A review by lezreadalot
The Old Woman with the Knife by Gu Byeong-mo

3.0

Everything eventually succumbs to erosion, including the soul.

I have to admit to being sliiiiiightly underwhelmed. I loved the idea of an elderly female assassin fighting back the inevitability of retirement, so I dove right in. And I wasn't that into the plot to be honest? Or the way the plot was laid out? I don't mind shifting narratives and perspectives, and the way this spanned multiple POVs and went back and forth in time to lay out the main character's life wouldn't normally be a deterrent for me. But for some reason, in this instance, I really didn't vibe with the storytelling. I almost feel like it would have been more enjoyable if we'd gotten Hornclaw's story from childhood to present. That would have meant that the present day plotline would have needed a lot of beefing up, but that would have been all to the good. I did enjoy seeing how things from her past came into conflict with the connections she was currently making, and I feel like there were the makings of an interesting dynamic between her and Dr. Kang, but the development wasn't there? And the whole thing with Bullfight would have been more interesting if we HADN'T gotten the entire story almost from jump. I don't know. There's a lot of directions this could have been taken that would have satisfied me, more. I did like it, but it seems more like fumbled potential than anything else.

Listened to the audiobook as read by Nancy Wu, which I enjoyed, though I didn't love it. The translation seemed pretty good, and I did enjoy some aspects of the writing. I'm still glad I read this, but mostly for the cultural context and history, and the exposure to another type of thriller, that was a bit different from the ones I usually read.