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Zamrah and Before by Paulette B. Maggiolo

Zamreh Musenu, a young Muslim woman fluent in Arabic, is recruited by U.S. intelligence agent Nick Tarzini while working at Sundance Military School.

About the book

Zamreh Musenu, a beautiful young Muslim woman, the daughter of a wealthy and unscrupulous Bulgarian, has been recruited by U.S. Special Intelligence agent, Nick Tarzini, to use her linguistic skills for both translation of Arabic documents as well as intelligence work. She is currently working as a TAC (Teach/Assess/Counsel) officer at Sundance Military School where Nick's son-in-law is president/headmaster. Zamrah's romance with the headmaster's son provides an underlying stability as mystery and danger begin to surround Zamrah. One of her father's long-time employees, a handsome gypsy named Alex Esnecu, shows up mysteriously in the town where she lives -- Zamrah doesn't know if he is spying on her or has other more sinister motives, but his behavior puts the Special Intelligence agents on alert, and Zamrah begins to suspect that her father has used her as his own pawn by sending her to high class boarding schools throughout the world so he could justify a money-laundering operation.

The unexplained death (suicide or murder?) of a pregnant female cadet, Courtney Bishmen, sends Zamrah into a deep depression, and the unwanted attention of an older Muslim cadet leader with extremist ideas, Mohammad Kamel, has disturbed her greatly with his whispers of hatred for American infidels. What is he doing at Sundance Military School? His disappearance immediately after the Cadet Bishman's death is suspicious, but when the gypsy, Alex Esnecu, reappears and gives the Special Intelligence agents a strange warning -- "9-9-9-10-01" -- they begin to realize that a terrorist plot to infiltrate and blow up military schools throughout the United States is about to be executed. Will their discovery be in time to save lives?

About the author

Paulette B. Maggiolo came to the U.S.A. as a French war bride married to an American officer right after World War II. She holds degrees from the University of Caen in France; The Sorbonne, Paris; and from Columbia University in New York (from which she has a Phi Beta Kappa key). Dr. Maggiolo received her Doctorate in Modern Languages from the University of Middlebury, Vermont. Her thesis, "The Myth of the Earth in Colette's Novels," was published by the university.

Currently a Virginia resident, she has taught thirty years in American public schools as well as several more years in private schools, including a military academy. She often travels outside of the United States. Recently retired from the high school classroom, she continues to teach French privately, do translation work in French and Spanish, and write novels that incorporate many of her own life experiences in the classroom, in a military academy, and in international intrigue.

Archived from the Harris Literary Agency website. The agency's listing is reproduced as published, with contact details removed.

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