Behind the Codeine Curtain by Eli Dahle

A fast-paced international crime memoir with a central plotline that reads like a sequel to Breaking Bad (Walter White goes international). With subtle humor and brutal honesty, I take readers along with me as I transform from innocent abroad into international fugitive, forced to flee Russia in the dead of night pursued by a ruthless billionaire bent on revenge.

I start out as a naïve exchange student leaving his rural Midwestern town for the first time for the wilds of the Balkans. Through a combination of fate, ambition and circumstance, I transform over time into a highly successful international lawyer and, then, an international fugitive, wanted in various countries. My attempts at escape become increasingly desperate as I flee from Moscow to Berlin, to Los Angeles to Tel Aviv. Along the way, I fall for a beautiful but fatally flawed prostitute and almost die of an overdose following a harrowing drive along the Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu.