The Line

Starred review from August 20, 2018
The bludgeoning murder of Corporal Noh Jong-bei, a South Korean assigned to augment American forces, provides the latest high-stakes case for canny U.S. Army CID agents George Sueño and Ernie Bascom in Limón’s superb 13th investigation set in 1970s South Korea (after 2017’s The Nine-Tailed Fox). The sensitive location of the body in the Joint Security Area separating the two Koreas exacerbates tensions: Noh’s left boot is in South Korea, while the rest of him lies in North Korea. The temperature rises even more after Sueño and Bascom are ordered to retrieve the corpse, leading the North Korean army to go on high alert. The case doesn’t get easier after they identify a person of interest, an American private who was dating the dead man’s sister, and the truth about the private’s culpability becomes secondary to their bosses. The maverick agents’ efforts to defy authority take another hit when they’re assigned to trace a major’s missing wife. Limón has never been better at incorporating a logical mystery plot into the politics of his chosen time and place. Agent: Jill Marsal, Marsal Lyons Literary.

September 1, 2018
American military cops investigating a murder learn that tensions between North and South Korea still run high decades after the war.Korea, 1970s. Army CID agents George Sueño and Ernie Bascom are summoned to the Korean DMZ to investigate the shooting death of South Korean Cpl. Noh, apparently killed on the southern side of the Military Demarcation Line and dragged a few feet to the northern side--a none-too-subtle insult to the Americans. Ernie and George, who narrates in a punchy first-person voice, witness the animus as the American Lt. Col. Brunmeyer gets into a shouting match with North Korean Junior Lt. Kwon. Probing the rift between the two once-cordial officers, and possible motives for murder, are solid starting points. Although Noh's parents are inconsolable, his sister, Marilyn, has sufficient presence of mind to discreetly hand Ernie and George a note to give to Teddy, an American soldier in the DMZ, whom she was seeing though her parents and brother disapproved. Could that be a motive for murder? Stains on a shovel Teddy was using look enough like blood for MPs to arrest Pvt. Theodore H. Fusterman. Marilyn passionately declares Teddy's innocence, and Ernie and George stop just short of telling her they believe her. When Ernie is brutally attacked, the guys realize Marilyn must be right, and they need to find this psycho before he strikes again.Limón's 13th mystery (The Nine-Tailed Fox, 2017, etc.) entertains with its easy banter and fascinates with deep insight into its precise historical moment.

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Starred review from September 15, 2018
In the 1970s, Corporal Noh Jong-bei, a South Korean soldier working with U.S. forces along the Line, where U.S. and North Korean troops glower at each other round the clock, is found murdered. His skull has been cleaved open, likely with the ubiquitous army-issue entrenching tool, and Army CID agents George Sue�o and Ernie Bascom step on the Line to recover his body. They begin their investigation immediately, but North Korea begins a massive reinforcement of tanks and troops, prompting alarmed army brass to tell Sue�o and Bascom to drop the investigation or face court-martial. The brass already has a scapegoat, an Eighth Army private the agents believe is innocent. Lim�n, who spent half his 20-year army career in Korea, brings that knowledge to his rich characterizations of Sue�o and Bascom, career noncoms who have a highly developed cynicism about officers. This thirteenth novel in the series, however, is darker and angrier any of its predecessors, especially in its portrait of the endemic racism at the top of the Eighth Army.? Lim�n offers a shocking backstory concerning the North Korean capture of the USS Pueblo in 1968. One of the most powerful episodes in an always-strong series.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)