Raymond Boyer Johnston

Zaghruda Raymond Boyer Johnston

ZAGHRUDA is an Arabic word for a shrill, vocal outburst. One hears this distinct and unrestrained sound when women of the Arabic world are expressing great happiness.----------Neither terrorist bombs in Tanzania or assassin bullets in Belfast can deter Reuters journalist, Smiley Sebastinelli, as he travels the globe to collect information for a TV documentary. Smiley, together with his best friend and former Harvard classmate, Bill Yates, independently determine to try and improve the world they live in. The documentary depicts recent atrocities perpetrated by man on his fellow man. Bill, a multibillionaire software entrepreneur, plans to host a religious conference at Versailles to advocate a single world religion. Smiley travels to Africa, Northern Ireland, Algeria and Yugoslavia to gather information for the television documentary. In Tanzania, he falls in love with a beautiful Muslim widow, Nursel. She has a precocious nine-year-old daughter named Yasemin. Nursel and Yasemin move into Smiley's London flat and become a family in the very dangerous world in which Smiley moves. Smiley's travels put him in touch with Osama bin Laden and Slobodan Milosevic with predictably hazardous consequences. He also encounters a letter purportedly written by Jesus!Smiley and Bill wonder, in this time of the Internet with near instant worldwide communication, how atrocities can continue to occur. Will either of them be able to achieve their goal and make this a safer and saner world?