First published 2011
Captain Lee receives orders that will change everything he believes. The young South Korean officer must investigate a brutal crime: Communist forces have kidnapped and killed a group of North Korean ministers during the opening weeks of the Korean War. His superiors want to declare these men martyrs for propaganda purposes. The official story seems simple enough. But as Lee digs deeper into what actually happened, disturbing questions emerge. Did these religious men hold fast to their beliefs when facing death, or did they abandon their faith to save themselves? Lee discovers that the truth might destroy the inspiring narrative his country desperately needs. He faces an impossible choice between exposing a lie that could demoralize his people or protecting a fiction that serves the greater good. The investigation forces Lee to confront his own beliefs about duty, truth, and sacrifice in wartime.
Genres: fiction, historical-fiction, 20th-century, military-fiction
Vibes: intimate, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: moral-dilemma, unreliable-narrator
Setting: North Korea, South Korea
Period: Korean War
240 pages · Paperback · Penguin Publishing Group
Content warnings: violence, war