Library Journal Review: Starred Review. Inspector O of the Pyongyang Police Department is a man alone. His deceased grandfather was a national hero of the revolution, and O's brother is a high-ranking government official who has not spoken to O in years. No one is safe in the paranoia of North Korea's totalitarian regime, as O finds when he gets involved in a case that forces him to leave the city pursued by various factions and finding murder and danger everywhere he goes. For most of us, North Korea is undiscovered terrain. While we do not understand who the players are until well into the story, readers will be richly rewarded by their perseverance. The pseudonymous Church draws on his experience as a former intelligence officer in Asian countries to create believable characters and situations in an outstanding crime novel. Unlike Eliot Pattison's thrillers about Chinese-ruled Tibet and Stuart M. Kaminsky's Inspector Rostnikov mysteries, which introduced Soviet Moscow to the world, this debut holds little hope for the people of the country it depicts. Yet it is a not-to-be-missed reading experience. [See Prepub Mystery, LJ 6/1/06.] Copyright ? Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.