A.C. Frieden’s Latest Thriller Combines Spies, Hackers and Assassins in North Korea and Ukraine

CHICAGO, IL (Mar. 31, 2019) – A.C. Frieden’s espionage/political thriller, The Pyongyang Option, is now released by Down & Out Books and Avendia Publishing. As the third installment in the acclaimed series featuring New Orleans maritime attorney Jonathan Brooks, this action-packed thriller takes readers on an intense journey through North Korea and Ukraine. Frieden is one of the few American authors to visit North Korea, including Pyongyang, Kaesong and the communist fortifications along the DMZ. He also spent time investigating Chernobyl’s exclusion zone and the abandoned city of Pripyat.

In The Pyongyang Option, attorney Jonathan Brooks is desperate to rebuild his law firm after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina. Short on clients, he takes the only work he can find: a business deal in Ukraine. But soon after he lands in Kyiv, his client's executive vanishes. Suspecting foul play, Jonathan enlists the help of a U.S. diplomat. But the next day they are brutally ambushed by unknown assailants. Injured and racing against the clock, Jonathan embarks on a frantic search for clues through the back alleys of Kyiv to an abandoned town near Chernobyl. Meanwhile, Jonathan's ex-wife Linda, a journalist, arrives in North Korea to report on historic nuclear disarmament talks. She begins probing local officials, not realizing that she and Jonathan are both on a collision course with a deadly web of hackers, spies and assassins. To uncover the truth and save them both, Jonathan may have only one option: to go to Pyongyang with as much leverage as possible and try to make it out alive.

Libby Fischer Hellmann, author of the Jump Cut and War, Spies & Bobby Sox espionage thrillers, says, “A.C. Frieden writes settings better than any thriller writer I know…The Pyongyang Option is not just a compelling espionage thriller, but one that neatly foreshadows the shifting, murky alliances intelligence officers are grappling with today,” and Frank Zafiro, author of CHARLIE-316, calls it “an international thrill ride with equal parts intrigue, politics, and blistering conflict.” Lisa Towles, award-winning author of Choke and other books, says, “Frieden serves up another delicious tangle of multi-layered suspense, international intrigue, regional flair, and heart-pounding action.”

The first book in Frieden’s series, Tranquility Denied, features Brooks in a courtroom battle that quickly escalates into a globetrotting hunt for the truth across remote Baltic Sea islands and deep into Moscow’s corridors of power. Frieden’s second book, The Serpent’s Game, begins two days before Hurricane Katrina barrels into New Orleans, and Jonathan Brooks is thrown into a death-defying search for the truth that quickly shifts to Central America. Frieden’s international thrillers are thoroughly researched. Frieden’s travels to nearly eighty countries helps to bring a heightened sense of reality to the settings and characters in each novel. After The Pyongyang Option, the series continues with Letter from Istanbul (Dec. 2019) and Midnight in Delhi (Apr. 2020).

Frieden plans a series of launch events, starting at suburban Chicago’s Centuries & Sleuths Bookstore on April 14 with fellow Down & Out Books crime authors T.G. Wolff, M. Todd Henderson and Trey R. Barker. Other book signings and events in the Midwest region, as well as in New Orleans and Washington, D.C., will be announced soon.

The Pyongyang Option is available now in paperback (mass market ISBN: 9780974793429; trade ISBN: 978-0974793481) from Amazon.com and other retailers and eBook on Kindle (US and UK), Nook, Kobo, and iTunes, and thereafter both online and at independent booksellers nationwide. Prior titles in the Jonathan Brooks series are also available in paperback and eBook.

A.C. Frieden is available for interviews, appearances, panel discussions and book signings. For inquiries, please contact media@avendiapublishing.com or eric@downandoutbooks.com, or you can reach the author directly at acfrieden@avendiapublishing.com.

Avendia Publishing in an avant-garde independent publisher based in Chicago.

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This release was published on openPR.