Chasing bin Laden

A secret truth: On the early morning of August 16, 2006, Osama bin Laden was arrested in Brooklyn by the New York FBI Terrorism Task Force. They were acting on a tip called in by Barbara Janik. Her memoir, Chasing bin Laden, takes readers along with her on an emotional journey through the hidden world of lay investigations, which is charged with high-stakes puzzle solving, Arabic message boards, and anxiety-provoking collaborations with the FBI.

Barbara Janik is a middle-aged masters-level historian from rural Texas. Throughout the manuscript, she cleverly integrates 177 citations that help corroborate this hidden history.

About the Author:

In high school, Barbara walked the halls every day, wearing the same black sweater and mumbling to herself. To many she was twitchy and odd, which made her a social reject. But despite these setbacks, she graduated 5th in her class of 300 and earned enough scholarships to cover all her tuition at a private Catholic university.

In the fall of 1987, when Barbara arrived at University of St. Thomas in Houston, she was unaware that she would be attending one of the toughest and most prestigious universities in the nation. And like in high school, she was often considered unusual by her peers. Despite this, she managed to thrive. While at the St. Thomas, she discovered and nurtured her love of language arts by taking multiple writing and literature classes. In 1991, she earned her bachelor's in liberal arts.

After school, she struggled to find herself. She briefly taught first grade and then high school. But she quickly grew dissatisfied with the low pay and social stressors, and decided to go back to college to study computer science. A few years later, when the IT job market crashed, she dropped out and began working for a small business as a PC repair technician. Here she learned how to fix computers and mastered the art of "Google-fu."

In 2006, Barbara once again took her life in a new direction. While still working as a tech, she branched off into amateur detective work. She would seek lucrative rewards for hunting down missing persons, criminals, and terrorists. That summer, Barbara no doubt sent shockwaves through the intelligence community when she discovered the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden. She accomplished this using social media, people finders, detective sites, her new "Google-fu" skills, and raw intuition. Her efforts led to bin Laden's secret arrest on August 16, 2006.

Not long after finding bin Laden, Barbara started graduate school at Sam Houston State University. There, she completed a master's in history and attained the skills she needed to write the historical portions of Chasing bin Laden. After graduation, she spent several years working as an adjunct professor for Alvin Community College, teaching mostly within prison populations.

Today, Barbara Janik lives in a small home in rural Texas with her partner and black cat. Her adult c...