Red Star Down

From the acclaimed author of "The Star of the North" comes a captivating international thriller set in 2018. An 18-year-old North Korean defector, desperate and starving, manages to reach the US consulate in Hanoi, Vietnam. He clings to a single Western name: Jenna Williams. He requests to meet her specifically. Jenna, who is a Korean-African-American, operates under a pseudonym at the US embassy in Russia. Her official role involves organizing university exchanges, but this is merely a facade for her true position as a senior intelligence officer stationed with the CIA in Moscow. With Jenna's assistance, the defector, Woo-jin—or 'Books'—is granted asylum and US citizenship, a privilege given to North Korean defectors. Fluent in Russian and English, Woo-jin enrolls at the American School in Moscow at Jenna's recommendation to help him adjust to life outside North Korea. However, while watching a televised news conference on the brink of a pivotal summit in Singapore, Woo-jin is stunned to identify one of the President's aides, Eric Rahn. Rahn was once his peer at the Mangyongdae Revolutionary School in North Korea. Alarmed, Jenna urgently seeks a personal meeting with the CIA director, warning that the White House may be compromised. As North Korean assassins close in, she must quickly flee Russia. Meanwhile, in Singapore, as the historic meeting with the North Korean leader is about to commence, Eric Rahn influences the President, urging him to make a clandestine pledge that could lead to dire consequences.