twenty three year old iraqi who has lost his family to isis and seeks payback his mission takes him to greece where he meets up with a small group of like minded individuals and eventually to turkey in an effort to take down an autocratic head of state mr dunne it's nice that you're here and i wondered if you tell us a little bit about what you chose the style of the novel for this and the particular subject well let me start with the subject first ok it's just about two years to the day that i started writing this and that followed a summer in which many refugees from syria and north africa were paddling across the mediterranean to land in italy and greece and there were so many of them i mean hundreds of thousands and they just kept coming no one could stop them and the politicians and media people started making noises about oh we can't let these refugees just keep coming they're going to be there are going to be some terrorists among them they're going to attack us you know and we have this islamic phobia reaction the and we see that today in the current administration  with this travel ban but it was it was almost as bad then and i i really couldn't stand the idea that they would deny i saw occurred to such people you know based on these fears that were overblown and even though we have seen terrorist incidents you know none of the refugees that i know of in the america have have gotten that the trouble so i said listen  you know cool it let's let's have let's take a look at these people and see who they really are and why they're really coming and and then i said to myself i think i need to fictionalize because in no i write fiction or write nonfiction but i haven't written a major work in a long time and i said this feels like a major work of and it sounds like it could be a good thriller if i take an example of of one of these people give his backstory and then tell you know what he's up to a man who's actually going to be a terrorist you know and and then i said you will get to hundred eighty pages and it's done it's been revised many times and i'm looking for a publisher now and that's very interesting so you've told us a little bit about the motivation for doing this you do go into many details of the political economic and social issues involved how do they enhance your story well i wanted this to be rooted in reality a wanted to be able to  make make the world that mahmoud comes from and then comes to inhabit you know something that is as true to life as possible and i did a lot of research i did almost as much research as i might have done if it were nonfiction and so this ended up going to some pretty dodgy websites because i wanted to find what the revolutionaries were saying and i i did a lot of  surfing geographically to to see what places look like and how they were laid out of where my people would go and the characters beside mahmoud you know are all done american  and the action starts in greece and it shifts to turkey but the people he works with several are turks one is austrian one is greek and then a swiss woman comes into the picture and finally another turkish woman who's at the on of one to the terrorists joins them so in all these places that they went i had to to familiarize myself i've been first two thirds of the book and then they move to bursa of the izmir turkey and i've been to turkey but i haven't been to those cities soit had to research them i was going to ask you about that and how d so i could check not only what she knew about these places but also she was helping me when i inject turkish into the book there are five languages that are spoken you know among these people so ask you about that do you know any of them i salute turkish you know some turkish but i and i know i'm a smattering of german from having lived and lived in europe  those well i went through a process of trying to figure out you know i knew that there was going to be an assassination attempt and it had to be you you know some kind of weapon that they could deploy without being noticed and for a long time i thought they would they would some how many a factor a balloon or a blimp you know that would that would drop something on someone who was attending an event and and now after i researched that and realized you know how much how many resources it would take to create a weapon like that i just put it in as sort of the you know a way something they consider and throw away the and then i looked for weapons that were obtainable by people you know who weren't supposed to be there and settled on a blowgun such as used by native peoples to kill game with poison darts the blowgun turns out to be made by hand by mahmud himself and the poison for the poison dart is cooked up by the woman in katrina who becomes his girlfriend and she cooks up  is made from a plant that make row here but i've never seen it it's a very common roadside plant and and it's actually not that hard to make i had to find out how you make ricin and i ended up stumbling upon a black ops pamphlet from the fifty's that had recipes for all sorts of nasty stuff and i was i was so happy to find it because then i could actually make it about what happens to the your characters sure i would i would like to just give us a slight synopsis because of i won't read the beginning of the book which is actually probably the most poetic but already from an early section in this mood has come to to agrees with refugees he's been in one of these rubber bullets with you know fifty odd are people in it and he makes he meant landfall and walks to a harbor finds a fisherman and with money he's found and with a person is taken from a dead man he found on the on  a dead refugee who drowned he bribes to the fisherman who owns this boat to take him to parade is once he's there he meets his contact he calls his his the men he's supposed to working with named george which is actually not his real name everyone uses code names mahmoud's code name is peter and so he's says is this george it's peter i'm here and you know gruffly tells him where to go once he figures out where he's calling from and mood meets the guy who's going to mind him and bored him in his apartment an austrian named andreas apartment at the other end of the parade is and a and michael is the other terrorist who's going to be working with mahmud he lives with george so they george tells him what they're going to be doing and the plot that george has is very ingenious and and dastardly he has obtained sarin gas in at that city in turkey was some people he works with and in his marxist party and they will build a release mechanism they will put these in boxes with a timer and set them up on the under the stage at a reading in turkey were the twenty meeting is is going to take place and the g twenty meeting was to be take place and did take place it on top of your turkey a few months hence when i was writing this so that was that was the target at the time  it didn't ended up being the target because george gets picked up by the police and they can't do it without him so but before this happens  is very upset because michael the the the man who's who's been living with them younger men under his command takes off one night and in the morning george wakes up and michael's not there any any freaks out because you know he shouldn't be anywhere could he if he went somewhere on his own could the police have him he can't text him in case the police have his phone so he calls on trias and andreas comes gets him and takes him to his place and and so andreas and george and mahmoud are in andreas's  apartment and they spend the night and mahmoud is sharing andrius his bed for the first time because george has the couch mahmoud again awoke at an early hour from a restless sleep this morning less alarmed an occasional snort from the other side of the bed was the only distracting noise he was accustomed to that from bunking with comrades and assorted refugees in various quarters under far worse conditions but not with his that was not his current concern what makes me think he's gay he wondered watching andrea's peacefully slumber quietly he slipped out of bed in the next room george lay on his back on the couch snoring in the kitchen he looked for something to drink he settled on a carton of orange juice from the fridge poured some into a glass and sat down at the table staring at the greenery in front of the window it had been a major relief when michael texted george late in the afternoon to say he was all right h checked in they would have brought morning newspaper says see if an incident possibly involving him and been reported next they would check hospitals and then the city morgue fortunately none of that was necessary michael's message mother i am ok you soon show that it was from him but what friend that even had a friend upset them by slipping out late at night without saying anything michael had taken on this a surreal risks that could have jeopardized their mission mahmoud recalled how he had almost been detained when he first arrived that surely would have been the end of him george had been more than upset he was livid he texted michael emphatically instructing him to return home straight away and stay there until he returned even after the ok came george didn't calm down for an hour they suspected michael's friend might be a woman who'd offered him her body but who a sex worker nobody besides them was supposed to know  presence in the city it didn't dangerous breach of discipline and george told him he was prepared to dump michael if he decided he wasn't fit for the mission that possibility troubled mahmood he took comfort of having a turkish partner because he had seen so little of that country spoke its language poorly and worry george might make him run the operation alone that was what had compromised his evening rest now that they knew michael was sa none of them particularly wanted to deal with him george had to create he should spend the night alone in their flat repenting and worrying what would become of him there the matter rested but soon george became restless he said he was hungry and decided they would go out for air and find something to eat was still nursing his orange shoes when george wandered into the kitchen and t shirt in shorts and cranky muttering denied it by way of a morning greeting after gazing up the window for a while he said he wanted the two of them to return to the want us flag at to confront michael who should have spent the night there mahmoud had been looking forward to having some coffee and breakfast but george clearly wanted to get moving they heard lee dressed well and george message michael where are you mother coming home while awaiting a reply he found a piece of paper and wrote a note for their sleeping host went back to vesta will return to you asap george tossed mehmood his bag and michael's things and told them to follow out in the alley came a terse reply from michael will be there taking that to mean that michael wasn't already there raised george's hackles all over again this is too much if he stayed away another night he'd better have a damn good reason so they finally get there and they come up and michael sitting on the couch instantly he was on his feet crying i am sorry i am very sorry i know i should have asked you if i could leave but i was sure you would refuse nothing happened the nobody observed me george scowled nobody you stayed with someone for two nights who was my mood shivered he too had stayed with someone the night before but he let that slide i will tell you the truth michael said propelling his body to his full height and it better be the whole truth snap george  parades i meet a greek girl a college student living with her parents her we'd like each other and she gives me her number thinking about her drill be crazy so i called her the other day she said her parents went to the country and asked me to come over we made love that night and the next day i wanted to go put she begged me to stay and i could not resist her beauty but i told her nothing sex is one thing but you must have said something about yourself what did you tell her i gave her my cover story that i've won here to research my thesis study greek history she has a little turkish in english but we don't talk much we make love what now to rejoice coming closer will you see her again perhaps with your permission rog answer george barking launching a fist into michael stomach michael doubled over and george needham sending him sprawling on to the couch between cast michael cried it wasn't wrong i was foolish no harm was done george grabbed his shirt and pulled him close no michael this is revolution this is your jihad not a college seminar everything must happen as i say if i ever decide you were a threat to this mission you will be floating in the harbor george released his grip michael foale back on the cushions sobbing george turned to mahmoud glowering the same goes for you my friend keep your nose clean and away from crotches it seems to me that you've brought in a lot of the human aspects of people as well as the details of  the adventure that they're going through where they're what they're trying to accomplish who do you think might be your best audience for this kind of a story that's really hard to know i mean always assume that  people you know on the left politically speaking would be most interested but i really want people who are go on the left to read it just because this world is so foreign to them  and you know and because there's a message you're you know the blowback happens it happens for a reason you know and if if you look at the people who are doing it they have human qualities and they are not necessarily doing things for the wrong reasons they may be doing wrong things but what their motivation should be understandable if you if you  we're they're coming from and you know what they're doing i have to say that they're in greece and greece then and now is in turmoil thanks to austerity and and governments to don't seem to be able to put it right and so there are all these radicals who have come to greece and radicals who have been manufactured by the situation you know to you know to try to make you know provide a better future and so andrius is there for that reason and this woman katrina who we haven't met is there for that reason and she came there not intending to stay she was on our way back from africa quit she quit her job within n g o s after she was harassed and and was on able to do her job she got laid over in greece for flight was cancelled when she's spawn's out what was happening there she ended up staying you know and joined quote the revolution but on the anarchist side the other people are socialists and now we have an anarchist in the mix how will they get along that was another thing i wanted to explore  you did say when you say we started today that you hope that maybe people might even be a week from mohamed towards the end is there any section in your book that would you would like a paragraph or two that might give a little description of why that might occur  are they bring poison thirst to turkey when they when they go there are they returning refugee crap and he's got to this shooter he's made out a pipe in it and he's disguise it as a cane and he's wearing dark glasses and everyone thinks he's blind but when the time comes he's going to yank the the tip of the handle of the cane off the darn is already in there and he's just going to raise a blow but there's a second dark katrina has been told to carry because she's minding him in this venue and george has insisted that if he's captured she has to find you know get to him and poison him speak us he will talk and everything will a gravel even further she doesn't want to do this because they are now lovers but she does  and but fortunately it is not necessary what happens though is that after they have a scape dinner hold up he does get poisoned accidentally reaching into her him back and and although they tried valiantly to save him there's not much they can do and this you know he there really is sick in bed and she is trying to comfort him and he dies and then shane's left to clean up fortunately there's a there's a turkish woman to their with you know who knows how to how to take care of that but she what to do but she feels like she has to carry on for him well it sounds like there are lots of issues in the years incorporated in your book and we really appreciate your having come in today  and so thank you for sharing your new novel with us and thank you all for listening today b