He churns out three sex-filled spy thrillers a year and sells millions of copies.

What’s interesting is that a number of his terrorist and espionage plot twists have actually happened in real life — well after they appeared in book form.

Marco Werman speaks with New York Times reporter Robert Worth who recently profiled Gérard de Villiers for the Sunday New York Times Magazine.

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The text below is a phonetic transcript of a radio story broadcast by PRI’s THE WORLD. It has been created on deadline by a contractor for PRI. The transcript is included here to facilitate internet searches for audio content. Please report any transcribing errors to theworld@pri.org. This transcript may not be in its final form, and it may be updated. Please be aware that the authoritative record of material distributed by PRI’s THE WORLD is the program audio.

Marco Werman: I’m Marco Werman. This is The World. The spy novel is a tricky genre to master, but the formula for success is simple: keep drama taut and the history accurate. One French spy novelist though is eerily accurate, sometimes anticipating history before it’s made. He’s Gerard de Villiers. The 83-year-old has cranked out nearly 200 installments in his SAS spy series. The James Bond of the series is Austrian prince and CIA agent, Malko Linge. The books have sold in the millions across the French speaking world. From the covers they look like the spy version of a bodice ripper, but it turns out intelligence officials around the world often dip into them for informal briefings on global hotspots. Robert Worth wrote a profile of de Villiers for The New York Times Sunday Magazine. He says the key to the author’s success is that he uses the tools and the sources of good journalism to create his mass market spy thrillers.

Robert Worth: About six months ago a French friend recommended that I read one of his recent ones. And it was after I did that, I was impressed with it and then I started talking to friends that work in the French diplomatic service. And I was amazed to find that they had all read him although in a somewhat chimp-faced way.

Werman: Well the narratives, I mean you can understand why they would be compelled to read them in a recent book called “Les Fous de Benghazi” (the crazies of Benghazi as in Benghazi, Libya) recounts the madness around a clandestine CIA post in Benghazi, but I guess also foretells the attack on the US consulate last September where Chris Stevens, the ambassador, and three others Americans died. Where does de Villiers get his intelligence?

Worth: Well he starts off with each book, according to what he told me, in Paris talking to people in the French intelligence service and related area, maybe diplomats, whatever, he researches that way what’s going on in the country. And he actually, you know, he’s been doing this for 50 years, so he keeps his eye on a whole range of countries. And when something interesting comes up he kind of gets himself briefed. Then he goes to the country and he talks to again, French diplomatic and intelligence people there. And many of these people he’s known for decades and so they’re willing to talk to him. And he’s usually only in the country for maximum two weeks, and then he comes back and puts it all together with remarkable speed.

Werman: Are French intelligence officers so generous with their information with everybody?

Worth: No, definitely not. I think it’s partly though that it’s fiction. You know, it’s less risky, but also because the characters in his books generally oddly enough are not French and so you know, if they give him information it’s gonna come out of somebody else’s moth in the book, which gives them a bit of cover. And also though there is a kind of cult of Gerard de Villiers, all these guys have been reading him for years, and years and years. And so you know, I think it’s kind of fun to become part of the story.

Werman: So government officials say they don’t read them, but they do. Did de Villiers ever get into trouble for how much he knows?

Worth: No, not to my knowledge.

Werman: Wow, that’s incredible. Did you find that extraordinary?

Worth: I sure did and that’s why I thought it was a funny story. And again, he’s really kind of an unusual person. He’s, nobody has precisely the position he does in the sense that he’s known these files for many, many, many years. He’s known the players and they feel that they can trust him.

Werman: You met him at his apartment in Paris. What’s he like?

Worth: I found him very charming. He’s 83 years old, but he has a lot of energy and he seems sharp as a tack. He knows these countries very well. He’s very interesting to talk to if you follow him at least. He’s got strong opinions, somewhat cynical. It’s funny, he’s in many ways very French, and yet I think his style is you know, it’s very, when he talks you know, French intellectuals trend to have a lot of, they’re voluble, they go on and on about ideas. He’s very to the point. I mean he’s very factual, brisk and a very nice, morbid sense of humor. He’s also though a great raconteur. He has all kinds of incredible stories about you know, things he’s encountered in his travels.

Werman: Your conversation with him about his book La Liste Hariri (the Hariri List) was pretty revealing. It’s a novel that revolves around the assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafic Hariri and the details of that plot, which were a mystery to many people. How accurate were they in the book?

Worth: Well, he always goes beyond what’s factual and what he knows just to make it a better plot. But the elements that are factual that he puts in are pretty remarkable. I mean he, everybody has presumed for a long time that Syria was behind it, but the trouble was that the Syrians covered their tracks. The international tribunal investigating it has made certain accusations. They were in the process of just starting to put these out when he published this book. And his information tracks with what they have, but he has an awful lot more about the way that Syria worked with Hezbollah to put this together. Now, it’s the kind of thing where much of this cannot actually be confirmed, but you know, people who I have talked to in Lebanon who I believe know much more than they can actually publicly say, have said the same king of things that he wrote about. I was kind of amazed to discover that not only do some diplomats read him, but that some people I’ve been friends with for years who just didn’t happen to mention it have been reading de Villiers. These are mostly European journalists, but some of them say they literally treat it as kind of a briefing you know, before they go to a country to get up to speed.

Werman: Everybody’s dirty little secret. We heard earlier in the program from a reporter on the latest in Mali in West Africa, a former French colony, and France seems to now have successfully routed Islamic militants there. It’s a kind of story ripe for a de Villiers treatment if he hasn’t done one yet. What do you think de Villiers’ books say about the close and even intimate ties still between France and its former colonies?

Worth: Well, you guess it. He’s been there already. He published the book several months ago, called Panique a Bamako.

Werman: Oh.

Worth: I can’t say that it actually anticipates what happened with the French military involvement in Mali, but it’s certainly all the themes are there. It’s about you know, Jihadi groups there and–it’s actually more of course about the Americans and what they’re trying to do you know, behind the scenes maneuvering to sort of potentially find out what’s going on with these Islamist groups and how to fight them.

Werman: And for those ties with France and its former colonies there’s something I don’t know, that just feels something very cozy there between de Villiers and all these countries out there.

Worth: Absolutely, I mean I think France has been very, very concerned about what was going on in Mali for long before the Americans got to that level of concern, and I think that’s why he went. I mean you read it in French newspapers, I mean ever since it happened last March, the Islamists took over Northern Mali. I think that’s why he went and he had plenty of contacts there. It’s really an issue he’s been following for a long, long time.

Werman: Has the CIA ever commented on Malko Linge and this series of books?

Worth: Not to my knowledge. I did speak with a former CIA officer who knows de Villiers and got to be friends with him. I think it was the early ’90s in Paris. And it was kind of funny to–I asked this guy a series of questions about various people who were you know, important or interesting. And he told me some stories and stuff. And on several occasions at the end of this story I said, “Well how did you meet that interesting person? ” “Oh, de Villiers introduced me.” And this guy mentioned to me as I cited in the story that he recommends de Villiers to CIA analysts.

Werman: Robert Worth with The New York Times profiled the French spy novelists, Gerard de Villiers. Thanks very much for telling us about him.

Worth: It’s a pleasure.

Copyright ©2012 PRI’s THE WORLD. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to PRI’s THE WORLD. This transcript may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without prior written permission. For further information, please email The World’s Permissions Coordinator at theworld@pri.org.

The paper’s owner, Rupert Murdoch, has apologized for it.

And one of the only ways you can see the cartoon at this point is doing a Google search.

The image that’s causing such a furor is by English cartoonist and illustrator Gerald Scarfe.

It shows Netanyahu building a wall, but the mortar is blood and squeezed between some of the bricks are Palestinians.

The caption reads: “Will cementing the peace continue?”

Tuesday on the BBC, Stephen Pollard of the Jewish Chronicle, called the cartoon “disgusting” and “some of the worst kind of antisemitic blood libels.” Pollard added, “Whether there is a right to publish the cartoon is a different issue, I think it was a misjudgement and News International have handled it absolutely right by apologizing.”

British cartoonist Steve Bell challenged Pollard in the exchange on the BBC, saying “The problem with the State of Israel and the Zionist Lobby is that they never acknowledge the crime of ethnic cleansing upon which the State was founded.”

He also accused Pollard of undermining the real meaning of antisemitism by throwing around the term “blood libel,” the perverse myth that Jews secretly use human blood in their religious rituals.

That the cartoon was published on Holocaust Memorial Day has further angered many Jews and non-Jews.

On Tuesday, the senior editorial team of The Sunday Times met with Jewish leaders in London to apologize for the cartoon but they defended themselves against the charge of antisemitism.

Cartoonist and illustrator Gerald Scarfe has not commented publicly but reportedly had no intention of having the cartoon published on Holocaust Memorial Day.

Scarfe’s career with The Sunday Times goes back to the 1960s and he often depicts blood in his cartoons. He is also a well-known illustrator.

His most famous artwork is featured on Pink Floyd‘s 1979 album, The Wall, and in the film of the same name.

Scarfe is also known for his love of red.

Bright red in all forms — including blood — is splashed across his website and featured, for example, in a recent cartoon of Syrian leader Bashar Assad, who was pictured as a green, wraith-like creature drinking greedily from an oversized cup labeled “Children’s Blood.”

Well, that’s what’s happening in Sicily.

A multi-year investigation and sting operation there has revealed deep infiltration into the wind and solar sector by Italy’s crime families.

Marco Werman speaks with Anthony Faiola of The Washington Post who’s been following the story.

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The text below is a phonetic transcript of a radio story broadcast by PRI’s THE WORLD. It has been created on deadline by a contractor for PRI. The transcript is included here to facilitate internet searches for audio content. Please report any transcribing errors to theworld@pri.org. This transcript may not be in its final form, and it may be updated. Please be aware that the authoritative record of material distributed by PRI’s THE WORLD is the program audio.

Marco Werman: Italy has its own problems with corruption, made worse in parts of the country by the influence of organized crime, better known as the Mafia. Recent scandals over garbage collection in Naples and other cities revealed that the Mafia was heavily involved in the refuse industry. Now comes news that the Mafia has gotten into the renewable energy business in Sicily. Reporter Anthony Faiola writes about it in The Washington Post. He’s just back in London after being on assignment in Sicily. Anthony, renewable energy and the Mafia. I mean, I just have a hard time seeing a Mafia boss driving a Prius.

Anthony Faiola: Well, I’ll tell you what, any time there’s money involved, you’re not going to find the Mafia far behind. And in this particular situation, that’s exactly what happened. Alternative energy over the last decade became an incredibly profitable business in Italy, and the Mafia sensed money and they went for it.

Werman: So what, where do they see the money. Is it in solar panels? Is it in windmills? Something else?

Faiola: Well, it’s both. I mean, effectively what we’re talking about at its most basic root are land deals. You’d identify a suitable spot for alternative energy, say a wind farm or a solar farm, that might not be worth much otherwise. You’d contact, maybe pressure, the landlord, if you didn’t already have control over the land. Then you’d sign up a corrupt bureaucrat who would speed up approval of green licenses, something that in Sicily might typically take years, if ever, to get. And once you had the permit, that land that you had would be worth multiple times more, and you’d turn around and sell it to alternative energy companies. Some of the companies knew what they were getting into, others say they didn’t.

Werman: So with the mafia involved in renewable energy, does that mean this is a legitimate business?

Faiola: That’s a good question.

Werman: I’m trying to compute this.

Faiola: I think what they were getting involved in at its most basic level, like I said, were these land deals, but there is some evidence to suggest that there’s fraud happening on a broader basis. For instance, if you have solar panels in Italy and you’re generating power, you can sell that power back to the national grid and make some money off of that. And there is some evidence to suggest that the Mafia is doing that as well. Now, is everyone who’s involved in alternative energy in Italy involved in some sort of corruption? Of course not. But at the same time, in Sicily what you find is that roughly 30 percent of the wind farms on the island now have been seized by the government.

Werman: This must be a tough one for the government to square because obviously they want renewable energy production. At the same time they don’t want the Mafia being involved with it.

Faiola: Well, that’s exactly right. One of the problems with having the Mafia involved in it, it distorts the market, and it makes it even harder for legitimate alternative energy entrepreneurs to rise up and form their own businesses. I spoke to one legitimate businessman in Sicily who had been in the wind farm and solar panel industry there, and had been brutally harassed by the Mafia for the last several years because he wasn’t willing to play ball with them. He had one of his wind farms, for instance, attacked by an arsonist, doing $4 million worth of damage. And the threats that were made to his family and to his own well-being were so strong that he ended up having to go into some kind of government protection for two years.

Werman: So how did Italian officials figure out that the Mafia was involved, and have they shut down these wind farms now?

Faiola: They’ve shut down some of them, and some of them they’ve actually handed over to the state. And what we’re talking about is a years-long sting operation. I mean, these operations date back in some cases to the mid-2000s. What they’ve done is they’ve meticulously placed wiretaps inside of vehicles, on street corners in some cases, and they’ve developed a network of informants who have gradually been giving them the information that they need to make the arrests. There have been two waves of arrests so far, one in 2010 and one just last December, and my understanding is that there are more coming down the pike.

Werman: Anthony Faiola, the London Bureau Chief of The Washington Post, telling us about the Mafia’s recent forays into renewable energy in Sicily. Thanks a lot.

Faiola: Thank you.

Copyright ©2012 PRI’s THE WORLD. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to PRI’s THE WORLD. This transcript may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without prior written permission. For further information, please email The World’s Permissions Coordinator at theworld@pri.org.

See Lance with his head in his hands — literally.

See Lance take one last injection of drugs: truth serum.

And see a little boy being treated for cancer through the Livestrong Foundation wonder if he now has to apologize for taking drugs.

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One place those issues are showing up are in political cartoons.

I spoke to Marco Werman about why.

Click here to see my cartoon slideshow on Tumblr.

In recent weeks, several of Egypt’s most popular and prominent satirists, talk show hosts and journalists have received formal complaints that their work has insulted President Mohamed Morsi.

Some are concerned that critics of Egypt’s government are being silenced.

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A standoff in Egypt over President Mohamed Morsi’s power grab and draft constitution; a bloody internal war inside Syria with Bashar Al-Assad pitted against rebels and the threat of chemical weapons hanging over the crisis.

And finally, there’s anger, bitterness and an international community scrambling over Israel’s proposed new settlements: their response to the UN upgrade to the Palestinians’ status.

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Jacobs has spent a lifetime pondering maps of all kinds and finally found an outlet: cyberspace.

Aaron Schachter talks to Jacobs about his attraction to maps and how they’ve evolved over the centuries from a tool for navigation to a venue for artistic expression and weird facts.

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The text below is a phonetic transcript of a radio story broadcast by PRI’s THE WORLD. It has been created on deadline by a contractor for PRI. The transcript is included here to facilitate internet searches for audio content. Please report any transcribing errors to theworld@pri.org. This transcript may not be in its final form, and it may be updated. Please be aware that the authoritative record of material distributed by PRI’s THE WORLD is the program audio.

Aaron Schachter: We’re going to talk about maps now and yes, you’ll be able to see them all at theworld.org. Frank Jabobs has been obsessed with maps since he was a kid. He lives in London and his blog, Strange Maps, has a lot of well, really cool maps, like the one that caught our eye initially. It’s a map of the US where each state name has been replaced with the name of the country whose gross domestic product matches that state’s economic output. So, California is now France. Texas is Canada and Massachusetts, where I am now, that’s Belgium. Frank, what was the thinking behind this particular map?

Frank Jacobs: The thinking behind the map was to demonstrate visually the size of the American economy. We often hear stories about the decline of the American economy, about China catching up, about America diminishing economically, but by showing how big the economy of each state is compared to the economy of independent countries, as you say, California is one of the biggest economies in the world per se, which is nice to know. But if you can actually replace the name of California by the name of France, it becomes a very, a very direct and visual illustration of that fact.

Schachter: Yeah, the map of course doesn’t just include the big states, there are smaller ones too. Wyoming, for example, is Uzbekistan.

Jacobs: Right.

Schachter: We also have Vermont and South Dakota.

Jacobs: The economy of Vermont is about the size of the economy of the Dominican Republic. And South Dakota equals Croatia, which is something of a surprise I suppose, to most South Dakotans and most Croatians.

Schachter: Two groups of people that don’t normally think about one another.

Jacobs: I suppose not, no.

Schachter: There’s another map of the United States that is my personal favorite. It’s called the McFarthest Place. Describe that for our listeners if you would.

Jacobs: Well, it’s a map that pinpoints the location of every single McDonald’s restaurant in the lower 58 states. In doing so, gives you kind of a density map of McDonald’s restaurants and obviously, there is this one place in that whole territory, which is the McFarthest Place from any McDonald’s restaurant. I think it’s somewhere in South Dakota and I’m not quite sure about the distance, but it’s about 90-100 miles to the nearest McDonald’s restaurant.

Schachter: How do they survive?

Jacobs: I have no idea, maybe they grow their own food.

Schachter: Frank, you’re not a cartographer yourself, you’re just a map collector. Where do you get all these kooky, interesting, different maps?

Jacobs: Most of them are floating around on the internet and a lot of them get sent in by people who read my blog and when they come across a strange map they think of the blog called Strange Maps and are kind enough to send it in.

Schachter: And what’s your fascination with maps?

Jacobs: Well, it’s something that I’ve had for a long time. As a kid I used to read atlases for fun and I used to think this was a strange affliction because none of my friends shared that affliction, but in running the blog I’ve found out that I’m not alone. There’s many of us.

Schachter: Do you find yourself increasingly strange in this era of GPS? I also happen to like maps and I find that most of my peers don’t use them anymore.

Jacobs: No, I think we’re at a point now that is comparable to the 19th century with the onset of photography where painting got a whole different meaning and a whole different sense of itself when photography came in and made it possible to reproduce images without painting them. That’s when the actual paintings themselves became surrealists and impressionists, and expressionists. So I think the same thing is happening now with maps as well. We have the maps as a purely utilitarian instrument on our phones, but the map as a form of expression is now divorced from the actual meaning it has to have, so there’s so many other things you can do with maps nowadays.

Schachter: Yeah, it bears pointing out your blog is called Strange Maps, but some of them are really quite beautiful.

Jacobs: Well that’s one of my criteria for publishing a map on Strange Maps. It has to be strange, there has to be some weird angle to it, it has to have a story, but it also needs to be pretty, it needs to be beautiful.

Schachter: Frank Jacobs’ blog is called Strange Maps. You can link to it and see all the maps we’ve talked about plus many more at theworld.org. Frank Jacobs, thank you so much.

Jacobs: Thank you.

Copyright ©2012 PRI’s THE WORLD. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to PRI’s THE WORLD. This transcript may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without prior written permission. For further information, please email The World’s Permissions Coordinator at theworld@pri.org.

The McFarthest Place: The Lower 48 Visualized by Distance to the Nearest McDonald’s
Source: Data Pointed first published in Strange Maps #

US States Renamed for Countries with Similar GDPs Source: The Big Picture first published in Strange Maps #

A Map of State Movies Source: Huffington Post first published in Strange Maps #

The Sitcom Map of America Source: Dan Meth, The Map Scroll, first published in Strange Maps #

A Map of State Birds Source: The Ragbagfirst published in Strange Maps #

Transit Maps of the World Source: Transit Maps of the World (by Mark Ovenden), first published on Strange Maps #