Almost twenty years after the end of the Korean War, the U.S. Military is still present throughout South Korea, and tensions run high. Koreans look for any opportunity to hate the soldiers who drink at their bars and carouse with their women. When Pak Ok-Suk, a young Korean woman, is found brutally murdered in a torched apartment in the Itaewon red-light district of Seoul, it looks like it might be the work of her American soldier boyfriend. Sergeants George Sueño and Ernie Bascom, Military Police for the U.S. 8th Army, are assigned to the case, but they have nothing to go on other than a tenuous connection to an infamous prostitute. As repressed resentments erupt around them, the pair sets out on an increasingly dangerous quest to find evidence that will absolve their countryman.

In this sequel to New York Times Notable Book Jade Lady Burning, a pair of American military cops come up against major gang culture in South Korea’s back alleys. George Sueño and his partner Ernie Bascom thought they’d seen it all, but nothing could prepare them for the Slicky Boys. They’re everywhere. They can kill a man in a thousand ways you don’t even want to know about. And you’ll never even see them coming. They steal, they kill, they slip away. George and Ernie are about to discover that even the U.S. Military is no match for evil and that human sympathy can sometimes lead to a lonely grave.

This grisly, terrifying thriller follows CID Agents George Sueño and Ernie Bascom across the Korean Peninsula in their search for a lost artifact South Korea, 1970 Retired Army officer Herman Burkowicz has quite a lucrative setup smuggling rare Korean artifacts. But then his nine-year-old foster daughter, Mi-ja, is abducted, and her kidnappers demand a ransom Burkowicz doesn’t a priceless jade skull from the age of Genghis Khan. Sueño and Bascom—more accustomed to chasing felons and black marketeers in the back alleys of Itaewon than ancient treasures—go in over their heads as they agree to search for the skull, a journey that will lead them to a crime that threatens the fragile peace between South Korea and the US Army units living on its Korean soil.

Praise for Martin Limó “It’s great to have these two mavericks back... Mr. Limón writes with gruff respect for the culture of Seoul and with wonderful bleak humor, edged in pain, about GI life in that exotic city.”— The New York Times Book Review “Combining the grim routine of a modern police procedural with the cliff-hanging action of a thrilling movie serial . . . full of sharp observations and unexpected -poignancy.”— The Wall Street Journal “Sueño and Bascom are two of the most memorable sleuths in the modern mystery canon.”— The Plain Dealer “The writing is plain and sinewy, the characterizations are quietly brilliant, and the moral vision is as cold as a Seoul bar girl’s gaze.”— The Oregonian The pair of GI cops Martin Limón first introduced in Jade Lady Burning, a New York Times Notable Book of the Year, are back with a vengeance in their latest adventures in Seoul and the sin cities surrounding the capital in the 1970s. While North Korea menaces and Vietnam burns, these two weave through back alleys and bordellos, trying to tip the scales of justice back in the right direction. This time they are not only pursuing criminals, they’re chasing themselves. Homicidal thieves have gotten hold of Sueño’s badge and are using it to lull their victims just long enough to strike—with his gun. That they are murderers makes it that much worse for the dynamic duo. The army wants its equipment accounted for and the ID and weapon recovered. George and Ernie want to recover their reputation, such as it is. And stop the killings. Martin Limón is the author of numerous short stories starring his army police duo, as well as three novels. The Door to Bitterness is the fourth in the Sueño-Bascom series, after Jade Lady Burning, Slicky Boys, and Buddha’s Money .

Praise for Martin Limó “It’s great to have these two mavericks back... Mr. Limón writes with . . . wonderful, bleak humor, edged in pain, about GI life.”— The New York Times Book Review “Limón’s crisp, clear storytelling opens a door to another world and leaves one hoping the next installment won’t be so long in arriving.”— The Baltimore Sun “Limón has the military lingo and ambience down to a T. Plot, pacing, and plausibility are just about perfect.”— The Philadelphia Inquirer (editor’s choice) “As usual, Limón paints a picture of Korea in the mid-1970s that is so detailed and richly atmospheric that the reader’s senses are flooded with the sounds, smells, and tastes of the place. Fans of the Sueño-Bascom series, who have been waiting eagerly for a new novel, can relax. It was well worth the wait.”— Booklist (starred review) The only female MP assigned to a base in the DMZ is missing. Has she been abducted, killed, or, possibly, gone AWOL? Eighth Army cops George Sueño and Ernie Bascom, sent to find her, discover a murder that has been concealed, rampant black marketeering and corruption, crooked officers, rioting Korean civilians, and the wandering ghost of a schoolgirl run down by a speeding army truck. It is up to them to right egregious wrongs while being pursued by criminals who want to kill them. Martin Limón is the author of four earlier books in the Sueño-Bascom series. His debut, Jade Lady Burning, was a New York Times Notable Book.

Praise for the Sueño and Bascom “Setting the standard for military crime fiction, Limón’s compelling stories of murder, greed, and abuse of power are set off by the Korean culture and 1970s atmosphere.”— Library Journal, starred review “Altogether engaging.”— The Washington Post Book World “Combining the grim routine of a modern police procedural with the cliff-hanging action of a thriller movie.”— The Wall Street Journal “It’s great to have these two mavericks back.”— The New York Times Book Review “Easily the best military mysteries in print today.”—Lee Child “Martin Limón does what the best storytellers take you away to a brand new world.”—Michael Connelly A Korean fortune-teller is being bothered by a dead American soldier who wants his bones found and buried. An underage officer’s daughter is missing together with a Latino soldier. Several of the leading Korean gangsters who own the bars in the ville have been killed. Sueño and Bascom of Military Intelligence must go back to the founding of Itaewon, Seoul’s red-light district, in order to learn who killed the soldier, who’s taking revenge on the gang lords, and where to find the missing girl. Martin Limón is the author of numerous stories about his army police duo as well as five previous novels, Jade Lady Burning (a New York Times Notable Book of the Year), Slicky Boys, Buddha’s Money, The Door to Bitterness, and The Wandering Ghost, all available from Soho Crime. He lives near Seattle.

On a crowded train from Pusan to Seoul, the brutal rape of a young mother sparks rage on the powder-keg peninsula of Korea, pitting Koreans against Americans and the 8th Army brass against the truth. Eyewitness accounts indicate the culprit was most likely a U.S. serviceman, but by the time Sergeants George Sueno and Ernie Bascom, U.S. Army investigators, are called in, the rapist has disappeared and anti-American fervor in this proud Asian country is threatening to explode. George and Ernie search in vain for the culprit, all the while becoming entangled in the web of military apologists who deny that any Americans were involved, and the designs of a beautiful blonde musician who fronts an all-female country western band—a woman who is out to entertain the troops in more ways than one. Delay causes more tragedy—and this time murder—and sets off a frantic search for a killer that stretches from the sizzling hot Demilitarized Zone to the cold waters of the Yellow Sea and introduces George Sueno and Ernie Bascom to a ruthless Korean homicide investigator known to anyone foolish enough to cross him as Mr. Kill.

In this pulse-racing ninth adventure, Sergeant George Sueño heads north of Korea's DMZ on a mission to prevent war between the Communist North and the American-allied South . Seoul, early 1970 US Army Sergeant George Sueño is on a mission of extreme importance to the South Korean government, as well as the US Army. Kim Il-Sung has vowed to reunite North and South Korea into one country before he hands control of the government over to his son, which means North Korea is planning to cross the DMZ and overpower the American-allied South Korean government. Sueño's mission is to prevent this by sneaking into North Korea and obtaining an ancient map detailing the network of secret tunnels that run underneath the DMZ. To do so, he will have to go undercover and infiltrate the North Korean Communist inner sanctum. Aware of the often dubious nature of the US Military's tactics, Sueño is skeptical about his assignment. But he has other things on his mind. The keeper of the map is Doc Yong, a former lover of Sueño's who was forced to flee South Korea the year before—and she has a son. Before they can be happily reunited, the plan falls to pieces, and Sueño is captured. Can he rely on the enigmatic Hero Kang, his sole contact in the hostile country? Will the lovely Rhee Mi-Sook, the leader of the North Korean secret police, be too much to handle? And who are the mysterious group of women known as the Joy Brigade?

When a U.S. Army Claims officer is murdered in grizzly fashion the roustabout duo of George Sueño and Ernie Bascom have to go against orders to track a calculating killer and author Martin Limón proves once again why he is hailed by his peers as one of the greatest military writers of all time. Early one rainy morning, the head of the 8th United States Army Claims Office in Seoul, South Korea, is brutally murdered by a Korean man in a trench coat with a small iron sickle hidden in his sleeve. The attack is a complete surprise, carefully planned and clinically executed. How did this unidentified Korean civilian get onto the tightly controlled US Army base? And why attack the claims officer—is there an unsettled grudge, a claim of damages that was rejected by the US Army? Against orders, CID agents George Sueño and Ernie Bascom start to investigate. Somehow, no one they speak to has been interviewed yet. The 8th Army isn't great at solving cases, but they aren't usually this bad, either. George and Ernie begin to suspect that someone doesn’t want the case solved. From the Hardcover edition.

How much can murder buy on the black market in 1974 South Korea? South Korea, 1970 A young Korean woman dressed in a traditional chima-jeogori is found strangled to death on the frozen banks of the Sonyu River with only a carefully calligraphed poem in her sleeve. George Sueño and Ernie Bascom, sergeants in the US 8th Army CID, are called in by the formidable KNP detective Gil Kwon-up to investigate. George and Ernie's job is to liaise with Korean law enforcement on matters that may involve or implicate 8th Army American servicemen. But as they learn about the case, George and Ernie realize this isn't their jurisdiction—the nearby village of Sonyu-ri is occupied by the US Army's 2nd Infantry Division, a disciplined and often brutal force that won't stand for outside officers questioning its men. All that George and Ernie are able to glean before being kicked out of town is that they are close to the truth—and that a mysterious smuggler, known locally as "the Ville Rat," holds the key to the woman's murder. Luckily, the pair is officially assigned another investigation in the area, which allows them to continue nosing around for answers. They are to elucidate the circumstances of a shooting incident between a young African American private and his white supervising chief. Racial tensions run high, and George and Ernie must tread carefully to solve both cases. But they aren't exactly known for going out of their way to avoid stepping on US Army toes, and this is no exception.

South Korea, 1974. US Army CID Sergeants George Sueño and Ernie Bascom are assigned an underwhelming case of petty theft: Major Frederick M. Schulz has accused Miss Jo Kyong-ja, an Itaewon bar girl, of stealing twenty-five thousand won from him—a sum equaling less than fifty US dollars. After two very divergent accounts of what happened, Miss Jo is attacked, and Schulz is found hacked to death only days later. Did tensions simply escalate to the point of murder? Looking into other motives for Schulz’s death, George and Ernie discover that the major was investigating the 501st Military Intelligence Battalion: the Army’s counterintelligence arm, solely dedicated to tracking North Korean spies. The division is rife with suspects, but it’s dangerous to speak out against them in a period of Cold War finger-pointing. As George and Ernie go head-to-head with the battalion’s powerful, intimidating commander, Lance Blood, they learn that messing with the 501st can have very personal consequences. From the Hardcover edition.

Martin Limón’s series set in 1970s South Korea, an era of heightened Korean sociopolitical tension, pits Army CID agents Sueño and Bascom against a mysterious woman who may be the leader of a gang—or a thousand-year-old creature. Three American GIs have gone missing in different South Korean cities. Sergeants George Sueño and Ernie Bascom, agents for the Army CID, link the disappearances to a woman locally rumored to be a gumiho, a legendary thousand-year-old nine-tailed fox disguised as a woman. George suspects that the woman is no mythical creature, but a criminal who’s good at covering her tracks. Meanwhile, George and Ernie are caught in a power struggle between two high-ranking women in the 8th Army. Scrambling to appease his boss and stay one step ahead of a psychotic mastermind, George realizes he will have to risk his life to discover the whereabouts of his fellow countrymen.

The Korean Demilitarized Zone, 1970s: A battered corpse is found a few feet north of the line dividing North and South Korea. When 8th Army CID Agents George Sueño and Ernie Bascom are ordered by superiors to pull the body to South Korean side, they have no idea of the international conflict the action will spark. Before war breaks out, they must discover who killed Corporal Noh Jong-bae, a young Korean civilian augmented to the US Army who had few enemies. But the murderer could be from either side of the DMZ, and if it turns out to be North Korea, how can two US military agents interrogate witnesses? What George and Ernie discover gets them pulled off the case, but they continue to look into Corporal Noh’s death against orders, fearing they’ve put the wrong man behind bars.

US Army CID Agents George Sueño and Ernie Bascom become entangled with a pushy tabloid reporter as they investigate a series of violent bank robberies throughout South Korea. South Korea, 1970 A rash of armed robberies at local Korean banks doesn’t concern the American military—until a fatality occurs, and proof surfaces that US soldiers are behind the crimes. The case has been assigned to CID Agents Jake Burrows and Felix Slabem, but they certainly won’t do anything that might make 8th United States Army look bad. So Sergeants George Sueño and Ernie Bascom have decided to step in and investigate the robberies—and murder—themselves. George and Ernie have their own problems to worry about, namely Katie Byrd Worthington, a pesky reporter for the Overseas Observer—an unsanctioned English-language tabloid that has found strong roots in South Korea. Katie has published a story that implicates Army higher-ups in both sex trafficking and treason, and the pressure is on for the CID to disprove her claims. But what if they aren’t false? As George and Ernie dig deeper into the case, they find themselves the targets of a very unflattering publicity campaign, but perhaps also something much more dangerous.

Tasked with covering up a tabloid report about high-ranking officers, US Army CID Agents George Sueño and Ernie Bascom discover a dark web of systemic issues that have potentially fatal consequences. South Korea, 1970s: Sergeant First Class Cecil B. Harvey, a senior NCO in charge of 8th Army’s classified documents, has long been a friend (willing or unwilling) to Sergeants George Sueño and Ernie Bascom. So when he goes missing with a top-secret document that even a glance at could get an officer court-martialed, Sueño and Bascom take it upon themselves to find him. Meanwhile, Overseas Observer reporter Katie Byrd Worthington is back to make life difficult for top Army brass. When she lands in a Korean jail cell, Sueño and Bascom are sent to get her out—and negotiate against the publication of an incriminating story about the mistreatment of women in the military that could land important officials in hot water. But what they learn will make it hard for them to stay silent.