Douglas Frantz – författare

The world has entered a second nuclear age. For the first time since the end of the Cold War, the threat of nuclear annihilation is on the rise. Should such an assault occur, there is a strong likelihood that the trail of devastation will lead back to Abdul Qadeer Khan, the Pakistani father of the Islamic bomb and the mastermind behind a vast clandestine enterprise that has sold nuclear secrets to Iran, North Korea, and Libya. Khan's loose-knit organization was and still may be a nuclear Wal-Mart, selling weapons blueprints, parts, and the expertise to assemble the works into a do-it-yourself bomb kit. Amazingly, American authorities could have halted his operation, but they chose instead to watch and wait. Khan proved that the international safeguards the world relied on no longer worked. Journalists Douglas Frantz and Catherine Collins tell this alarming tale of international intrigue through the eyes of the European and American officials who suspected Khan, tracked him, and ultimately shut him down, but only after the nuclear genie was long out of the bottle.

"From the Ground Up describes Rincon in detail, from the day the brainstorm to bid on the land took shape in the mind of a Perini Co. executive until its champagne-soaked opening party...The book emerges as a helpful primer on what it takes to build a tiny, self-contained city. Engineering problems are cleanly explained, architectural cant is kept to a minimum and a bookshelf of financial detail is boiled down to essentials." (Marshall Kilduff, San Francisco Chronicle Book Review). "This engrossing study, flavored with the appeal of San Francisco and written by Los Angeles Times national correspondent Frantz, examines the combination of dreaming and entrepreneurship required to succeed in the cyclical realty business." (Publishers Weekly). "Frantz...is a business reporter of real skill and sophistication...The genius of [his] book is in the details." (Johnathan Kirsch, Los Angeles Times).