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    The Plotters
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    The Plotters
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    The Plotters
    Audiobook10 hours

    The Plotters

    Written by Un-su Kim

    Narrated by Arthur Lee

    3.5/5

    ()

    Unavailable in your country

    Unavailable in your country

    About this audiobook

    A thriller like you’ve never read one before, from the hottest new voice in Korean fiction

    ‘Kill Bill meets Murakami’ D. B. John, author of Star of the North

    ‘A work of literary genius’ Karen Dionne, internationally bestselling author of Home

    ‘I loved it!’ M. W. Craven, author of The Puppet Show

    ‘You’ll be laughing out loud every five minutes’ You-jeong Jeong, author of The Good Son

    ‘A mash-up of Tarantino and Camus set in contemporary Seoul’ Louisa Luna, author of Two Girls Down

    ‘An incredible cast of characters’ Le monde

    ‘Smart but lightning fast’ Brian Evenson, author of Last Days

    Plotters are just pawns like us. A request comes in and they draw up the plans. There’s someone above them who tells them what to do. And above that person is another plotter telling them what to do. You think that if you go up there with a knife and stab the person at the very top, that’ll fix everything. But no-one’s there. It’s just an empty chair.

    Reseng was raised by cantankerous Old Raccoon in the Library of Dogs. To anyone asking, it’s just an ordinary library. To anyone in the know, it’s a hub for Seoul’s organised crime, and a place where contract killings are plotted and planned. So it’s no surprise that Reseng has grown up to become one of the best hitmen in Seoul. He takes orders from the plotters, carries out his grim duties, and comforts himself afterwards with copious quantities of beer and his two cats, Desk and Lampshade.

    But after he takes pity on a target and lets her die how she chooses, he finds his every move is being watched. Is he finally about to fall victim to his own game? And why does that new female librarian at the library act so strangely? Is he looking for his enemies in all the wrong places? Could he be at the centre of a plot bigger than anything he’s ever known?

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins Publishers
    Release dateFeb 7, 2019
    ISBN9780008315801
    Unavailable
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    Reviews for The Plotters

    3.5/5

    97 ratings6 reviews

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    • 5/5
      The Publisher Says: From the novelist dubbed "the Korean Henning Mankell" (The Guardian) comes a fantastical crime novel set in an alternate Seoul where assassination guilds compete for market dominance. Perfect for fans of Han Kang and Patrick deWitt.Behind every assassination, there is an anonymous mastermind—a plotter—working in the shadows. Plotters quietly dictate the moves of the city's most dangerous criminals, but their existence is little more than legend. Just who are the plotters? And more important, what do they want?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.Crackling with action and filled with unforgettable characters, The Plotters is a deeply entertaining thriller that soars with the soul, wit, and lyricism of real literary craft.I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.My Review: Oh, you're gonna love this:As if it wasn’t ironic enough that the country’s top assassination provider was brazenly running his business in a building owned by an international insurance company; the same assassination provider was also simultaneously managing a bodyguard firm and a security firm. But just as a vaccine company facing bankruptcy will ultimately survive not by making the world's greatest vaccine but, rather, the world's worst virus, so, too, did bodyguard and security firms need the world's most evil terrorists in order to prosper, not the greatest security experts. That was capitalism, Hanja understood how the world could curl around and bite its own tail like the uroboros serpent. And he knew how to translate that into business and extract the maximum revenue. There was no better business model than owning both the virus and the vaccine. With one hand you parceled out fear and instability, and with the other you guaranteed safety and peace. A business like that would never go under.–and–“People think villains like me are going to hell. But that’s not true. Villains are already in hell. Living every moment in darkness without so much as a single ray of light in your heart, that’s hell. Shivering in terror, wondering when you’ll become a target when the assassins will appear. True hell is living in a constant state of fear without even knowing that you’re in hell.”Witty, trenchant, and true. I would go so far as to say tendentious. The wonder of meeting Reseng is that his existence is so extreme, committing murders for a living, and yet so extremely simple. Show up at this place at that time and do your job...kill. Like working at a meat-packing plant or a fish cannery. People aren't in any significant way more important than cattle or catfish. In this hypercapitalist alt-Seoul, there's little enough difference paid to any even notional difference between them, when it comes to one of the Plotters making a meticulous and scrupulously untraceable plan to off the person they're being paid to murder.Make no mistake, these are murders, and they are violent. Author Kim does not stint on the violence. What makes it different from all those ghastly Stieg Larsson clones is that it's not sexual violence. There's a modicum of sex, and even a brief interlude where Reseng, having gotten himself in the crosshairs of nasty competing assassins because his boss (and sole parent figure since he was orphaned) is getting shoved out of the business, explores domesticity. It's...bizarre. To him as well, which is why it doesn't last.The whole novel unfolds at the strangest pace. If you've watched Squid Game or Parasite, you'll see it here: the off-kilter way pacing is handled for us calibrated to US norms. It serves the plot in all of these cases, and it makes this story's universe really *feel* genuine, lived-in, and solid. I think that's a major plus compared to most of the violent thrillers I've read.What caused me to give the read four stars in place of another half was, in fact, the mismatch between the violence of Reseng's profession, his philosophical musings about it (I chose one illustrating what I'm talking about above), and the cool remove of his actions and reactions. These things don't work together as well as it seems to me others believe they do. It's like watching a Godard film with a boy you want to bonk and then not getting any after you've invested unrecoverable hours trying to figure out what the hell is going on.For all that, this here's a terrific entertaining read. Alienation, outrage, warped filial devotion, blood and gore...all present and accounted for. It's a weird trip and I'm glad I took it.
    • 4/5
      "Bear provided a corpse-disposal service, albeit an illegal one...He was surprisingly cuddly-looking for someone who burned corpses for a living."My first dip into South Korean literature and what a shrewd and explosive read. The Plotters is a mash of John Wick meets Tarantino with a good dollop of satire; I was gripped from the start. I’d never have chosen this book myself, but I received it as part of my Willoughby Book Club subscription and I’m so glad the team picked this one for me. I really enjoyed Reseng’s nature and personality. He was funny, sarcastic, clever, resourceful and well-read, unusual for a killer for hire. In a real-life situation I could definitely see myself being friends with him! Whilst this is the story of an assassin in the dodgy gangland of Seoul, it’s ultimately about change and acceptance. I will be hoping for more English translations from Un-Su Kim.
    • 4/5
      When I checked this out at the library for #koreanmarch it looked familiar. It wasn't until I got it home that I realized it was because my fourteen-year-old had already checked it out and read it. He seemed to like it, so this book went immediately to the top of my TBR.I normally don't read a lot of crime/thrillers, but I did enjoy this. The final showdown made me think this would be amazing adapted as a movie, but overall, the structure of this book is sort of fragmented — different stories that lead into each other, which might be a challenge, adaptation-wise. I enjoyed the characters, and the many meditations on how most people get stuck on a track in their lives, whether that track is assassin, factory worker, prostitute, etc., and how difficult it is to change tracks and imagine a different life for yourself, even if your life is at stake. Or even to be fully aware of the parallel tracks, the different sorts of lives being led all around you.Happy to have picked it up. Only a few moments I cringed a bit imagining my teen reading this, but most of them because I thought they were going to go darker than they did.
    • 5/5
      Wow! I could not put this book about Korean assassins down!
    • 4/5
      The Plotters by Un-su Kim (trans. from Korean by Sura Kim-Russell) is surprisingly lyrical and philosophical for a book about a group of assassins. With references to Roman and Greek mythology, Homer and the Bible, the book invites deeper reflection than most would expect from a modern thriller. From the age of four, Reseng has been surrounded by an underground group of assassins and hired guns and now is one of the best in the profession. He was adopted by a man he calls Old Raccoon, a librarian who also happens to coordinate the cabal out of his virtually abandoned library. Old Raccoon does not encourage Reseng’s love of reading, however and warns that it will “doom you to a life of fear and shame.” Regardless, Reseng devotes his childhood to teaching himself how to read and vicariously learns many life lessons in this way. The book opens with an assignment that demonstrates Reseng’s ethical code and respect for others combined with a resigned ruthlessness that allows him to complete his mission. The reader gains a greater understanding of Reseng as he recalls one time when he had a chance to adopt a normal life. He describes how his loyalty has been repeatedly tested in a world where trust is treacherous, and competition is a game of extreme elimination. When he himself becomes a target, Reseng needs to discover who has put him on the kill list and must use his connections to uncover the motives of those who plot against him. The Plotters is a rewarding book, fascinating for its glimpse into a political system that is mysterious and reflective of a country that is perpetually in a state of vigilance. Un-su Kim deftly creates characters that encourage respect and admiration despite their misdeeds and portrays how a the greatest human vulnerability can be caring about others.Thanks to Doubleday and NetGalley for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an unbiased review.
    • 5/5
      sly-humor, Korea, translated, assassins, Asia I like to see what fiction other cultures are writing and reading. I've enjoyed others from SE Asia and China, but not until now from Korea. The story itself reminds me of several other books in which assassins are a major presence, but here I can feel a lot of tongue in cheek as well as some really sneaky humor that is even worse than puns. That being said, I do think that the translator was kind enough to substitute English language vernacular when needed.Bottom line: I really enjoyed reading it!I requested and received a free ebook copy from Doubleday Books via NetGalley. Thank you!