Ki-jeong imagined her sibling, who tormented their mother, dead. Eventually, the story lines of the two leads intersect, but that happens late in the book and not in a very satisfying way. Despite sometimes moving portraits of characters in deep pain, the whole is less than the sum of its parts.
