Talk or Kill (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9781983580772)

Christoffer Holmsteen's fascination with the work carried out by police and intelligence services dates back to his teenage years, as he was growing up in Denmark. The 1979 BBC television series Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, based on the novel by legendary John le Carré, left eleven year old Christoffer with an appetite for more. Although the book proved too big of a mouthful at that early age, he was later greatly inspired by le Carré. Around the age of twelve he took a special liking to the social realistic police procedural series by Swedish writers Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö, which paved the way for Nordic Noir. When introduced to Frederick Forsyth's The Day of the Jackal, he knew he had found his favorite author and major inspiration. The 1984 book by George Jonas, Vengeance, (on which Steven Spielberg's film Munich is based) tells the story of the Mossad operation "Wrath of God," designed to assassinate those responsible for the killing of the eleven Israeli Olympic team members in 1972. It both frightened and intrigued the sixteen-year-old. He asked himself why people hated each other with such force, and began to read about the Middle East, and follow world affairs. Following the efforts toward peace in Northern Ireland, rocked by the Omagh bombing in August 1998, Christoffer began work on what was to be his first novel, a story evolving around the Real IRA. However, the Africa bombings that same month, carried out by al Qaeda, caused him to simultaneously study Osama bin Laden. Having made New York City his home, on 9/11 Christoffer Holmsteen witnessed the explosion caused by the second aircraft, and the collapse of the south tower. Realizing it was no accident, he soon came to the conclusion he was seeing with his own eyes the acts of Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda, who possessed not only the motivation but also the capability to carry out such an attack. Learning what he had watched disintegrate, United Airlines Flight 175, made him take a serious look at the true values in life; his (now ex) wife is a flight attendant for that airline, and he felt relieved to know she was with her new boyfriend in Argentina. Appreciating family more than ever, moving back to Denmark to be close to his relatives, the future author put aside all other work and began an extensive research into al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden. Never did he think, the work toward a finished first novel would take him sixteen years, but he has now arrived at the end of that journey.