In a Washington Post article, Combat Generation: Drone operators climb on winds of change in the Air Force , author Greg Jaffe discusses the issues facing a US Air Force which is increasingly dependent on predator drones. Like MacGregor, many pilots find their careers affected by the tendency to view their work as not as dangerous as a pilots who are actually in their planes during fighting.

In Virgin Soldier MacGregor jumps at the chance to go to Tirana to train Albanian pilots on how to fly their old, first generation drones. In the process he ends up seeing more action than he expected.

Understanding the European viewpoint is critical to writing a believable International Thriller – especially if the story takes place in Europe or includes European characters. If you aren’t familiar with FT check it out. Sometimes the stories are almost as good as reading an International Thriller!

This video illustrates what the government faces when trying to stop local drug lords:

Here is a video of a moth whose flight is controlled by a Cornell University researcher:

Tomorrow’s detectives must understand the Internet if they are going to find who did the crime. In The Charles River Killers, John Sanger understands the Internet, but he never dreamed the criminals would understand his internet technology better than he did.

My parents raised my brother and I on the attitudes and culture of those who endure a life of poverty. They rose to upper middle class status. Both of us kids went on to pursue professional degrees and continued the family climb into yet another socioeconomic strata: the upper class, yet the ideals and attitudes of two generations ago continue to shape our outlook. Now both of my daughters are on their way to pursue degrees. The cycle continues but the distance travelled by their grandparents influences their choices as well.

In the Charles River Killers, John Sanger has built a technology empire, but he too has come from humble beginnings. That journey from extreme poverty to millionaire status enables him to connect to many of the victims’ relatives but leaves him struggling to fit in the culture of his wealthy peers. That struggle to integrate into this new culture becomes key in the climax of the novel.

In Virgin Soldier, Yanitza is an Albanian teenage girl familiar with the urban lifestyle of Tirana. After she is kidnapped by rebels she is forced to fight as a child soldier and the book investigates much of her indoctrination into the rebel group. The rebels lived in caves and their leader wanted to return to a primitive lifestyle. In many ways she faced a culture shock similar to what I faced in going to a foreign country as a sixteen year old Ohio girl, although she faced much graver traumas than I encountered.

Once you have lived abroad for an extended time you can never return to the person you once were. The sixteen year old girl who left for Germany in August never returned from Europe. I came home changed forever by the people I met and lived with during my year abroad. Once I stood at gun point for several hours on the Czech border while Soviet guards threatened to arrest the sole American girl on board the West German bus. I watched the sun rise wondering if I would live to return to the States. Yanitza too finds at the end of the novel that she can never return to the carefree girl she was before the rebels captured her. Amid the horrors of her captivity she connected to people most of us would regard as evil, yet she sees and understands their humanity.

Seeing both the good and bad in people eliminates a belief in stereotypes. A recognition of everyone’s capacity for both is perhaps a key lesson of living within a different culture.

Then her memory worsened. She developed dementia. Her mental decline stemmed from small TIA strokes, not the diabetes, but dementia is the kiss of death to a diabetes patient. Nursing homes don’t believe in limiting the diet of an Alzheimer’s patient. She gained more than 40 pounds in the Alzheimer’s facility as they feed her cookies, cake and candy during the day. Her diabetes grew worse. The doctors can no longer stabilize her sugar levels. Nurses don’t want patients to feel left out by offering two different types of dessert – one with sugar and one without. Besides, one nurse told me, dying of diabetes is preferable to dying from Alzheimer’s.

At the World Health Organization today is World Diabetes Day. Read about how you can prevent diabetes. This is a common disease and one that John Sanger in the Charles River Killers confronts on a daily basis.

The guest of honor was Sue Grafton and she gave a wonderful, info packed talk for the writers in the audience full of great writing tips. I also had the pleasure of meeting Barbara Vey, Senior Contributing Editor of Publisher’s Weekly who writes the Beyond Her Book blog. Barbara really understands readers, writers and blogging. If you haven’t checked her blog, I highly recommend you do so. Readers report on their impressions of books they like so this is not a blog of book reviews, but one that will help you decide what is the next book on your reading list. This week she has some great info on Crime Bake.

Fog obscuring Swiss Alps

Not once did I catch a glimpse of those beautiful mountains except on the postcard racks placed at every tourist venue. Still, I fell in love with Bern. The question is not whether I will return, only when will I return.

I spent my first day in Bern learning to buy trolley tickets from the sidewalk automat and discovering my way around the city. Although Bern is the capital of Switzerland, it is much different than Berlin, which I visited in July. Bern only has 140,000 inhabitants and I spent most of my time exploring the old town with its sixteenth century buildings. Day one I took the usual tourist photos, fascinated by modern sculptures and artwork integrated with the medieval architecture.

Bern: the new and the old in harmony

I walked by the Anna Seiler Fountain every day on the way to the old town.