The Rebel and the Kingdom

How did an Ivy League activist become a global fugitive? TheNew York Timesbestselling co-author ofBillion Dollar WhaleandBlood and Oilchronicles the heart-pounding tale of a self-taught operative his high-stakes attemptsubvert the North Korean regime.

"Propulsive . . . Hope's account is both deeply reported and novelistic."-Ed Caesar, contributing staff writer forThe New Yorker,author ofThe Moth and the Mountain

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 helpedasylum-seeking North Koreans escape across the border.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 U.S. Marine veteran Christopher Ahn, helped ferry Kim Jong-nam's family to safety. Then Hong took the group a step further. He initiateda series ofhigh-stakes direct actions, culminating inan armedraid 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'sInto the Wild, The Rebel and the Kingdomis 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 inThe 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.