The Old Woman with the Knife
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
I went into this blind and let me tell you, it was a great choice. If you’re in the mood for a tightly wound thriller, stop now and just go get it - you can come back and let me know what you think after.
The Old Woman With The Knife follows Hornclaw, a senior citizen who is getting to where she’s about ready to retire from her long standing career… as a contract killer, or ‘disease control specialist’. She’s noticed her reflexes are starting to slow, and her joints hurt more than they used to. Even worse, she’s not sure she can trust her own mind anymore. Add to the mix a young buck chafing to prove his mettle, and you end up with a fabulously stressful tale balanced on a knife edge. Hornclaw might be locked into the fight of her life as the next generation aims to supplant her, or maybe the young rising star in the office is just rude.
The interlacing power dynamics inherent in age, gender, physical strength, and force of personality are pulled together to showcase how quickly the solid ground beneath you can turn into quicksand if you misjudge any single factor in a high-pressure situation. Hornclaw brings the audience along with her as she fights to remain in the present even as she’s pulled more and more into the past, recalling her history as though each decades-old memory happened only yesterday.
This book is like nothing I’ve read before but everything I wanted a thriller to be. I paired it with a fresh sliced Palisade peach because I ended up craving fruit every time Hornclaw visited the fruitseller’s stand, and because it was peach season when I read this and they’re my absolute favorite fruit. Three cheers to Gu Byeong-Mo and her translator Chi-Young Kim, both of whom did an absolutely incredible job!
