An unusually tall Korean man with a deformed lip enters the U.S. Army Claims Office in Seoul, requests to see the civilian boss and slices the man's throat with an iron sickle concealed inside his overcoat. The murderer escapes amid the ensuing pandemonium. The next night, when the mysterious, sickle-wielding Korean man assassinates an American MP in a neighborhood just outside the army compound and escapes unnoticed again, the stakes become greater.
Army Criminal Investigation Division agents George Sueño and Ernie Bascom aren't assigned to the case until Korean National Police Inspector Gil Kwon-up, aka Mr. Kill, requests them for the joint investigation. The maverick partners dig into the evidence, but what they uncover is certain to earn them enemies on all sides and, very possibly, make them the next targets for the elusive killer.
In The Iron Sickle, a post-Korean war crime story, Martin Limón (Mr. Kill; G.I. Bones) engages readers by blending Korean history, lore and geography with a tightly developed plot. His descriptions of war horrors are memorably disturbing without being gratuitously graphic. And Sueño and Bascom are a fascinating pair who add occasional levity without overshadowing the gravity of the novel's subject matter. The plot features several characters from prior novels, allowing regular series readers a bit more insight into the relationships previously forged; however, readers new to Sueño and Bascom should have no trouble following the story on its own.
Limón uses Korean (which he then translates) throughout the novel, which may momentarily pull some readers out of the story, but the momentum of the plot will certainly right their course. --Jen Forbus of Jen's Book Thoughts