After the 9/11 terrorist attacks rocked the nation in 2001, Robert Ferrigno set out to illustrate the power of faith.

The Kirkland novelist has since written a trilogy of futuristic political thrillers, of which his most recent book, “Heart of the Assassin” was just released.

Ferrigno, who lives in Kirkland with his four kids and wife, Jody, started his writing career in Seattle when he started a punk rock magazine called “The Rocket.” He then moved to California and worked at a daily newspaper, the Orange County Register, before leaving to become a full-time novelist.

The Reporter sat down with the long-time writer to chat about his newest book.

Q: Tell us about “Heart of the Assassin.”

Ferrigno: It’s a political thriller set 40 years in the future, but based in the Northwest and the south. Seattle is the capital of the new political alignment of the US. This (Seattle) is the Muslim Republic; this (the south) is the Bible belt where the Christian’s migrated; this (Utah) is the Mormon territories because the Mormons were too tough to be taken over.

New York and Washington DC have been hit by suitcase nukes, so that’s precipitated bad things.

The first book of the trilogy opens up at the Super Bowl in Seattle. I figured that would be the only way we could get to the Super Bowl in a futuristic trilogy.

Q: Your controversial trilogy has stirred international attention. Why?

Ferrigno: The first book of the trilogy got a lot of ink, mostly the political aspects. When I told my agent that my next book was going to be a political thriller set in the future after a Civil War and half the country is Muslim, she said, “‘that’s funny, now what are you really going to do.’”

I’ve sold a lot of foreign rights to my traditional thrillers and this was really interesting because two of the countries where I’ve done traditionally well – Germany and Italy – passed on the book just on the concept of it. In those countries, they actually have laws on the book that you can’t publish things that create dissension in religion and it’s a criminal offense. France was nervous about it until they read it, then France bought the whole trilogy.

But what was strange was the people that you would assume would be flipped out actually responded really well. It was my first sale in Turkey, which is a modern half-Islamic Republic – it’s exactly the kind of world that I postulated (in “Heart of the Assassin”). Their biggest publisher bought it. Their other big American author is Stephen King, so it was really a prestigious thing.

I get a lot of e-mails from Muslims around the world; it’s actually very fair-minded. The main character of the book is Muslim.

There’s good Muslims and bad Muslims. There’s good Christian’s and bad Christian’s, so the faith isn’t the problem, it’s the individuals.

But definitely people were more nervous about the book before they read it because you talk about the concept and it seems incendiary, but it’s more a book about faith in a long war. It’s not the weapons that count, it’s the faith of the warriors.

In the West, we tend to have very short-sighted vision. If something’s a year old, it’s out of date. In Islam, several hundred years is nothing. Shiites and Sunnis are arguing about something that happened over 700 years ago. The depth of Mohammed’s son-in-law murdered by what are now the Sunnis.

The whole arch of this book is because the country is divided … but what’s happened is Mexico has become the Aztlan Empire. In this world, Aztlan has reaffirmed itself because the former US is weak, they’ve kind of encroached into what we took over in 1848. So the arch of the book is that two nations have to reunite and what is it that can make them reunite. It’s a tricky thing.

I think the more people read it, they realized it wasn’t an anti-Muslim piece. I have ongoing e-mail conversations with Muslims in the Middle East. It’s been great. We disagree about a lot of things, but they were really happy with the book. They were pleasantly surprised. It’s already gone to a second printing and it’s only been out a couple weeks.

Q: Where did you draw your inspiration?

Ferrigno: It was just trying to think about what’s going on in the country. I started writing it (the trilogy) after 9/11, when it was clearly obvious that the West and Islam were going to be in a long-term conflict of values, if nothing else. Islam as it is now in the Middle East is not a faith that is open to dynamic change, so I kept thinking well then why would we not be obviously victorious. You’ve got this massive army that’s the greatest military force in history.

Again, it’s that short-term attention span where a year later the newspapers are all about casualty counts and politicians are all scrambling for the exits. In the Middle East it’s like they have a different view. Dying in battle means your ticket’s punched to heaven. So it allows for a greater sense of perspective.

We really underestimate the power of faith because we really don’t have that kind of faith in the West, in the United States. We have sort of prosperity Christianity, which means God wants you to be rich. It’s a very different faith in the Muslim world, it’s a thing that truly does give people strength.

Q: What do you hope readers will take away from the trilogy?

Ferrigno: First of all, it’s a real thriller. You’ll hopefully care about the characters.

But there is some meat at the heart of it, which is that faith is a useful value, it’s not just an extraneous value, or it wouldn’t have survived. We forget that in our culture because we haven’t needed it. But the whole point of the book is when times got really bad, then suddenly people looked for faith. Well now the government is useless except it’s shoveling somebody’s else’s money out the door. The churches are sort of unsure about what to say, but Islamic churches are very clear about what to say. And that’s how things happened the way they did that in times of great stress, when you’re looking for answers and somebody says, ‘here’s the answer right here.’ That can be appealing. It is the strong horse Osama bin Laden talked about.

Hopefully it’s an entertaining read that will leave you thinking afterwards.

Q: Has Kirkland played a role in any of your writing?

Ferrigno: When we first moved here, we looked around the Sammimish Plateau and it was pretty regimented and we really didn’t like that. We like Kirkland because there’s lots of little neighborhoods but it’s also next to the water. When you’re in a waterfront community, it makes people more relaxed. The plateau shows up in my first book as a place that has gone ferral. There’s roving gangs, there’s no power, the houses are falling apart. So that was kind of my feeling about how artificial the plateau was, whereas Kirkland felt like a real place.

I don’t think Kirkland is ever named, although there is graffiti on a water tower in this book that says “Go Kangs.”

Book reading

Kirkland author Robert Ferrigno will appear at ParkPlace Books at 1 p.m. Sept. 20 for a book reading. The store is located at 348 Parkplace Center. For information, call 425-828-6546. Also, visit www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sgq79RXntjA and www.robertferrigno.com.