The rebel and the kingdom - Bradley Hope

'Propulsive . . . Deeply reported and novelistic. I flew through it' Ed Caesar

'Jaw dropping even for North Korea . . . A terrific piece of up-close reportage that reads like a spy thriller but is all too real' Anna Fifield

HOW
DID A COLLEGE KID BECOME A GLOBAL FUGITIVE?

In the early 2000s, Adrian Hong was a
soft-spoken Yale undergraduate looking for his place in the world. After
reading a harrowing account of life inside North Korea, he realised he had
found a cause to which he could devote his life.

Hong journeyed to China, outwitting
Chinese security services as he helped ferry asylum-seeking North Korean
escapees to safety. Meanwhile, Hong's secret organization, Cheollima Civil
Defense (later renamed Free Joseon), began tracking the North Korean
government's activities, and its volatile ruler, Kim Jong-un.

Free Joseon targeted North Korean
diplomats who might be persuaded to defect, while drawing up plans for a
government-in-exile. After the shocking broad-daylight assassination in 2017
of Kim Jong-nam, the dictator's older brother, Hong, along with US Marine
veteran Christopher Ahn, helped ferry Jong-nam's family to safety. Then Hong
took the group a step further. He initiated- a series of -high-stakes direct
actions, culminating in -an armed- raid at the North Korean embassy in Madrid
- an act that would put Ahn behind bars and turn Hong into one of the world's
most unlikely global fugitives.

The Rebel and the Kingdom is an exhilarating account of how a trip down the
safe and well-worn path of activism soon morphed into something extremely
dangerous. Acclaimed journalist and bestselling author Bradley Hope
- who broke numerous details of Hong's operations in- the Wall Street
Journal -reveals his remarkable story of idealism and insanity, hubris
and heroism, all set within the secret battle for the future of the world's
most mysterious and unsettling nation.