The Red Princess Smiles

A Novel of Power, Betrayal, and the Woman Behind the World's Most Dangerous Regime.

Kuala Lumpur International Airport, 2017. In under twenty seconds, a chemical weapon banned by international law ends the life of a man who was never supposed to matter and sets off a chain of events that will bring the world within hours of nuclear war.

Behind the assassination stands a woman the West barely understands: young, immaculate, and utterly without mercy. The world will come to know her as the Red Princess. Her smile will grace the cover of every newspaper on Earth. Few will ever guess what it costs to produce it.

At her side is Park Min-hee, loyal aide, flawless protocol officer, and the one person capable of seeing past the mask. What Min-hee carries in the lining of her coat could end a dynasty. What she carries in her chest may be far more dangerous.

From the granite corridors of Pyongyang's Propaganda Department to the glittering chaos of a hotel in Seoul, from an underground nuclear test that shakes three countries to a stadium built for the cameras of the whole world, THE RED PRINCESS SMILES follows the eighteen months that took the Korean Peninsula from the brink of annihilation to an Olympic handshake seen by a billion people and asks what it costs the people standing just behind the throne.

A geopolitical thriller built on real history and real fear, for readers of espionage fiction who want their spies human, their villains believable, and their loyalties never, ever simple.