This unique book provides a rare inside look into the hidden world of ordinary North Koreans. Mike Kim, one of the few Americans granted entry into the secretive "Hermit Kingdom," came to know the isolated country and its people intimately. His North Korean friends entrusted their secrets to him as for the first time they recounted their experiences enduring famine, sex-trafficking, and torture in the gulags. Kim also led refugees to asylum through Asia's six-thousand-mile underground railway, and he tells the inspirational stories of those who overcame tremendous adversity to escape the repressive regime of their homeland and make new lives. Kim now shares their stories in an unflinching narrative that exposes the truth about North Korea, stripping away the last veils that still shroud this brutal dictatorship.