~Why I wrote ‘Does It Hurt to Die’ I love to read good fiction and like Mark Twain I believe all good fiction should have reality as a very close cousin. When I was shot and grenaded in a terrorist attack the inspiration was provided to write with a reality base that was incomparable. The challenge that emerged from that horrifying night was not just to thinly disguise the event but to translate that experience into rich fiction. All neophyte writers I'm sure share that ambition. However as the drafts flowed, reader feedback indicated that this was indeed an action thriller which gripped and held the reader’s attention and surrounded them with a conspiracy theory of believable proportions. To have The Australian compare my writing to Dan Browns and Stieg Larsson, was hugely gratifying. Professor John Coetzee the Nobel Prize winner in literature has described it as evocative and enjoyable, but the most enjoyable part has been writing it. I trust that if you read it you will enjoy it as much The background to writing this novel came after spending almost 10 years in South Africa during the era of the apartheid government. While the majority of that time was studying medicine at the University of Cape Town/Groote Schuur hospital, two of those years were also spent researching in the area of politics as part of a Ph.D. The impact of that experience was significant. Being part of a society which segregated people according to their race, and legally accorded them a position in society according to their colour was an experience created for controversy and writing