By Gu Byeong-mo — Hanover Square Press, 2022
It seems ageism in the workplace is rampant, even for contract killers like Horn Claw. At 65, Horn Claw knows she’s not as spry as she once was, but she still gets the job done, even as her co-workers dismiss or even bully her. Born in a small town in South Korea, then abandoned by her birth family, who couldn’t afford another child to raise, Horn Claw has little opportunity to earn a legal income, and she struggles to survive in a society that is cruel to the poor and female. When we meet her, she calls herself a “disease control specialist,” but the vermin she eliminates aren’t rats but unlucky humans, dispatched with a poison-tipped knife. She has lost a hand due to the job but keeps working; she has no friends or social life. Her work is all she knows. With her advancing years, she’s slowing down, is less accurate and is softening. An uncharacteristic sentimental act is a mistake that could prove fatal to this assassin. Will she prevail? We hope so. Gu Byeong-mo is an award-winning, South Korean author. Old Woman with the Knife is her first novel translated into English.
