Researching terrorism

I’ve been asked where I get my inspiration. I’m an inveterate reader. Given world events, just about any English language news outlet can get me started. But I’ve been fortunate enough to find some interesting sources I thought I’d share with my fellow writers.

START http://www.start.umd.edu/ is the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism, hosted by the University of Maryland for the Department of Homeland Security. This site contains the Global Terrorism Database, which I found useful when I sat down to invent my own terrorist organization for the book.

Another favorite is the CIA public website https://www.cia.gov/. The Library section provides all sorts of useful reports and information on countries, regions, politics and other ideas useful to budding authors of suspense. It’s a fast way to begin research on an unfamiliar area of the globe and often triggers lines of research I’d otherwise miss.

Of all the news outlets, the BBC http://www.bbc.co.uk/ remains a tried and true source. Some of their multi-page, in-depth reports on people, places and events are a researcher’s dream.