Sixteen-year-old Zane Walker was lucky the first time: hero, reformer, media sensation, escape artist-and blasphemer. His survival of numerous near death experiences was chalked up to teenage Teflon. Casting online religious edicts to a worldwide Islamic audience was not a typical high school media project, especially from an American school in Saudi Arabia. When he was found out, he thought his life was over. Miraculously, authorities discovered that he had been used, set up by a terrorist cell to help create global tension on the Internet. The worldwide condemnation, regardless of his innocence, would remain a powerful memory, in every corner of the earth, wherever anyone had a computer and used social media. When he and his family were flown to safety, given a second chance in Germany, he was naïve to hope his fame would die down. Thousands of miles out of harms way, the future looked bright. All he had to do was keep his head down and stay out of trouble. But something had changed in Zane Walker. During his time in Saudi, where he constantly dreamed of returning home to a normal life, his Internet shenanigans-righteous as he wished them to be-were catapulting him toward a radically different life, one he would cautiously come to embrace. As his new life unfolds, Zane is still under the illusion that his shield of invincibility is still working. Why wouldn't it: Idyllic Germany, with its cobblestone streets, half-timbered houses, and red tiled roofs? For Zane Walker, this new adventure in a sleepy little university town rapidly becomes a firestorm of danger and intrigue, not necessarily a bad thing for a guy with newly minted nerves of steel-unless you're trying to keep a low profile.Never did he imagine that his former media persona, the infamous Grand Mufti Achmed Ali, would become a closeted hero to the fascist, right wing, neo-Nazi movement. He is now marked, not for what he had done, but for who he has become.
About the Author: Bob Jonas was a school librarian for twenty-one years-four in Beaverton, Oregon, and seven in China-Shanghai, Beijing, and Hong Kong. In South America he worked for three years in Santiago, Chile, three years in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. He finally retired in 2015 after a fantastic three-year stint in Erlangen, Germany. As a storyteller, writer, and librarian he has motivated, inspired, stimulated, stirred, cajoled, provoked, and done whatever was necessary to instill a love of reading in kids on four continents. Death Brew, his third book for young adults and sequel to Imposter, is set in the heart of Europe, a place where his main character hoped to avoid the firestorm he had created in the Middle East. He soon finds out you need to live where you are-a lesson that sometimes needs constant reminders.