The Investigation

'Jung-Myung Lee's extraordinary The Investigation, translated by Chi-Young Kim, is set in a period of Korean history that isn't widely known in the West . . . a heart-wrenching novel with many unexpected twists.' – Sunday TimesLonglisted for the Independent Foreign Fiction PrizeFukuoka Prison, 1944. Beyond the prison walls the war rages; inside a man is found brutally murdered.Yuichi Watanabe, a young guard with a passion for reading, is ordered to investigate. The victim, Sugiyama – also a guard – was feared and despised throughout the prison and inquiries have barely begun when a powerful inmate confesses. But Watanabe is unconvinced; and as he interrogates both the suspect and Yun Dong-ju, a talented Korean poet, he begins to realize that the fearsome guard was not all he appeared to be . . . As Watanabe unravels Sugiyama's final months, he begins to discover what is really going on inside this dark and violent institution, which few inmates survive: a man who will stop at nothing