Those who didn't know that Korean noir is a thing may have gotten their first taste while watching 2019's Oscar-winning Parasite. Readers jonesing for another Seoul-set chiller that works the theme of economic inequality would do well to start with Hye-Young Pyun's The Law of Lines.
As the novel begins, 27-year-old Se-oh Yun returns home to find that the house she shares with her elderly father has gone up in flames; he dies at the hospital from his injuries. According to a detective, the explosion occurred after the old man cut the house's gas hose. Se-oh begins spying on her father's debt collector when she learns that the man visited the house just after the fire broke out.
Meanwhile, Ki-jeong Shin, a teacher, receives a phone call from the police saying that her sister's body was found in the Namgang River. An autopsy confirms death by drowning, although whether it was suicide or an accident remains unclear. When the police give Ki-jeong the name of the person who made the last call to her sister's phone, Ki-jeong doesn't recognize it, but readers will.
Pyun (The Hole, City of Ash and Red) toys tantalizingly with reader expectations, but her book is also an eviscerating look at how greed and unregulated finance wreak havoc on the social and economic fabric. For the characters in The Law of Lines, each new day brings fresh quicksand; as one character puts it, "The bad luck that poverty ushered in was close to fate." --Nell Beram, author and freelance writer