TWISTED REASONS , the first in a trilogy of international thrillers based on arms and human trafficking from a modern 'rogue' Russian state, is the tale of two college friends who get drawn into the heist of nuclear material from a former Soviet site. TWISTED REASONS examines the nature of evil, and, in its broader historical and geographical sweep, explores Stalin's decadent régime through flashbacks that incorporate aspects from my own family's experiences. It is plot driven, was written with a movie in mind, and reflects elements of Stieg Larsson's Millennium Trilogy and Tom Rob Smith's Child 44, as well as Graham Greene's The Third Man. Arriving in Vienna to find his friend Adam Kallay, an official at the International Atomic Energy Agency, presumed dead, crime novelist Greg Martens teams up with Interpol Agent Anne Rossiter and Julia, Kallay's Russian girlfriend, to solve the case and track the disappearance from a former Soviet nuclear site of enough uranium to make a bomb. The story moves from espionage entrep t Vienna to radioactivity contaminated Chelyabinsk and to front-line Georgia, as the three combat arms merchants allied to Russian secret police to prevent the stolen uranium from getting into the wrong hands. Along the way, Greg learns brutal truths about himself and his family.
