Samuel asked Peter Nealen:

Hello Mr Nealen. I've read your first three books. They were fantastic. My question is about their setting, one that's different to most post 9/11 novels. It's like a "modern dystopia" where economic/social/security issues have exploded. How did the dark, beautifully constructed fictional universe you created for the A.P series develop and come about when you were writing the first books?

Peter Nealen A large part of the inspiration came from Steven Pressfield's "The Profession." The world he painted was different, but very plausible. After that, I just kind of extrapolated mostly worst-case scenario paths from trends I saw presently occurring, e.g., governments spending money like water that they didn't actually have, growing economic warfare on a global scale, global insurgency, the Arab Spring, etc. Some of these predictions haven't held up all that well; for instance, the Muslim Brotherhood was pushed out of power in Egypt only about a year after I came out with "Task Force Desperate." Others have yet to be seen.

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