Star of the North - D.B. John

North Korea proves an enigmatic, startling stage for D.B. John’s assured tale of a CIA deep-cover agent, prepared to risk it all to find her missing twin.

He’s a survivor, playing a poor hand with great skill. His weapons keep him safe from us. Hunger keeps him safe at home. His people think only of where their next meal is coming from, not of rebellion. And he’ll kill as many of them as it takes to stay in power.

America and North Korea stand on the verge of war.

Enlisted by the CIA, Korean-African American academic Jenna Williams is sent undercover on a perilous mission to infiltrate a terrifying plot at the heart of the regime; a plot to kidnap and engineer home-grown assassins and spies to deploy in the west. For Jenna, it’s a mission that comes with a personal agenda and a heavy cost: that of her own kidnapped twin sister.

As Jenna begins a desperate and dangerous search, John interweaves parallel tales of an ordinary North Korean citizen and the country’s disgraced elite as the webs of deception grow ever-tighter.

Lauded by no less than Lee Child, D.B. John turns in a Frederick Forsyth-level performance with Star of the North. An impressively skilled double-hander, it manages the feat of being both a fast-paced and nerve-shredding thriller and a comprehensive window into life in a ruthless regime few have witnessed first-hand. That the author is one of those rare few only lends this book a greater authenticity - D.B. John is also the co-author of Hyeonseo Lee’s memoir of her own escape from North Korea, The Girl With Seven Names. Blended into high-octane fiction, the result is astonishing: an almost agonisingly tense portrait of a forbidden society and a honed machine of a thriller.