Wrong Place, Wrong Time

Maxine Hart is a fiction novelist based in Chicago. She often travels to various countries to verify background location information for her various books. This time, her travels take her to Istanbul, Turkey - bringing along her Chicago Homicide Detective friend, Jack Turner.

But unfortunately – despite being noted as a very popular tourist location – when Maxine gets there, she finds the country is at war with ISIL in Syria which just so happens to border turkey. Between ISIL, the PKK (Kurdish terrorist group for northern Iraq), the Turkish Mafia, and FETO (Fetullah Terrorist Organization) there is little chance that Maxine won’t somehow get targeted.

While shopping at the Grand Bazaar tourist attraction in Istanbul, a Mafia thug slips a black pouch of diamonds into her purse in an effort to avoid being caught by the Turkish police who arrived just as the Mafia was about to trade the diamonds for drugs from a notorious Iranian Drug Lord. Clueless to the event, CCTV cameras catch the action on tape and the next day Maxine is arrested, and her hotel room and purse searched. The police find the diamonds and assume she is guilty of theft.

Maxine spends a few uncomfortable weeks in a Turkish prison while the American Embassy and her CIA friend Riley Perkins– called in to help by Jack - try to clear her name. Riley naturally finds himself surrounded by all the various terrorist attacks and an over suspicious Turkish government as he tries to clear Maxine’s name.