The Owl Cries

November 6, 2023
A vast, unnamed forest somewhere in Korea looms over this slow-burning thriller from Shirley Jackson Award winner Hye-Young (The Hole). In-su Park, an alcoholic forest ranger whose job mostly consists of turning away after-hours visitors, is approached by Ha-in Lee, a lawyer seeking information on his estranged brother, who supposedly held Park’s job several months earlier. Park, however, has never heard of Lee’s brother, nor have shopkeepers in the nearby village, or Professor Zin, the former director of a recently shuttered local forest research center. When Lee is hit by a truck and killed, his death is dismissed as a standard road accident, but Park—already put off by a recent uptick in strange sounds emanating from the forest at night—suspects foul play, and begins to investigate. As the narrative progresses, Hye-Young shifts the focus away from its more straightforward genre elements to probe the inner worlds of her characters, particularly the fraying mind of Park. Readers willing to follow the novel’s esoteric digressions will be rewarded with well-developed characters and a vivid sense of place, but those hoping for a more conventional mystery are likely to be disappointed. Adventurous mystery fans should check this out.