>> here is the look of some of the best-selling nonfiction books according to "the los angeles times." >> tommy about the golden hour. what a fair? how did you come to write it, et cetera? >> golden hour is a thriller about a crisis manager at the state department, who is fast to respond when there is a coup in west africa, where close american ally has been deposed and his job is to go into africa, figure out what has happened inside the washington bureaucracy to fix it. it was inspired by my time as deputy assistant secretary of state for west africa under secretary condoleezza rice. when i left government, i wanted to tell a story about the softest regime of american foreign policy and what is america doing in places like west africa when there is a crisis. how do american policymakers make decisions during crisis time and how did they fight with each other, which is in fort gilliam often how a lot of decisions get made. i just thought it would be more fun to do that as a thriller, bring us another policy book, so i broke the golden hour. >> how much does this reflect realized in the story? >> well, what is happened and what is funny as i wrote the book originally aspired by a real coup in mauritania when i was a non-void. but i set the novel and molly because i thought americans have all heard of timbuktu. no one has heard of more [chanting] , but everyone has heard of timbuktu. after i finished the first chapter the book, molly had a real coup. i really didn't expect it. it happened. i think that helps make it a publisher interested in a thriller set in africa. but a little bit of reality following section. >> so when it plans to actually write nonfiction accounts of your time at the state department? >> you know, i've written for nonfiction books about african economic and u.s. relationships with half her coat. i am doing for books in the judd record thriller series now all about state department managers and the next one is inserted by weight during an election that is going bad, where there is an aging dictator trying to claim to power. i am working on book three now, which is about cuba. >> thank you very much for your time. >> thank you very much. >> i think the core thing that came onto the lesson for me was that people have priorities besides just living longer, yet medicine doesn't recognize that. i was never taught to articulate and recognize that. the second part was the most reliable method of learning what people's priorities are is to ask. and i wasn't asking. also, i wasn't asking even my own dad. and so, when his condition began to deteriorate and this is a tumor that was going to me

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