D. B. John has lived in South Korea and is one of the few Westerners to have visited North Korea. He co-authored The Girl With Seven Names, Hyeonseo Lee's New York Times bestselling memoir about her escape from North Korea.
A compelling and suspenseful thriller that kept me gripped throughout -- AJAY CHOWDHURY A richly satisfying thriller on an epic scale, magnificently conceived and brilliantly executed -- ANDREW TAYLOR Immensely enjoyable. A rich, epic thriller in the grand tradition ... This is exactly what a contemporary thriller should be: a gripping narrative with intriguing twists, vivid characters and well-drawn settings that is not merely very well researched about geopolitics but sheds new light on them too -- JEREMY DUNS A delightfully audacious spy story… a lot of fun to read, not least for John’s insight that for the three autocratic leaders [Trump, Putin, Kim Jong Un] politics has become…more about dynasty than democracy * The Times *