Local Vashon Author reads from his latest thriller

New Book by International School Librarian Unflinchingly Opens Saudi Doors to YA Readers In New Action Thriller
Imposter  If you are an American teenager going to school in Saudi Arabia, and you disrespect the customs of your host country, the royal family, and a religion thousands of years old, your Teflon coating, the one you thought you had–compliments of your United States government–wears off quickly.

Although students who attend international schools are seldom the subjects of YA fiction, their lives are often filled with political intrigue, exposure to espionage, governmental overthrow, and war. With so many headlines dealing with terrorism and Saudi Arabia’s support of terrorists, Imposter is ready to be launched at a time that will help fill an information void that exists about a part of the world incomprehensible to millions of teen readers. Jonas’s twenty years working overseas with expat kids, three in Saudi Arabia, enriches the stories authentic voice in bringing foreign concepts to a level teenagers can easily grasp.

Summary In a more tolerant world, Zane Walker’s charade would have been ignored. In Saudi Arabia, a sixteen-year-old boy masquerading as an online cleric cannot be ignored. In a media studies class he is taking at an international school he is to create media personae, an online presence using social media. One student creates a new product. One creates a service. Another creates a non-profit to raise money and awareness. Zane Walker creates an international incident.

His interpretation of the assignment, because of its incendiary possibilities, was never to go live, like those of his classmates. Somehow, inexplicably, it does. He now has thousands of followers, thinking his fatwas–religious edicts–are coming from a scholarly Muslim cleric. To many, he is leading a long overdue Islamic reformation.
When the religious police show up at his western compound with a decree to detain him, the only reformation they are interested in is his head on a plate. The truth of his efforts, that he was set up by a terrorist cell to foment discord between the United States and Saudi Arabia, may not be enough to quell the wrath of the religious establishment, the Royal family, and the worldwide condemnation for his disrespect.

Bob Jonas has been 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, and then three years in the in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. After his last post in Erlangen, Germany, Bob retired from being a school librarian but not from writing. As a storyteller, writer, and school librarian for over two decades, Jonas has motivated, inspired, stimulated, stirred, cajoled, provoked, and done what was necessary to get kids to read. He will continue to write, visit schools, and present at conferences.