The Rebel and the Kingdom: The True Story of the Secret Mission to Overthrow the North Korean Regime

Wall Street Journal reporter Hope (coauthor, Blood and Oil) delivers a riveting saga of one man’s unlikely crusade to free North Korea. Adrian Hong, the son of South Korean missionaries, formed the activist group Liberation in North Korea while attending Yale University in 2004. Inspired by Kang Chol-hwan’s book The Aquariums of Pyongyang and the documentary film Seoul Train, Hong arranged for three North Korean teenagers to leave China for the U.S. A subsequent attempt to help six more defectors failed, however, and Hong spent 10 days in a Chinese prison before returning to America. He founded a secret new group, now known as Free Joseon, dedicated to overthrowing dictator Kim Jong-un’s regime. In February 2019, Hong and other group members broke into the North Korean embassy in Madrid and took the staff hostage for five hours before fleeing. They claim the break-in was a ruse staged to help the North Korean ambassador and his family defect, but the plan fell apart when the wife of an embassy official jumped from a second-floor window and alerted the police. Hong is currently in hiding, while one of his accomplices is in U.S. custody and fighting extradition to Spain. Hope has impressive access to Free Joseon and other activist groups and draws a vivid portrait of Hong, whose mix of courage, opportunism, and yearning fascinates. This is the stuff great political thrillers are made of. (Nov.)