Avi Perry grew up in Israel. As a teenager and throughout his college years, he was a professional musician. He financed his student life with numerous gigs, playing with his Israeli band, writing songs, playing the various keyboard instruments, and enjoying listening to his performances on the Israeli radio (there was no MTV in late 60s Israel). He still plays and writes music, but as a hobby (at home), rather than as a line of work. During the Six-Day-War in 1967, he served in the Israeli military, in the field intelligence unit, and gained valuable and relevant experience in covert communications technology and a variety of spy craft and methods.

He has spent the past four decades in the US, first as a Ph.D. student, then as a professor at Northwestern University, a Bell Laboratories – distinguished staff member, and finally as Vice President at NMS Communications. He signed for early retirement in 2004 with the intention of writing a technical book. The title Fundamentals of Voice Quality Engineering was published by Cambridge University Press in 2007 and became very popular. Readers praised the book for its thoroughness and for my refreshing, unique and entertaining writing style, atypical among technical writers. Throughout Avi’s tenure at NMS, he wrote many short (humor-packed, peppered with company culture) satires, technical reports, white papers (published on company website), press releases, and more.

Avi’s latest book 72 Virgins is built on life experiences that combine technology know-how, familiarity with spy craft and human intelligence (HUMINT), understanding of Middle Eastern cultures and history, a great sense of humor, and a talent for writing—all breathe authenticity into the setting.

The story offers an ample dose of realism, a cast of intense characters who engage in love, lust, and violence. It portrays the Jihad culture with its rationale and the volcano that breeds an irrational obsession with death. Moreover, it builds on the Jihadists’ motivation for targeting so many innocents and exploiting the victims’ massacre as a stepping-stone to their dream of eternal paradise next to Allah’s throne.

The real question is not whether Jihad terrorists’ plots will ever cease to emerge – there is no chance of that. The question the book seeks to answer is—will the next one be stopped before it’s too late?

72 Virgins is built on life experiences that combine technology know-how, familiarity with spy craft and human intelligence (HUMINT), understanding of Middle Eastern cultures and history, a great sense of humor, and a talent for writing—all breathe authenticity into the setting.

Although 72 Virgins is a suspense-thriller, focusing on a countdown to a terror attack on US soil, it is, nevertheless, highly instructive. The story and its associated subplots are fiction, but the setting is real, the places where conspiracy is instigated are fictional, even though they’re based on genuine events; the characters are deep and distinctive, while at the same time, they embody their unmistakable cultural heritage. Ronald L. Donaghe, winner of the 2008 Jim Duggins out-standing Mid-Career Novelist Award., characterized it best—”Perry was able to combine reality with fiction in a way that has made the book—one to remember. Perry’s style and approach, makes for a great, entertaining read, in addition to being suspenseful and intriguing, from start to finish”.

72 VIRGINS BLOG TOUR ‘09 will officially begin on October 5 and ends on November 27. You can visit Avi’s blog stops at http://www.virtualbooktours.wordpress.com/ in October and November to find out more about this great book and talented author!