Evil on the Roof of the World

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, DC, 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 only to have it end in tragedy.

William Elliott Hazelgrove is the national bestselling author of ten novels and fourteen narrative nonfiction titles, including Dead Air: The Night That Orson Welles Terrified America (Rowman & Littlefield, 2024), Greed in the Gilded Age: The Brilliant Con of Cassie Chadwick (Rowman & Littlefield, 2024), and Al Capone and the 1933 World's Fair: The End of the Gangster Era in Chicago (Rowman & Littlefield, 2017). His books have received starred reviews in Publishers Weekly Kirkus, Booklist, Book of the Month Selections, ALA Editor's Choice Awards Junior Library Guild Selections, Literary Guild Selections, History Book Club Selections, and optioned for movies. He was the Ernest Hemingway Writer in Residence. He has written articles and reviews for USA Today, The Smithsonian Magazine, Daily Mail, and other publications, and has been featured on NPR's All Things Considered. The New York Times, LA Times, Chicago Tribune, CSPAN, and USA Today have all covered his books with features. More information can be found at www.williamhazelgrove.com.

Preface Author's Note Acknowledgments Prologue: Pamir Highway, The Roof of the World, July 29, 2018 Chapter 1: Getting Ready, Washington, D.C., May 2017 Part I: Africa Chapter 2: South Africa, June 9, 2017 Chapter 3: Georgetown, 2012 Chapter 4: Miles from Nowhere, 1977 Chapter 5: Namibia, The Great Karoo Desert, July 2017 Chapter 6: Botswana, August 2017 Chapter 7: The Under Five Gang, 2015 Chapter 8: Zambia, September 2017 Chapter 9: The Georgetown Gang, 2025 Chapter 10: Tanzania, November 2017 Part II: Europe Chapter 11: The Tiny House, 2012 Chapter 12: Spain, December 2017 Chapter 13: Into the Wild, 1992 Chapter 14: Valencia, Spain, January 2018 Chapter 15: The New York Bicycle Murders, 2017 Chapter 16: France, February 2018 Chapter 17: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, 1871 Chapter 18: Croatia and Montenegro, April 2018 Chapter 19: Wild, 1995 Chapter 20: On the Road to Kazakhstan, May 2018 Part III: Central Asia Chapter 21: Selga, Khatlong Province, Tajikistan, 1985 Chapter 22: Kazakhstan, June 2018 Chapter 23: The Pamirs, "The Roof of the World," July 17, 2018 Chapter 24: The Lost City of Z, 1925 Chapter 25: Sixty Miles to Dushanbe, July 28, 2018 Chapter 26: Collision, July 29, 2018 Chapter 27: The Aftermath, July 29, 2018 Part IV: Home Chapter 28: United States, July 30, 2018 Chapter 29: Evil on the Roof of the World Chapter 30: Endings Chapter 31: The Walden Pondo Coffee House About the Author Appendix Bibliography Index