Operating the switchboard at the business office shared by her brother's computer-game company and six unusual therapists, Meg Langslow finds herself drawn into a mystery when the company's practical joker is murdered on top of a mail cart.

It's winter in Sokcho, a tourist town on the border between South and North Korea. The cold slows everything down. Bodies are red and raw, the fish turn venomous, beyond the beach guns point out from the North's watchtowers. A young French Korean woman works as a receptionist in a tired guesthouse. One evening, an unexpected guest arrives: a French cartoonist determined to find inspiration in this desolate landscape. The two form an uneasy relationship....