I know very little about Korean literature, but I loved The Good Son by You-jeong Jeong, so was more than happy to take a look at The Plotters. What a surprising book it turned out to be. The Plotters is dark, violent, and very funny. It has a beautifully dry satirical wit running all the way through and even as people are being knifed or shot to death, their bones ground down after cremation in the local pet crematorium to avoid detection, I found myself laughing at the ironic, observational humour. The setting is modern, democratic Seoul, South Korea. And it is democracy that has created its own problems. After three decades of military dictatorship, when troublemakers were disposed of by a few highly trained government assassins, Korea now has democratically elected politicians and an administration that needs to be seen to have clean hands. So beating potential oppositionists to death in military or government basements just won’t do any more. Fortunately, this is the modern era, so like any difficult problem, this one is now outsourced to private contractors. Assassination has become much more popular and soon Corporations are getting in on the act and work for contractors grows exponentially until it is Corporations who are the primary clients. In turn, this leads to differing styles and quality of assassins’ organisations. There are those like the one run by Old Raccoon which our protagonist Reseng belongs to. Raised as an assassin from a young age by the Old Raccoon, this is the only family he has ever known. The Library of Dogs is the place where Old Raccoon’s contract killing business is run from, colloquially known as The Doghouse. Here, the Plotters visit old Raccoon and make their after which Reseng, or one of his colleagues is sent out to perform the dispatch. He doesn’t know who the Plotters are or are or what their targets have done, he just carries out the work. But as in other areas of life, nothing is quite that simple. The growth in work has led to a growth in the number of firms carrying out such work and one in particular is quite greedy. Hanja, with his MBA from Stanford, has set up a flashy security company with his own team of plotters and assassins. His is the ‘supermarket’ approach, clean, convenient and a one stop shop for all your killing needs. Reseng is a lover of literature, his companions are his cats, Desk and Lampshade and he spends his evenings with them, drinking beer and contemplating his existence. What happens to old assassins? If he were to stop doing this killing (can he stop?) what would he do? Then one day he finds an explosive in his toilet. Is he now the target of a plotter? If so whom, and why? A woman now enters the picture. Mito lost her father to a plot. When she approaches Resang with her own scheme to upset the plotting world, all bets are off. In a remarkable and offbeat satire, our anti-hero sets out to find what he stands for and whether he might be capable of redemption. Loyalty and love play a part in a dark and violent book that turns assassin against assassin, and soon this is a deeply personal business for Reseng. Written with verve and genius touches of humour – kudos to the translator – The Plotters is both chilling and at the same time laugh out loud funny; no mean feat. The characters are vividly drawn and the writing is superb.

Reseng, found/born in a garbage can, adopted aged four by "a middleman for plotters and assassins" is a hitman who kills in exactly the way dictated by the plotters of the title. Until one day he lets his victim decide how they die and his ordered life spirals out of control. Funny, intelligent, violent and compelling. This world will stay with me for a while.

Thank you to the publishers for offering me this review copy, I did read it straight away as I want entirely taken by the idea of reading a Korean thriller... The opening chapter is excellent... gripping, funny, heart warming and shocking! The book has an excellent plot and so many great characters, your head will be in a spin keeping track of who is helping who. Bizarre and quirky in places which is just what I had hoped for - I wanted this book to stand out and be different! I would certainly recommend this on to other thriller readers who are prepared to read something different!

Whoah, what just happened! This is one of the few Korean set novels I’ve read but I’ve never seen this side to the city before! The Plotters of the title are the criminals in the city who pull all the strings. They sit at the high end of the criminal fraternity, shouting orders and issuing threats. Reseng has been an assassin for fifteen years. His ‘boss’ is Old Raccoon, who operates out of the library he calls The Doghouse. Old Raccoon is an avid reader and reads a lot of books which was bizarre to think about as he issues yet another hit. He has a ‘friend’ by the name of Bear who runs a pet crematorium but will, for a fee, cremate a human body. Reseng finds it increasingly hard to keep his emotional distance from his victims. That, is the very bad and ultimately deadly problem. As if he refuses to kill someone, then the plotters kill him. Reseng fears this fate as he knows of dead assasins. What a world Un Su Kim has created. Despite the lack of specific locations, the setting overall spoke loud and clear. This is Korea, an Asian society where ‘face’ and pride rule, even in the assassins world. The language and phrasing are also ‘ non-Western’ which ties the whole book into one very distinct Asia set novel. IT’s gory and violent. The many matter of face discussions of who to kill and how to kill them make them seem all the more dangerous. Life here means nothing it would seem.

The Plotters was a real surprise in its subtle delivery, considering this is a Korean thriller about assassins. I expected high octane action with lots of shooting, a book simply oozing violence. Not so. A lot more thinking, introspection and dialog than your typical thriller. The Plotters was far more witty and engaging than I could have hoped. Like I said, a surprise. I loved Reseng, our anti-hero assassin. He's been in the killing game long enough to know how things work in Seoul but that doesn't make him a mindless killing machine. He can sense things are changing in this world where assassinations are ordered like pizzas with plotters planning the scene of the murder down to the finest detail. Assassins are meant to follow orders completely. There's no room for off piste murder here and that's what trips up our man, Reseng. It's hard to put my finger on what I like best about this novel. I suppose the humour and sweetness caught me off guard and made a bigger impression than I first suspected. This novel is unique and sure to be different from any preconceived ideas you may have picking it up. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did and you let it get under your skin.