Star of the North
A Novel
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- USD 7.99
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- USD 7.99
Descripción editorial
“A thrilling tale of abduction and escape in North Korea....highly entertaining." —The Washington Post
A propulsive and ambitious thriller about a woman trying to rescue her twin sister from captivity in North Korea, and the North Korean citizens with whom she forms an unlikely alliance
Star of the North opens in 1998, when a Korean American teenager is kidnapped from a South Korean beach by North Korean operatives. Twelve years later, her brilliant twin sister, Jenna, is still searching for her, and ends up on the radar of the CIA. When evidence that her sister may still be alive in North Korea comes to light, Jenna will do anything possible to rescue her--including undertaking a daring mission into the heart of the regime. Her story is masterfully braided together with two other narrative threads. In one, a North Korean peasant woman finds a forbidden international aid balloon and uses the valuables inside to launch a dangerously lucrative black-market business. In the other, a high-ranking North Korean official discovers, to his horror, that he may be descended from a traitor, a fact that could mean his death if it is revealed. As the novel progresses, these narrative strands converge and connect in surprising ways, ultimately building to an explosive and unforgettable climax.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This outstanding thriller from John (Flight from Berlin) brings to life the seldom-seen underbelly of North Korea, which the author visited in 2012. In 2010, Jenna (born Jee-min), an academic at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., joins the CIA in part to find her twin sister, Soo-min, whom North Korean commandos abducted off a South Korean island in 1998. Meanwhile, Cho Sang-ho, a lieutenant colonel in North Korea's Ministry of Foreign Affairs who knows about Pyongyang's kidnapping program (and many of the country's other dark episodes), travels on a diplomatic mission to New York. There, at a reception at the 21 Club, he meets Jenna, who tells him about Soo-min. Cho is initially unhelpful, but in the end he agrees to assist Jenna in her quest to locate her sister. As an undercover CIA agent, Jenna goes to North Korea, where she poses as a translator for a U.N. peace mission while engaging in a dangerous search for her sister. John excels at drawing the everyday details of life in a closed society the drug use of the lower classes, the paranoia and fear of those who have gained access to the upper ranks, the omnipotence of the Bowibu, the state security force. Those seeking a realistic, highly readable look at North Korea will be richly rewarded.
