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Mohrbooks Literary Agency
Sebastian Ritscher
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THE REBEL AND THE KINGDOM

Bradley Hope

The True Story of the Secret Mission to Overthrow the North Korean Regime

A gripping account of an Ivy League activist-turned-fugitive and his clandestine effort to subvert the North Korean regime, a heart-pounding tale of a self-taught operative and his high-stakes attempt to change the world.
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 realized he had found a cause so pressing that he was ready to devote his life to it.

What began as a trip down the safe and well-worn path of organizing soon morphed into something more dangerous. 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 third-generation 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 Marine veteran Christopher Ahn, helped ferry 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 fugitives.

In the tradition of Jon Krakauer's Into the Wild, The Rebel and the Kingdom is an exhilarating account of a man who turns his back on the status quo - to instead live boldly by his principles. Acclaimed journalist and bestselling author Bradley Hope - who broke numerous details of Hong's operations in The Wall Street Journal - now reveals the full contours of this 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.

Bradley Hope, based in London, is the New York Times bestselling co-author of Billion Dollar Whale and Blood and Oil. He is a Pulitzer Prize finalist and Gerald Loeb Award winner. He also received the TRACE International Award for Investigative Reporting and the New York Press Club Award for Business Reporting. Formerly a reporter for The Wall Street Journal and a correspondent in the Middle East, Hope is co-founder of Project Brazen, a journalism studio and production company.
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Published 2022-11-01 by Crown

Comments

The Rebel and the Kingdom is an expertly crafted thriller that makes you turn the page. What makes it all the more remarkable is that it's all true. Bradley Hope is a first-rate reporter and writer, and he a subject worthy of his skills in Adrian Hong.

The engrossing inside story of two recent events that are jaw dropping even for North Korea, and the obsessive man behind them. In The Rebel and the Kingdom, Bradley Hope unearths a trove of new details about the rescue of a Kim family princeling and the audacious raid on the North Korean embassy in Madrid, and he challenges us to think about our collective role in allowing the ongoing human tragedy in North Korea. This is a terrific piece of up-close reportage that reads like a spy thriller but is all too real.

A riveting saga of one man's unlikely crusade to free North Korea... 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. Read more...

A fast-paced, true-life thriller pitting a merciless North Korean state against a band of high-tech, courageous activists... Thoroughly engaging... A page-turner of a spy-vs.-spy tale. Read more...

One of the most harrowing and inspiring stories I've ever read. This book left me in tears. Hope tells this inconceivable and heart-wrenching story with compassion, humanity, and integrity.

UK / ANZ: John Murray

The Rebel and the Kingdom is a propulsive investigation into the wild adventures of a man determined to bring down the North Korean regime, and the activists who joined him on his quest. Bradley Hope's account is both deeply reported and novelistic. I flew through it.

Bradley Hope has written a mystery story about an elusive human rights activist - and it reminds us all of the essential evil weirdness of the North Korean regime. Adrian Hong has disappeared, a fugitive from the FBI - but I'd wager that someday we will hear from this quixotic young man again.