MR. KILL

Two dogged Army investigators in occupied Korea get an assist from a local detective in ferreting out an elusive rapist.

Riding the packed Blue Train from Pusan to Seoul in 1974, Sergeants Ernie Bascom and narrator George Sueño are thrust into action when a Korean woman in car three reports being raped by a kockeingi, a foreigner. Even as they try to get a fuller description from the fragile victim, passengers in the car are reviling them with cries of "Yankee go home!" The rapist escapes, but the duo is determined to track him down. The G.I. who was sitting next to him identifies him as an American, which probably means a soldier. But Staff Sergeant Riley and the other paper-pushers at CID headquarters at first claim that a G.I. couldn't possibly be the perp, then decide not to pursue the investigation further. Ernie and George break the bad news to their Korean police colleague Lieutenant Pong and walk away reluctantly. But everything abruptly changes when a second Korean woman is raped and then murdered. Pong requests that the American pair be brought in on the case. A likely suspect, Army Specialist Nicholas Q. Weyworth is identified, though not captured. And the American cops meet Mr. Kill, a local detective with Holmesian skills and demeanor who proves a perfect complement in a search that stretches for hundreds of miles and involves both twists and narrow escapes. Sergeant Sueño's seventh adventure (G.I. Bones, 2009, etc.) is another solid police procedural, grounded in muscular prose and enhanced by unique local color.