Let’s Not Forget the Billionaire

One name that is conspicuously absent from the final chapters of Laura Ling and Lisa Ling‘s excellent new book Somewhere Inside: One Sister’s Captivity in North Korea and the Other’s Fight to Bring Her Home, pseudonymously or otherwise, is that of octogenarian Hong Kong billionaire Eric Hotung. And yet, without his behind-the-scenes maneuvering, it is possible that the Bill Clinton happy ending would never have occurred.

Filed under: Euna Lee, Laura Ling, Somewhere Inside

The Kindness of Mr. Yee

The most welcome gift in the thoroughly compelling new book Somewhere Inside: One Sister’s Captivity in North Korea and the Other’s Fight to Bring Her Home (Harper Collins, May 18th) is not the revelation of how a certain Hollywood movie star figured in the college education of one of Laura Ling‘s female guards, that Laura and her producer Mitch Koss first visited Pyongyang in 2002 (!), or that Lisa at a certain point had a preliminary phone conversation with a member of the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC). Rather, it is the character of Mr. Yee, Laura‘s main interrogator.

Filed under: Euna Lee, Laura Ling, Somewhere Inside