The Best Kind of American: Murder, War, and America's Undoing in the Middle East

A work of true crime following one American family’s search for the truth after a 1984 murder in war-torn Beirut, where the Iranian revolution collided with the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, setting off the geopolitical conflagration that burns to this day, from acclaimed and bestselling author Kim Ghattas. On January 18, 1984, Malcolm Kerr, president of the American University of Beirut, was assassinated by a pair of gunmen outside his office.His murder, in the wake of the bombing of the U.S. Marines’ barracks, Palestinian guerrilla warfare, and the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon, was just one more shocking headline in a city ravaged by chaos.There was no investigation. Four decades later, the question of who killed Malcom and why still haunts Kerr’s family, including his son Steve, a now world-famous basketball player and NBA coach. In The Best Kind of American, Kim Ghattas embarks on a quest to solve Kerr’s assassination, weaving together the family’s story with Lebanon’s warlords