B.R. Myers has written about the nightmare of having your work undermined by unexpected revelations as soon as it hits bookshelves. This would seem the worst nightmare for an author, with the potential to cripple sales and endanger one’s chances of writing a follow-up.

But perhaps the second worst outcome is having your work’s credibility come under attack just before the follow-up comes out.

Blaine Harden would know; as recently as mid-January Shin Dong-hyuk’s reputation was that of a great survivor, whose experiences in the worst of North Korea’s prison camps had made him regime critic of supreme moral authority,