The Rebel and the Kingdom

Praise

“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 has found a subject worthy of his skills in Adrian Hong, a Korean American idealist who set out, improbably enough, to topple the North Korean regime.”—Max Boot, columnist for The Washington Post, author of The Road Not Taken

“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.”—Yeonmi Park, bestselling author of In Order to Live

“The engrossing inside story of two recent events that are jaw-dropping even for North Korea, and the obsessive man behind them . . . This is a terrific piece of up-close reportage that reads like a spy thriller but is all too real.”—Anna Fifield, author of The Great Successor

“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.”—Kai Bird, director of the Leon Levy Center for Biography, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Outlier

“The Rebel and the Kingdom is thrilling, edifying, funny, and profound. Reading this book, I couldn’t help but feel uplifted to learn that, even in our disaffected age, there are people who are willing to give their life to a cause, whatever the personal cost.”—Kit Chellel, co-author of Dead in the Water

“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.”—Ed Caesar, contributing staff writer, The New Yorker; author of The Moth and the Mountain

“Only Bradley Hope could take us so deep into this world of diplomats, dictators, and would-be spies and achieve a book that is both utterly gripping and darkly funny. Not since Bill Browder’s Red Notice have I gone on such an exhilarating trip into the geopolitical underbelly.”—Zeke Faux, investigative reporter, Bloomberg News and Businessweek

“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.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

“A riveting saga of one man’s unlikely crusade to free North Korea. . . . This is the stuff great political thrillers are made of.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)