‘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.

‘Explosive’ The Times

‘[A] Crisp page-turner of a book teeming with telling detail … Splendid‘ Financial Times

‘The fascinating and highly entertaining tale … Fly-on-the-wall reporting and palace intrigue worthy of Machiavelli’ John Carreyrou, author of Bad Blood

Longlisted for the 2020 Financial Times / McKinsey Business Book of the Year

Blood and Oil the explosive untold story of how Mohammed bin Salman and his entourage grabbed power in the Middle East and acquired a network of Western allies – including well-known US bankers, Hollywood figures, and politicians – all eager to help the charming and crafty crown prince.

Through astonishing interviews with powerful insiders, Blood and Oil tells how MBS’s cabal played the Saudi economy and capitalised on the omnipotence of feudal power while effectively stamping out dissent, before allegations of his extreme brutality and excess began to slip out. A story of breathtaking dealings that range from Riyadh to London, Paris to America, this is a thrilling and brutal investigation into extreme wealth, one of the world’s most decisive and dangerous new leaders, and the bid for Saudi transformation that is reverberating around the world.

‘This is as close to the truth, to the real story of the corruption, vulgarities, horrors, and lies of the Kingdom and its current despot as we are likely to get. It also can be read as a Shakespearean story of utter greed’ Seymour Hersh, author of Chain of Command