Book Review: Mrs Shim is a Killer by Kang Ji-young (Crime/Comedy)

Mrs Shim is a Killer
Kang Ji-young
Penguin
28 April 2026
368
Paperback
Crime/Comedy
Bought Copy

I am no ordinary ajumma. I am a killer

Recently widowed and unemployed, Mrs Shim and her two children face an empty fridge. As her job options run out, she answers an ad for the Smile Detective Agency.

Within weeks, she has turned it around. For Mrs Shim is sharp as a blade, handles business cleanly and is like a padlock when it comes to keeping secrets.

By day, she prepares kimchi for her family and her neighbour with dementia; by night Mrs Shim is out on a contract.

But what starts as a need for survival escalates into a thirst for vengeance. For Mrs. Shim is done with being everyone’s doormat.

Diving headfirst into her new career among petty criminals, ghosts and assassins, Mrs Shim's past soon comes hurtling towards her. 

 

Mrs Shim is a Killer was a generally entertaining read. I liked the way the novel told the overarching story by means of a multi-POV narrative so that with each new character's chapter we got a new piece of the puzzle. The book was pretty easy, light reading and there was some humour along the way. In some ways, though, I think this book suffered in my eyes because I came to read it right after finishing Karsten Dusse's Murder Mindfully. These two stories have some similarities in terms of unlikely people becoming killers. However, I feel that Dusse's book has the edge when it comes to the black humour and quirky plot, as well as a narrator we spend more time with and therefore come to relate to a little more fully. That is not to say Kang's story is bad by any means -- I enjoyed it a lot -- but the close proximity of the reading of the two works naturally led me to compare them quite strongly. On the whole, though, if you like books in the vein of Murder Mindfully and Dexter then you will likely enjoy Mrs Shim is a Killer, too, particularly if you also enjoy other Korean content, as there are plenty of little Korean cultural gems and in jokes in this story. I am giving this one four stars. It is a solid work, and I would definitely pick up other books by Kang Ji-young in the future.