Gwen Moffat lives in Cumbria. Her novels are set in remote communities ranging from the Hebrides to the American West. The crimes fit their environment, swelling that dreadful record of sin in the smiling countryside cited by Sherlock Holmes.
No conventional mystery here because, in view of the title and strap, the blurb, reviews, and references to The Silence of the Lambs, there are spoilers galore, so with the main characters being a psychopathic serial killer on death row, an abused child, and a criminal psychologist nicknamed Clarice Starling by her students, we think we know where we are. Despite that, how will the author get out of an increasingly doom-laden mess of her own devising - and who’s for the chop?
Korea: original, exotic, different? Not at all; even the translator appears to have been educated in the United States, while the state capital, Seoul, its institutions, even its culture, are depicted with a strong American flavour - but delightfully tempered with courtesy.
Respect is ubiquitous, and demonstrated from the start when a fire inspector and an investigating cop attend a scene involving arson. Working harmoniously they discover the bodies of two old people, and then their granddaughter, the eponymous child, uninjured but obviously in a very bad way. She is returned to her father and his second wife, his first – and the girl’s mother - having committed suicide.
The introduction of a traumatised and, it transpires, an abused child into the household of a workaholic surgeon and a criminal psychologist has come at a particularly fraught moment, just as the psychologist has agreed to interview the serial killer. She is motivated by curiosity and kudos, the authorities by the hope that she can extract information on murders that the condemned man has so far refused to disclose.
In prison a battle of wits ensues between psychopath and psychologist while at home this clever, humane young woman has to cope with a fiercely destructive child and her father who is focussed on his work and little else. Further complications arise with the return of the two fire investigators: at first sight a comedy duo but this pair, while deeply respectful, carry a subtle scent of impending disaster.
The climax is sensational albeit predictable even allowing for coincidence. Interest - and suspense - lie in the working of minds. So far as technique is concerned, author and translator being Korean, their novel is subtly different in style and twisted plot. One hesitates to condemn its occasional banality, suspecting the dialogue in particular reads better in the original language. A good debut nevertheless. Perhaps Point Blank will bring out more books by Mi-ae Seo with no reference to other people’s celebrated crimes. Her protagonist, the psychologist Professor Seonkyeong, is strong enough to stand alone without the aid of Hannibal Lecter.
Translated by Yewon Jung
