Love Thy Neighbor by Mark Gilleo

Title: Love Thy Neighbor
Author: Mark Gilleo
ISBN: 9781611880342
Publisher: The Story Plant/2012
Pages: 438

 Love Thy Neighbor deals with terrorism, which is a hard reality in the current times. No country is immune from it. It exists all over the world in one form of the other. And the neighbors we think are harmless might turn out out to be terrorists, in guise.

I live in India, our neighboring country is Pakistan. We have had too many terrorist attacks. And those are not going to stop anytime soon. The novel appealed to me as I could connect with it. Terrorist activities might go on right under our nose and we choose to ignore those. We turn a blind eye thinking it is not going to affect us.

Clay Hayden comes home to his mother Maria, who is suffering from Dementia. It is Maria who notices strange men in her neighborhood and calls CIA. No one listens to her initially. FBI follows and also a person from IRS who is looking out for tax discrepancies regarding Maria and her deceased husband. Clay finds himself in the midst of it all.

Not going into much detail, I would say, it scares us. It makes us ponder, if we can prevent terror activities by being vigilant. It does not seem that way here. Based on a true story, this work of fiction makes us question ourselves and our Govt. agencies. (For me it is the Indian Govt.)