The Great Leader and the Fighter Pilot, the latest non-fiction book by author Blaine Harden, is in large part the story of North Korea’s founding and the devastating war it launched, ending in a decades-long, continuing stalemate.

To provide a human grounding, the grand historical arc is told through the entwined stories of the country’s founder and one of its earliest defectors.

While detailing the rise of Kim Il Sung, Harden tracks the remarkable story of a less known, but no less fascinating figure: Kenneth Rowe, a North Korean fighter pilot who, as No Gum-sok, defected to South Korea