About the Author

Michael Pembroke is a writer, historian, naturalist and the author of the acclaimed historical biography Arthur Phillip – Sailor, Mercenary, Governor, Spy (2013). He was educated at the Universities of Sydney and Cambridge, is the son and the father of army officers, and has lived and travelled extensively throughout the world, including in East Asia. His father, an infantry platoon commander during the Korean War, was awarded the Military Cross for his role in a battle described as 'one of the finest battalion attacks in British history'. The research for this book has taken Pembroke to Moscow, Beijing, Pyongyang, Washington DC, Princeton and Cambridge. In 2016, he travelled through North Korea from the Yalu River to the Demilitarised Zone. He has been a judge of the Supreme Court of New South Wales since 2010.