William Elliott azelgrove's Blog

Novelist and historian Hazelgrove (Hemingway's Attic) recounts the fate of American cyclists Lauren Geoghegan and Jay Austin, who were slain by terrorists in Tajikistan in 2018, in this chilling true crime tale. Drawing from the couple's blog and interviews with their friends and family, Hazelgrove portrays Jay as a charismatic idealist who convinced Lauren to give up her job to follow him on a four-year bike trip around the globe, beginning in South Africa and ending in South America. In Africa, they faced charging elephants, flies, and malaria; in Europe, they dealt with suspicious officials and a few gnarly crashes. Still, they pushed forward for two years, winding up in Central Asia's Pamir Mountains (nicknamed the "Roof of the World"). In Tajikistan, a group of young men radicalized by ISIS stalked and ambushed the couple after encountering them on a highway; four were then killed by local police, while the ringleader died in an American prison. Hazelgrove's prose is utilitarian ("Jay and Lauren ride on into Botswana, which proves to be flat, arid, wild, and hot"), letting the facts of the case carry the narrative forward. For the most part, the approach pays off, lending the account an unsettling air. Readers will be aghast. Photos. (Nov.) "Rocket Man is the funniest novel since Russo's Straight Man." Chicago Sun Times"Rocket Man is a hilarious, well written novel about one man's search for the New American Dream." James Frey, author A Million Little Pieces and Bright Shiny Morning

CHICAGO, IL, August 29, 2025 /24-7PressRelease/ -- On November 13, 2025, Bloomsbury Publishing will release Evil on the Roof of the World, the latest book from acclaimed author William Elliott Hazelgrove. This harrowing true account follows the journey of two young American dreamers whose search for adventure ended in tragedy on one of the most remote highways in the world.On a bleak stretch of road in the mountains of Tajikistan, known as "the roof of the world," in July 2018, Lauren Geoghegan and Jay Austin—along with two other cyclists—were brutally murdered by five ISIS terrorists. Both Georgetown University graduates, Lauren and Jay had left behind promising careers in Washington, DC, to pursue a bold vision of the American Dream: biking around the globe in search of connection, beauty, and meaning.Drawing from their Simply Cycling travel blog, social media posts, intimate interviews with friends and family, and worldwide media coverage of the murder, Hazelgrove reconstructs the arc of their story. From hopeful beginnings to the challenges and triumphs on the road, from the haunting foreshadowing of danger to the devastating attack itself, Evil on the Roof of the World presents a deeply human narrative of love, adventure, and vulnerability in the face of extremism."This book is about more than a single act of violence," Hazelgrove says. "It's about what it means to chase a dream into the unknown—and how that dream collided with the darkest forces of our time."Like Jon Krakauer's Into the Wild, Hazelgrove's book explores the intersection of youthful idealism, risk, and fate. Blending travel adventure with true crime, it offers a sensitive yet unflinching look at how Jay and Lauren lived, what they hoped to find, and how the world made sense of their loss.William Elliott Hazelgrove is the award-winning author of more than a dozen books of fiction and nonfiction. Known for his fast-paced narrative style and deeply researched storytelling, Hazelgrove's work often explores the intersection of history, culture, and the human spirit.His nonfiction titles include Madam President: The Secret Presidency of Edith Wilson, Sally Rand: American Sex Symbol, Greed in America: The Real Story of Our Century, and Evil on the Roof of the World (Bloomsbury, 2025). His fiction works include the bestselling novel The Pitcher, along with Tobacco Sticks, Real Santa, and Rocket Man.Hazelgrove's books have been widely reviewed and featured in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, People, Chicago Tribune, and on NPR's All Things Considered. He has appeared on NBC, CBS, PBS, and C-SPAN, and his works have been optioned for film and television.A Chicago native, Hazelgrove was formerly the Writer-in-Residence at the Ernest Hemingway Birthplace, where he worked in Hemingway's attic writing studio. His writing has earned critical acclaim for blending historical depth with the compelling drive of fiction, often compared to the works of Erik Larson and Jon Krakauer. "Rocket Man is the funniest novel since Russo's Straight Man." Chicago Sun Times"Rocket Man is a hilarious, well written novel about one man's search for the New American Dream." James Frey, author A Million Little Pieces and Bright Shiny Morning

My book Evil on the Roof of the World is about Jay Austin and Lauren Geohegan who decided to travel around the world in 2017. They quit their jobs and for a year planned their trip. They checked the State Department travel advistories that said the places they were planning to bike thorugh were safe. They paid close attention to the advisory on Tajikistan which borderes Afghanistan. Still the State Department advisory said it was safe. So they biked through Africa and Europe and had a few problems but nothing life threatening. Lauren felt that New York City was just as dangerous or more so than Tajikistan. When they entered the Pamir Mountains known also as The Roof of the World they were excited. This scenic route through the clouds was a the high point of their trip and again when they checked the State Department site there were no new warnings. On July 29 2018 they were spotted by ISIS terrorists who followed the couple then mowed them down with their car and attacked with butcher knives. When I was researching the book with friends and family I asked many times if Jay and Lauren were concerned about the risks of their trip. Jay blogged about the risks before they left saying without risk there is no adventure. When they stopped and stared across a river at Afghanistan Lauren expressed her fear to a fellow cyclist,Kim Potsma. She was scared but they had been biking a full year and while they had some dangerous encounters they had managed to stay on course and nothing had really threatened their lives. But now they had been killed at the hands of ISIS and social media went wild on how foolish, stupid, and arrogant these two millenials were to belive they could bike anywhere they wanted in the world. Many people took offence and saw the two Georgetown Graduates as emblematic of an entitled generation that felt the rules did not apply to them. Some people who posted were gleefully cruel. The Washington Post examined Lauren and Jays decision to bike through Afghanistan and asked the question if they were niave in their view of the world. Jay had famously said he did not belive in evil as a concept. Many in the blogosphere roasted him for this assertion. The Post concluded they were not niave and knew the risks and had taken all precautions. Their deaths were a large part due to bad luck. Destiny is a lonely word and to say they were destined to meet up with terrorists is a hard thing to get our heads around. I go back to Jays assertion that without risk there is no adventure. The State Department after the attack elevated the risk level on Tajikistan. Still, thousands of people bike the Pamir highway every year. It is a great adventure. Evil on the Roof of the World is due out in November "Rocket Man is the funniest novel since Russo's Straight Man." Chicago Sun Times"Rocket Man is a hilarious, well written novel about one man's search for the New American Dream." James Frey, author A Million Little Pieces and Bright Shiny Morning

I read Jay and Lauren’s story in the NewYork Times in 2018, shortly after it happened. I was intrigued. Not so much bythe horrifying way they died, but the crashing together of different cultures on adeserted mountain highway in Tajikistan. I was also intrigued by what motivatedJay and Lauren to leave well-paying Washington jobs and take the road lesstraveled.After writing a proposal for the publisher and digging into some research, Ifound Jay’s declaration that “he didn’t want to waste his years in front of a smallrectangular screen at the Department of Housing and Urban Development, retireat sixty-five, and then die ten years later.”1This resonated with me; it fit in withAmericans who have thrown a conventional life aside to pursue a life less certain.Jay and Lauren’s desire for adventure or a different American dream fits thepantheon of people looking for something beyond the safe confines of a worldwithout risk. American history is littered with adventurers, from Amelia Earhart’sdaring aerial exploration to Teddy Roosevelt heading West to the Badlands, toJack London’s famous trek into the Yukon, to Mark Twain lighting out for theterritories, to Thomas Stevens, who in 1887 biked around the world on a bigwheel bicycle, all the way back to Thoreau, and up to the present day of ChrisMcCandless’s journey into the wilds of Alaska. "Rocket Man is the funniest novel since Russo's Straight Man." Chicago Sun Times"Rocket Man is a hilarious, well written novel about one man's search for the New American Dream." James Frey, author A Million Little Pieces and Bright Shiny Morning

"Rocket Man is the funniest novel since Russo's Straight Man." Chicago Sun Times"Rocket Man is a hilarious, well written novel about one man's search for the New American Dream." James Frey, author A Million Little Pieces and Bright Shiny Morning

“Lauren and Jay chased wonder on two wheels across continents, only to meet evil face-to-face—Evil on the Roof of the World is a sobering, gut-punch reminder that even the boldestdreams aren't safe from the darkness we pretend doesn't exist.”—Cory Mortensen, bestselling author of The Buddha and the Bee“A compelling investigation of both the liberating triumph and ultimate tragedy of Lauren andJay’s cycle adventure. Evil on the Roof of the World sensitively explores the open-heartedness,courage and complicated motivations of two promising twenty-somethings and poses profoundquestions about the world we live in and the nature of risk and reward.”—Charlie Walker, award-winning British explorer, author of Through Sand & Snow and OnRoads That Echo, and keynote speaker“Propelled by idealism and determination, Jay and Lauren set out to cycle around the world.Believing in the essential goodness of humanity, the couple find kindness and hospitality whileslogging through desert sand in Namibia, fleeing an enraged elephant in Botswana, and enduringfreezing rain in Spain. William Elliott Hazelgrove’s gripping account, reminiscent of JonKrakauer's Into the Wild, chronicles Jay and Lauren’s epic journey toward an encounter withterrorists who decide that slaughtering these youthful seekers will serve ISIS’s cause.”—Doug Kari, author of The Berman Murders "Rocket Man is the funniest novel since Russo's Straight Man." Chicago Sun Times"Rocket Man is a hilarious, well written novel about one man's search for the New American Dream." James Frey, author A Million Little Pieces and Bright Shiny Morning

On a bleak highway in the mountains of Tajikistan known as "the roof of the world", in July of 2018, Lauren Geoghegan and Jay Austin along with two other cyclists, were brutally murdered by five ISIS terrorists.They were both Georgetown University graduates who had quit their well-paying Washington, D.C. jobs to pursue a bike trip around the world, looking for a different kind of American Dream. Pieced together from Jay and Lauren's Simply Cycling travel blog and social media posts, interviews with their friends and family, and media coverage of their murder, author William Elliott Hazelgrove creates a complete, narrative retelling of Jay and Lauren's story. Evil on the Roof of the World combines biking and travel adventure with true crime elements, sensitively presenting the trajectory of Jay and Lauren's hopeful beginnings; the difficulties and meaningful experiences they found on their journey; the foreshadowing leading up to the attack; and the way they, their loved ones, the media, and the perpetrators made sense of this violent encounter. Like Jon Krakauer's Into The Wild, this is a story of a couple who went off the grid to find the great adventure of life."Rocket Man is the funniest novel since Russo's Straight Man." Chicago Sun Times"Rocket Man is a hilarious, well written novel about one man's search for the New American Dream." James Frey, author A Million Little Pieces and Bright Shiny Morning

It’s terrible, isn’t it? Everyone has gotten older. All these white males are so dissatisfied. Angus of AC DC looks like a grandfather. Robert DeNiro can barely walk. People die daily from heart attacks or prostate cancer. Still the white males plod on. The ones that are still walking and they dream still of being rock stars or professional baseball players or influencers or great filmmakers. The dreamers now haunted by that Supertramp line, when you look through the years at what you could have been what you might have if you had more time. And now they are out of time. And they have money. They would be considered successful by the old yardstick of being able to retire. But in their eyes, in their daily musings they are failures. They all have the great dissatisfaction of not being rich and famous. It is an epidemic. Brought up on rock stars and professional athletes and movie stars the young males form the suburbs dream of being president tone day. But that didn’t happen either. And most never took their shot when they could have. They opted for the job and the money and thought they might become famous on the side. A good hobby becoming famous. Something to do in retirement. But then they hit their sixties and now they realize it is the hardest thing in the world to become famous. It is impossible and to make matters worse the clock ticks on. And they cannot appreciate what they have because in our culture hope I die before I get old was a mantra as Roger Daltry crooned forty years ago then got old and is now pushing eighty. Mick is eighty-two. But they are famous. They are rich. So, the old white males have their dinners, have their drinks, and still think maybe…maybe I can pull it off. Maybe I can upload a song, a video, shoot a movie, write a book and I will be famous then and then I will be happy. But it is a mirage. So, they go to therapy. Take their antidepressants. Get stoned. Get drunk on one to two drinks. And instead of enjoying the time left to them they watch clips of old rock concerts on their phone when the youth culture had its heyday and everything was possible and listen to that song one more time… taunting them with who they might have been… what they could have been…if they had more time. "Rocket Man is the funniest novel since Russo's Straight Man." Chicago Sun Times"Rocket Man is a hilarious, well written novel about one man's search for the New American Dream." James Frey, author A Million Little Pieces and Bright Shiny Morning

The Real Carnage behind Orson Welles War of the Worlds BroadcastBy William Elliott Hazelgrove When I researched Dead Air The Night Orson Welles Terrified America, I found it hard to believe that intelligent people could believe Martians had landed on earth and were exterminating people with poison gas and heat rays. But in going through hundreds of newspapers and eyewitness accounts, I found out that through a perfect storm of events, millions of Americans did believe in fact the end of the world was at hand. Here is how it happened. At 8 PM Eastern on Halloween eve, October 30, 1938, Orson Welles broadcast his seventeenth episode of Mercury Theatre on the Air from a CBS studio high up in the Manhattan skyline. The twenty-three-year-old proclaimed genius was putting on a radio play based on an old novel by HG Wells called War of the Worlds. It was a fantastic story about Martians coming to earth and incinerating and gassing humans with heat ray guns and tentacles pumping out poisonous gas. Who would believe such a story from a man who raced around Manhattan in an ambulance to get from one radio show to another on time and had made his mark as the voice of The Shadow. Martians…really? But people did believe, in fact, up to twelve million people listened and believed Martians had landed and were exterminating the human race. The entire country had been on edge from Hitler’s threat to invade the Sudetenland weeks before and touch off World War II. The depression had dragged on. Radio had grown with ninety percent of the population possessing a radio and Congress had just required all cars to have an AM radio with the AM Amplitude Act. The radio show Amos and Andy was so popular utility companies reported people didn’t flush toilets during the show and movies stopped to play the latest episode along with a show featuring a dummy who belched out theatrics named Charlie McCarthy. The Golden Age of radio was in full swing as BREAKING NEWS BULLETINS peppered the American people with news of imminent war, natural catastrophes, and horrific crimes. People were waiting for the other shoe to drop as autumn closed in on Halloween and leaves scraped down sidewalks. Mercury Theatre on the Air’s seventeenth show began on October 30, 1938, at 8 PM Eastern. Orson Welles used a revolutionary breaking news format for his radio show which was really a broadcast in a broadcast. The beginning starts with Ramon Roquello and his orchestra playing in the ballroom of a local New York hotel when suddenly the first breaking news bulletin pulls listeners to Grovers Mill New Jersey where a Martian cylinder has landed. When the cylinder opens the Martians begin incinerating people. Orson’s on the spot reporter, Frank Reddick, is vaporized on the air as Orson holds up his hands for quiet in the studio and begins six seconds of dead air. This is the terrifying heart of the broadcast where the third wall of radio is pierced, and radio itself becomes part of the story. Six seconds of dead air convinces the listeners they have just heard a man burned alive and die. Now the Martians are heading for New York and the rest of the country. By now, people have left their radios, jumped in their cars, subways, taxis, started running, hiding, anything to get away from the awful terror Orson Welles unleashed from his broadcast that used the real names of towns and streets. Police stations and CBS switchboards lit up with frantic callers halfway into the broadcast. CBS executives and the police try to gain entrance to the studio to stop the broadcast, but Orson’s partner, John Houseman, keeps the door locked so Orson can make it to the station break and finish unleashing the terror. The Manhattan switchboards are overwhelmed with calls and police stations are overrun by people with their belongings demanding gas masks and demanding to know where to escape the murdering Martians. Traffic becomes a demolition derby as motorists listen and drive seventy miles an hour through stoplights and don’t stop for the police. Suddenly, everyone was speeding while the 126 affiliates of CBS spread Orson Welles broadcast from coast to coast. A Hollywood executive and his wife driving in the Redwood Forest in California hear the broadcast and try to get back home to their children but run out of gas. They write later that all they could do was wait to be incinerated by the invading Martians. People run out of restaurants without paying their checks. Bartenders leave customers to drink as much as they want. A man just out of surgery jumps out of his hospital bed, dresses, and drives himself home bleeding all over his car. A woman who had a baby is left when all the nurses run into the hallway and start crying. Another woman who had just been married finds herself alone at her reception and has the band strike up the Charleston while she dances for a half hour. A man comes home to find his wife staring at a bottle of cyanide at her kitchen table saying she would rather poison herself than let the Martians get her. A man gets a call from his crying daughter at college and drives the hundred miles to her college in his Studebaker, takes the doors off his car, and packs it with crying girls, tying some down across the hood and the trunk, and then driving full speed back down the highway. A bus full of people in North Carolina stops and a man jumps on and tells the driver Martians are killing everyone, and it is the end of the world. The bus driver, in a fit of panic takes his passengers on the wildest ride of their lives while trying to get away from the Martians. A young actress in Manhattan runs out of her apartment and falls down the stairs and breaks her arm. The next day she is featured all over the nation in front page articles proclaiming her a war casualty. People run into churches and scream that it is the end of the world while panicked congregations run out. In theatres, people shout Martians are killing everyone and the theaters empty out in minutes. A ma who has had an affair confesses to his wife only to find out later the broadcast wasn’t real. People in Concrete Washington run for the mountains after a power failure occurs during the broadcast. People run out of apartment buildings with wet blankets over their heads while hospitals all over the country admit people for shock and heart attacks. Men in Grovers Mill New Jersey, where the Martians land, ride around with shotguns and shoot up a water tower they think is one of the murdering Martians. The military issues an alert stating Martians are not invading and that there is no danger. Operators across the country answer calls saying four words. There are no Martians. Phone lines clog all over the country as people try and call loved ones for last goodbyes. Panic spreads as ten million people from the Charlie McCarthy show begin twisting the dial when Eddie Nelson begins to sing, and they land on War of the Worlds. Many people don’t even hear the broadcast but are told by family members to run for their lives. A man drives through his garage door, then looks at his wife and says, “Well, at least we don’t have to fix it.” The big newspapers tell the tale the next morning. RADIO PLAY TERRIFIES NATION, RADIO FAKE SCARES NATION, FAKE RADIO WAR STIRS TERROR THROUGH US. The terror continues until the morning when the hoax is revealed. Orson and CBS receive death threats and lawsuits are launched while the FCC surveys the damage and considers censoring radio. A press conference is held where Orson Welles pleads innocent, but this does nothing to quell the anger at Welles and CBS. It takes the famous columnist, Dorthy Parker, in an editorial to proclaim Welles a genius for showing how gullible, uneducated, and ignorant Americans are to believe such a ridiculous radio show. The columnist proclaims Orson a hero for showing what Adolf Hitler could do with the radio. Orson comes out smelling like a rose with a contract from RKO to go to Hollywood where he will make the greatest film ever, Citizen Kane. Years later during a bond drive, Orson is attacked in a hotel lobby by a man screaming he would kill him if he ever saw him again. Later, it was found his wife had committed suicide on the night of the broadcast of the War of the Worlds. Many have said Orson Welles never intended to create the mass panic of War of the Worlds. Part magician, thespian, conman, genius, the War of the Worlds broadcast was Orson’s greatest sleight of hand. Of course he meant to do it. "Rocket Man is the funniest novel since Russo's Straight Man." Chicago Sun Times"Rocket Man is a hilarious, well written novel about one man's search for the New American Dream." James Frey, author A Million Little Pieces and Bright Shiny Morning

William Elliott Hazelgrove’s richly anecdotal “Dead Air” is the story of Welles’s landmark October 1938 radio broadcast and the nationwide panic that resulted. Welles’s “you are there” adaptation, crafted to imitate a breaking-news bulletin, sent a tremor of panic into listeners across the country who believed it to be a real report of a flying-saucer invasion. Mr. Hazelgrove has scoured regional newspapers of the time to provide a ground-level view of the hysteria that Welles’s radio drama instilled—on the night before Halloween, no less. According to “Dead Air,” police switchboards lighted up across the nation; in Indiana, a woman ran into a church screaming: “New York has been destroyed! It’s the end of the world!”At a Harlem police station, “thirty people arrived with all their possessions packed and told officers they were ready to be evacuated.” In New Jersey, where the fictional invasion was supposedly taking place, some listeners loaded up their cars and took to the road.Mr. Hazelgrove has provided a granular history of this landmark in fake news, placing us inside CBS’s Studio One, where Welles orchestrated every detail to his exacting standards, then outside the studio doors, where confusion reigned until media stories of the stunt set minds at ease. 17 BOoks we read this weekThe caution and conscience of John Dickinson, spies in the library, spooky audiobooks for Halloween and more.Welles, for his part, worried that his budding career was over; he spent the days after the broadcast pondering potential jail time and lawsuits. The young auteur was widely censured for his dangerous gambit; an FCC investigation was floated but came to nothing. Hollywood was paying attention, however. Almost three years later, “Citizen Kane” was released, and Welles’s legendary career in film had begun.Mr. Weingarten is the author of “Thirsty: William Mulholland, California "Rocket Man is the funniest novel since Russo's Straight Man." Chicago Sun Times"Rocket Man is a hilarious, well written novel about one man's search for the New American Dream." James Frey, author A Million Little Pieces and Bright Shiny Morning