What is a human life worth?

For Renseng, human lives are a commodity, their disposition decided by men and women in faraway chairs , handed down through impassive intermediaries, dispatched by Renseng himself, and burned in the same oven in which denizens of the neighborhood cremate their pets. He’s never really had a problem with it. It’s the way Renseng was raised – it’s the job he was, essentially, born to do.

And besides, everyone has sinned, especially those the Plotters have marked for death.

Right?

Right.

Maybe.

Probably.

Usually.

We, the readers, like to think we’re different. And perhaps you, me, we, as individuals, are. Perhaps we would put ourselves in danger for someone we love, or even for a stranger as Reseng’s colleague becomes a target after allowing an innocent women to live after she’s marked by the Plotters. That we have more respect for others, for their existences, for their right to exist. But when you watch the news or listen to the radio, you have to wonder if it’s true of our society. A society that separates children from their parents, throws them in cages, and allows them to die. That denies citizens vital medications. That allows the employees of its own government to go hungry in a fit of pique.

In the universe of The Plotters (written by Un-Su Kim, translated from Korean by Sora Kim-Russell, and published by Doubleday), nothing much has changed since North Korea was a police state under a military government that solved the problems of troublesome individuals with bullets and poisons and any other number of methods.

It has been decades. The nation has been reunified.

And nothing much has changed. The same faces represent power. The same invisible entities are the power. The same methods are deployed to retain and obtain it.

Which forces one to wonder: Is it really any different anywhere else?

The Plotters is a surreal story, replete with interior monologue, time shifts, and impossibilities. Part old-school spy thriller, part soul-searching journey, part history lesson, part political education.

A novel that makes the reader think without leading, allows you to draw your own conclusions while helping you see all the possible angles, is subtle without being esoteric, The Plotters is well worth the read. And quite frankly, we can all benefit from books in translation, now more than ever.