Star of the North : a novel / D.B. John.

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

"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.

Excerpt provided by Syndetics

BAENGNYEONG ISLAND SOUTH KOREA JUNE 1998   The sea was calm the day Soo-Min disappeared.   She was watching the boy make a fire out of driftwood. The tide was rumbling in, bringing towering clouds that were turning an ashy pink. She hadn't seen a single boat all day and the beach was deserted. They had the world to themselves.   She pointed her camera and waited for him to turn his head. "Jae-hoon . . . ?" Later, the photograph she took would show a strong-limbed youth of nineteen with a shy smile. He was dark for a Korean and had a dusting of salt on his shoulders, like a pearl fisher. She handed him the camera and he took one of her. "I wasn't ready," she said, laughing. In this photograph she would be in the act of sweeping her long hair from her face. Her eyes were closed, her expression one of pure contentment.   The fire was catching now, wood groaning and splitting. Jae-hoon placed a battered pan onto the heat, balancing it on three stones, and poured in oil. Then he lay beside her where the sand was soft and warm, just above the high-tide mark, resting on his elbow and looking at her. Her necklace, later the object of such sorrow and remembrance, caught his eye. It was a thin silver chain with a tiny silver pendant in the shape of a tiger, representing the Korean tiger. He touched it with the tip of his finger. Soo-min pressed his hand to her breast and they began to kiss, foreheads pressed together, lips and tongues caressing. He smelled of the ocean, and spearmint, and cuttlefish, and Marlboros. His wispy beard scratched her chin. All these details, everything, she was already telling her sister in the airmail letter she was unconsciously composing in her head.   The oil began to spit in the pan. Jae-hoon fried a cuttlefish and they ate it with chili paste and rice balls, watching the sun sink to the horizon. The clouds had turned to flame and smoke, and the sea was an expanse of purple glass. When they finished eating he took out his guitar and began singing "Rocky Island" in his quiet, clear voice, looking at her with the firelight in his eyes. The song found the rhythm of the surf, and she felt a blissful certainty that she would remember this all her life.   His singing stopped midnote.   He was staring in the direction of the sea, his body as sprung as a cat's. Then he threw aside the guitar and leapt to his feet.   Soo-min followed the line of his gaze. The sand was cratered and lunar in the firelight. She could see nothing. Just the breakers thundering in a dim white spume that fanned out flat on the sand.   And then she saw it.   In a small area beyond the breaking surf, about a hundred yards from the shoreline, the sea was beginning to churn and boil, stirring the water to pale foam. A fountain was rising, just visible in the dying light. Then a great jet of spray shot upward with a hiss, like breath from a whale's blowhole.   She stood up and reached for his hand.   Before their eyes the roiling waters were beginning to part, as if the sea were splitting open, revealing a black, glistening object.   Soo-min felt her insides coiling. She was not superstitious, but she had a visceral feeling that something malefic was making itself evident. Every instinct, every fiber in her body, was telling her to run.   Suddenly a light blinded them. A beam surrounded by an orange halo was coming from the sea and was focused on them, dazzling them.   Soo-min turned and pulled Jae-hoon with her. They stumbled in soft, deep sand, abandoning their possessions. But they had taken no more than a few steps when another sight stopped them dead in their tracks.   Figures in black masks were emerging from the shadows of the dunes and running toward them, holding ropes.   Date: June 22, 1998, Case ref: 734988/220598 BY FACSIMILE TRANSMISSION REPORT by the Incheon Metropolitan Police at the request of the National Police Agency, Seodaemun-gu, Seoul   Orders were to determine whether the two missing persons last sighted at 14:30 on June 17 had departed Baengnyeong Island prior to their disappearance. Respectfully submitted by Inspector Ko Eun-tek:    1. Security video images procured from the Baengnyeong Island Ferry Terminal establish to a high degree of certainty that no one resembling the missing persons boarded the ferry during any of its departures within the relevant time. Conclusion: the missing persons did not leave the island via the ferry.    2. The coast guard reported no other shipping in the area at the time of the missing persons' last sighting. Due to the island's proximity to North Korea, marine traffic is highly restricted. Conclusion: the missing persons did not depart the island by any other boat.    3. A local resident discovered yesterday, next to the remains of a campfire on Condol Beach, a guitar, footwear, items of clothing, a camera, and wallets containing cash, return ferry tickets, IDs, and library cards belonging to the missing persons. IDs for both persons match the personal details supplied by Sangmyung University. They belonged to: Park Jae-hoon, male, 19, permanent resident of the Doksan District of Seoul, whose mother lives on Baengnyeong Island. Williams Soo-min, female, 18, United States citizen, who arrived in the country in March to enroll as an undergraduate.    4. At 07:00 today the coast guard commenced an air-sea helicopter search operation over a range of 5 nautical miles. No trace of the missing persons was found. Conclusion: both persons drowned by misadventure while swimming. The sea was calm but currents have been unusually strong, according to the coast guard. The bodies may by now have been carried some considerable distance. With your agreement, we will now suspend the helicopter search, and humbly recommend that the missing persons' families be informed. Excerpted from Star of the North by D. B. John All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Library Journal Review

John (Flight from Berlin) weaves a twisty tale about North Korea, the most secretive country on Earth. Readers follow three characters: Jenna, a CIA agent whose twin was abducted while on vacation in South Korea; Mrs. Moon, a North Korean peasant who enters the black market, hoping to make a better life for herself and her husband, with goods illegally obtained from an international aid balloon; and the high-ranking Colonel Cho, who learns about a career-destroying family secret that could mean death for him. From the luxuries of power to the back-door political dealings to the torturous realities of a concentration camp, these three seemingly disparate plots are deftly woven, leading to an ending that is at once breathtaking and bittersweet. VERDICT Conceived on the author's 2012 trip to North Korea, this well-researched, fast-paced, and pertinent thriller will keep readers' attention from start to finish. Readers of all sorts-whether spy fiction fans, thriller aficionados, or book junkies looking for a fantastic read-will enjoy.-Laura Hiatt, Fort Collins, CO © Copyright 2018. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Publishers Weekly Review

Park's well-paced narration hits all the emotional beats of John's timely thriller, but her characterizations of the main players are uneven. The novel, set mainly in 2010 North Korea, shifts perspectives among three very different protagonists. Park's voice is a perfect match for Jenna Williams, a young CIA agent who's determined to prove her twin sister did not drown in South Korea in 1998, which was the official verdict, but rather was the victim of North Korea's covert abduction program. Less effective is her unaccented approach to Cho Sang-ho, a North Korean diplomat who winds up in prison after the discovery that his father may have been a traitor, and the third major character, Mrs. Moon, a 60-year-old peasant whose life near the Chinese border changes when she finds an international aid package and begins selling its contents on the black market. Park does add a helpful, subtle shift in tone and accent for several of the minor characters, including Kim Jong Un's ruthless father, Kim Jong Il. Park effectively conveys the feeling of helplessness of North Koreans and delivers a series of strong performances as John draws his disparate trio toward an action-filled climax that includes the death of Kim Jong Il. Park's performance is good enough to carry listeners to the end, but the audio edition would be better served with multiple readers. A Crown hardcover. (May) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

Booklist Review

*Starred Review* Welsh author John uses three memorable primary characters to tell a remarkable story about the most opaque country on Earth: North Korea. Set largely in the final years of Kim Jong Il's reign as the country's Dear Leader, circa 2010-11, this tale will resonate with any reader unnerved by the threat of nuclear war or by President Trump's intemperate threats and name-calling. Jenna Williams half African American, half South Korean is a Georgetown professor. She is haunted by her twin sister's disappearance years before from a South Korean beach; when the CIA recruits her, she accepts the assignment. Colonel Cho, a North Korean diplomat whose successful negotiations with the Americans have made him a rising star in the government, is worried about undergoing a deep background check by the feared state security agency; Cho, who never knew his birth parents, fears that he might be found to have bad blood. Mrs. Moon is an aged, arthritic peasant in far North Korea who finds a balloon containing South Korean Choco Pies; she sells the pies and becomes an entrepreneur. The lives of these people collide in a harrowing thriller that exposes an amazingly corrupt regime that embraces savage brutality and nearly every kind of lucrative criminal enterprise. John concludes with a fascinating 10-page bibliographic essay supporting his claims, but Star of the North would be a superior thriller even if it was pure fiction.--Gaughan, Thomas Copyright 2018 Booklist

Kirkus Book Review

A dozen years after her 18-year-old identical twin sister disappeared from a beach on South Korea's Baengnyeong Island, just west of North Korea, Georgetown geopolitics professor Jenna Williams risks her life to find her.The year is 2010. Jenna, whose mother is Korean and father African-American, has been suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder after the apparent drowning of her sibling, who had been preparing to spend a gap year studying music in Seoul. Jenna's efforts to lose herself in her work are upended by a Japanese woman in the news who claims her long-missing teenage son was one of many young foreign nationals abducted from beaches and taken to North Korea by submarine. Recruited by the CIA, Jenna undergoes intensive training and enters North Korea on a supposed peace mission. Danger awaits. Meanwhile, newly promoted North Korean Col. Cho is sent to the United States to negotiate with the evil West after the state eliminates his predecessora fate Cho gravely fears awaits him if his blood ties to a traitor are revealed. And a woman from a farm collective, Mrs. Moon, sets herself up as a black marketeer after selling goods from a South Korean aid balloon and learning such tricks of the trade as bribery. Welsh novelist John (Flight from Berlin, 2009), who visited North Korea in 2012, offers an informed look at the oppression, corruption, and widespread suffering under Kim Jong-il, father of Kim Jong-un. But as entertaining as the converging plots can be, the book is too lightweight to be taken as seriously as it wants. And the author is a bit too understanding of the murderous Kim and his need to launch rockets.A sometimes-suspenseful but never gripping novel about North Korea circa 2010. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.