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liberrydude's review
5.0
I absolutely love this series and its two irreverent soldiers. Another satisfying reading experience.
Sueno and Bascom are summoned to a murder on the DMZ. The body is a KATUSA soldier and it’s straddling the line and the North Koreans want to take possession of it. A fire fight breaks out. The duo gets their asses chewed out. Their investigation gets squashed as there are fears World War III could break out. Meanwhile they are assigned to find a missing officer’s wife who appears to have become an escort for wealthy Asian men. Seekers of truth and advocates for all enlisted men they persist as they always do in doing the right thing. A plot line so implausible it could be true.
Sueno and Bascom are summoned to a murder on the DMZ. The body is a KATUSA soldier and it’s straddling the line and the North Koreans want to take possession of it. A fire fight breaks out. The duo gets their asses chewed out. Their investigation gets squashed as there are fears World War III could break out. Meanwhile they are assigned to find a missing officer’s wife who appears to have become an escort for wealthy Asian men. Seekers of truth and advocates for all enlisted men they persist as they always do in doing the right thing. A plot line so implausible it could be true.
usbsticky's review
4.0
Martin Limon's Sueno and Bascom books are all pretty solid. I started in the middle of the series and read them not in order. I like these books because they're a pretty good character study and I love the depiction of 1970's South Korea. Having said that, none of these books really stand out. They're all pretty solid police procedurals except that the police are US 8th Army CID officers. The whole series reads like a TV series binge. I finish one and go on to the next.
3no7's review
4.0
“The Line” by Martin Limón is set in South Korea some 50 years after the “cease fire.” People living in Seoul are terrified by the prospect of another war. North Korea has heavily fortified positions all along the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) and is capable of launching an attack that would reach Seoul. “Just another day in the R-O-K.”
Limón plunges readers into this tense situation through the first person account of George Sueño, an officer in 8th Army who conveniently speaks Korean, and his partner, Ernie Bascom, both agents for the United States Army Criminal Investigation Division, CID, in Seoul. The story is driven by the light-hearted banter, serious conversations, and thoughtful discussions between these two and the people they encounter.
Sueño and Bascom are rousted awake at “oh-dark-thirty” by one word: “Murder.” Vivid details put the reader into the scene as the pair arrives and finds an unusually tense situation at the DMZ. Off in the distance, across the vast open space, just by “The Bridge of No Return” and North Korean territory, they see a body; the left boot is in South Korea, but the rest of the body is in North Korea. Guns are pointed by both sides, and no one will risk touching the body. With caution and trepidation, Sueño and Bascom slowly and carefully advance, and soon the body slides to the south.
The pace is frantic as Sueño and Bascom try to determine how the man died, and more importantly who killed him. North Koreans? South Koreans? Gangsters? Russians? The possibilities are endless and the task is daunting. They have a suspect, but is this the correct perpetrator or is it just the politically expedient choice?
Limón creates a realistic picture of life for military and civilians with a mix of cultural activities, everyday occurrences, and unusual events that are the consequences of life in the “occupied state” of South Korea. There is another story intertwined with another compelling crime that must be solved.
Limón sprinkles in Korean culture and language (with translation). There is also a lot of military alphabet shorthand, (MAC, JSA, DMZ, MDL, KATUSA, CID, MDL, JSA, BOQ AFKN, ASCOM) “decoded” for readers on the first use, but not necessarily in subsequent uses
“The Line” is number thirteen in Limón’s Sueño and Bascom series, but it is not necessary to have read the previous books to enjoy this one. Any background information a reader might need is folded into the scenarios of the current story. Even though the book is set in the mid-1970s, the political tension, complex moral challenges, and social conflicts could have been pulled from today’s newspaper. This gripping book will keep readers guessing until the end.
Limón plunges readers into this tense situation through the first person account of George Sueño, an officer in 8th Army who conveniently speaks Korean, and his partner, Ernie Bascom, both agents for the United States Army Criminal Investigation Division, CID, in Seoul. The story is driven by the light-hearted banter, serious conversations, and thoughtful discussions between these two and the people they encounter.
Sueño and Bascom are rousted awake at “oh-dark-thirty” by one word: “Murder.” Vivid details put the reader into the scene as the pair arrives and finds an unusually tense situation at the DMZ. Off in the distance, across the vast open space, just by “The Bridge of No Return” and North Korean territory, they see a body; the left boot is in South Korea, but the rest of the body is in North Korea. Guns are pointed by both sides, and no one will risk touching the body. With caution and trepidation, Sueño and Bascom slowly and carefully advance, and soon the body slides to the south.
The pace is frantic as Sueño and Bascom try to determine how the man died, and more importantly who killed him. North Koreans? South Koreans? Gangsters? Russians? The possibilities are endless and the task is daunting. They have a suspect, but is this the correct perpetrator or is it just the politically expedient choice?
Limón creates a realistic picture of life for military and civilians with a mix of cultural activities, everyday occurrences, and unusual events that are the consequences of life in the “occupied state” of South Korea. There is another story intertwined with another compelling crime that must be solved.
Limón sprinkles in Korean culture and language (with translation). There is also a lot of military alphabet shorthand, (MAC, JSA, DMZ, MDL, KATUSA, CID, MDL, JSA, BOQ AFKN, ASCOM) “decoded” for readers on the first use, but not necessarily in subsequent uses
“The Line” is number thirteen in Limón’s Sueño and Bascom series, but it is not necessary to have read the previous books to enjoy this one. Any background information a reader might need is folded into the scenarios of the current story. Even though the book is set in the mid-1970s, the political tension, complex moral challenges, and social conflicts could have been pulled from today’s newspaper. This gripping book will keep readers guessing until the end.
rosseroo's review
3.0
Years and years ago, I greatly enjoyed the first book in this series (Jade Lady Burning) and the next two, and then for some reason, I had the impression that Limon had stopped writing, so the series dropped off my radar. I noticed this new one the other day and was shocked to see that it's the 13th in the Sueno and Bascom series! Thankfully, it's not a series that you have to read in order, and while there are some allusions to events that must have been covered in the last several books, I never felt like I was missing out on anything.
The main pleasure of the series is the depiction of 1970s Korea, which the author draws from his ten years serving there in the US Army. It's hard to conceive that the country hadn't yet built up any manufacturing, and the only tourists were planeloads of Japanese businessmen on sex holidays. On the flipside, the depictions of life on the various US army bases and camps is like being in an entirely different world.
There are two main plotlines here -- most important is the murder of a South Korean soldier stationed at the titular DMZ. There's also the disappearance of the wife of an officer, who seems to have vanished into Seoul's nightlife. CID sergeants Sueno and Bascom shuttle back and forth between the cases, even though (naturally) they're ordered to drop one, and they get into tight jams with various Army officials, JAG lawyers, and even Korean gangsters. The storyline ultimately gets a little over the top by the end, and the heroes have to rely too many times on their friends passing key information to them, but I was kept engaged by the setting and quick pace.
The main pleasure of the series is the depiction of 1970s Korea, which the author draws from his ten years serving there in the US Army. It's hard to conceive that the country hadn't yet built up any manufacturing, and the only tourists were planeloads of Japanese businessmen on sex holidays. On the flipside, the depictions of life on the various US army bases and camps is like being in an entirely different world.
There are two main plotlines here -- most important is the murder of a South Korean soldier stationed at the titular DMZ. There's also the disappearance of the wife of an officer, who seems to have vanished into Seoul's nightlife. CID sergeants Sueno and Bascom shuttle back and forth between the cases, even though (naturally) they're ordered to drop one, and they get into tight jams with various Army officials, JAG lawyers, and even Korean gangsters. The storyline ultimately gets a little over the top by the end, and the heroes have to rely too many times on their friends passing key information to them, but I was kept engaged by the setting and quick pace.
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