The Plotters

Author/Guide: Un-Su Kim

Why a Booktrail?

2000s: Assassination guilds compete for market dominance in an alternate Seoul.

ISBN: 978-0385544382
Genre: Crime, Dystopian

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What you need to know before your trail

Reseng is an assassin. Raised by a cantankerous killer named Old Raccoon in the crime headquarters “The Library,” Reseng never questioned anything: where to go, who to kill, or why his home was filled with books that no one ever read. But one day, Reseng steps out of line on a job, toppling a set of carefully calibrated plans. And when he uncovers an extraordinary scheme set into motion by an eccentric trio of young women–a convenience store clerk, her wheelchair-bound sister, and a cross-eyed librarian–Reseng will have to decide if he will remain a pawn or finally take control of the plot.

Travel Guide

An alternate Seoul

A novel set in an alternate Seoul about an organisation that masterminds assassinations….

Not that anyone really knows Seoul very well in the West, or at least not many, but I suspect no one will recongise that here, since it’s a very different city on the pages of this novel.

You’ll recognise a Korean setting however for there’s plenty of mentions of the maze of streets, chaotic alley ways and throngs of people.

There’s also the nod to the closed off and secretive world:

“What sped up the assassination industry was the new regime of democratically-elected civilian administrations that sought the trappings of morality. Maybe they thought that by stamping their foreheads with the words It’s okay, we’re not the military, they could fool the people. But power is all the same deep down, no matter what it looks like. As Deng Xiaoping once said, ‘It doesn’t matter whether a cat is white or black, as long as it catches mice.”

The assassins contract out the work. It’s quite a business they have going:

“On the rare occasion that the shit did hit the fan, the government was safe and clear of it. While contractors were being hauled off to jail, all they had to do was look shocked and appalled in front of the news cameras and say things like, ‘What a terrible and unfortunate tragedy!’”

Interestingly the Assassination club takes place out of The Old Library….