Prayers for the assassin

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to acknowledge my debt to Simone de Beauvoir, author, philosopher, and atheist, in the inception of this book. When asked by a journalist how it felt to have created a body of work that negated the existence of God, de Beauvoir responded, “One can abolish water, but one can not abolish thirst.” I wrestled with this insight of hers for many years, and hope this book is worthy of the struggle.

The following websites in particular provided background information used in the writing of this novel:

www.askimam.com

www.islam.com

www.techcentralstation.com

www.virturallyislamic.blogspot.com

www.memri.org

www.islamworld.net

In addition, Tactics of the Crescent Moon: Militant Muslim Combat Methods (Posterity Press) by H. John Poole, Michael Scott Doran’s article “The Saudi Paradox” in the January/February 2004 issue of Foreign Affairs, and Abdul Hadi Palazzi’s article “The Islamists Have It Wrong” from the Middle East Quarterly, Summer 2001, provided me with useful points of view.

My thanks to Colin Harrison, my editor and a man of many questions, for making the book richer and for not letting me blow the ending.

I am grateful to my agent Mary Evans for her strength and character.