Graphic by Bae So-young

• ●Summer reading list recommended by New York-based literary agent Barbara Zitwer

• ●Like Scandi Noir, she says, Korean thrillers have “a unique point of view.”

Scorching temperatures and the Delta variant-fueled resurgence of COVID-19 have made it much easier to catch up on reading as people are advised to stay indoors and refrain from mingling with others.

Barbara Zitwer, a literary agent and founder of the Barbara Zitwer J. Agency, is recommending international journalists based in Seoul or other parts of the world to explore Korean thrillers this summer to keep their minds off of the heat.

“Korean thrillers have a different flavor and tone than any other thrillers. I can compare them to Scandinavian (or Scandi) Noir, which is exemplified by Steig Larssen, in that Scandi Noir brought a new kind of sensibility to thriller literature,” she told Korea Here & Now in an email interview. “So, too, do Korean thrillers with their new sensibility. I think their Koreanness is the reason readers love them. They have a unique point of view.”

Zitwer has discovered “diamonds in the rough” and helped select Korean authors expand their readership outside Korea into the United States and United Kingdom.

She handpicked five, hot Korean thrillers, saying they all are page-turners. Below are Zitwer’s picks:

1. “The Disaster Tourist” by Yun Ko-eun

If you want to go on the most unforgettable vacation of your life this summer, read “The Disaster Tourist” by Yun Ko-eun, translated by Lizzie Beuhler. Yun’s eco-thriller has spanned genres and oceans this 2021 literary award season, winning the UK’s CWA Dagger for Crime Fiction in Translation, being shortlisted for the U.S.’s Science Fiction and Fantasy Rosetta Award for Best Translated Book and recently longlisted for the UK and Ireland’s Comedy Women in Print Prize. The book is a clever satire about what happens to a young woman who is sent on a vacation trip to evaluate one of the tours offered by her company, Jungle.

2. “The Good Son” by Jeong You-jeong

Nothing will chill you to the bone in the heat of the summer like “The Good Son,” a thriller by Korea’s No. 1 writer whose new book, “Perfect Happiness,” was just published and is already causing a stir in Korea’s publishing industry. “The Good Son” is a terrifying, searing and taut story of a handsome young diver who wakes up in the penthouse of his magnificent, modern apartment in a new town, to see bloody footprints leading from his bed to the living room downstairs.

3. “The Hole” by Pyun Hye-young

Be thankful that you are not the protagonist of Pyun’s novel, which won the Shirley Jackson Prize, about a man who is recuperating from a car accident that killed his wife. The main character is barely alive when we meet him. He is encased in a body cast after being paralyzed by the accident. How sweet we think his mother-in-law is as she devotes herself to his care. He begins the slow process of recovery with the caring mother-in-law glued to his bedside. Slowly, he regains his ability to move. He eventually recovers enough to be transferred to the home that he shared with his wife. Unbeknownst to him, his mother-in-law has known all along that he had cheated on her daughter and how miserable she had been in their marriage.

4. “The Investigation” by Lee Jung-myung

Longlisted in 2015 for the Independent Foreign Fiction (now International Booker) Prize and published in French as “Le Garde, le Poète et le Prisonnier,” this thriller is also an homage to Yun Dong-ju, a 27-year-old poet who died in Japanese custody six months before World War II ended. Lee Jung-myung weaves an amazing tale about a painstaking investigation inside a prison. The story begins with the discovery of the mutilated and bloody corpse of the cruelest guard hanging upside down from some rafters. Who did it? A young guard is ordered to find the murderer. The setting is Japan’s Fukuoka Prison – filled as it was in World War II with political prisoners, including Americans and a brilliant, young Korean poet hauled in during the turmoil of that war.

5. “The Plotters” by Kim Un-su

A top five list of summer reads cannot be complete without “The Plotters,” Kim Un-su’s hilarious, philosophical and internationally acclaimed thriller. It’s about a young contract killer who is trying to save his own life. Published in more than twenty countries with film rights optioned by Ink Factory – the family firm that brings John le Carre’s works to the screen – this book will keep you both laughing and looking behind your back at all times. An old contract killer, who works out of a government library as a cover, finds Reseng, the young protagonist, left for dead in a garbage heap. He grooms the boy to be a professional killer, leaving Reseng no other viable career options after he grows up.

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