Impossible Odds

On October 25, 2011, thirty-two year-old Jessica Buchanan was an attractive American teacher working for a humanitarian NGO in Somalia. But on that day she and an older male colleague were kidnapped at gunpoint and held for ransom by an organization of Somali pirates who had moved their operations from the sea onto the land. For the next three months, Jessica was terrorized by more than two dozen gangsters who carried assault rifles at all times and worked themselves into near delirium by chewing addictive khat leaves. She was held outdoors in filthy conditions and kept on a starvation diet while her health and that of her sixty-year-old Danish counterpart steadily deteriorated. Negotiations for ransom dragged on, and as the ordeal stretched into its third month, the captors grew increasingly nervous.

Finally, after ninety-three days of fruitless negotiations, and with Jessica’s rapidly failing health raising her medical state to a life and death issue, U.S. President Barack Obama ordered Navy Seal Team Six to raid the location. On January 25, 2012, while the President delivered his State of the Union speech to a national television audience, the rescue team of twenty-four members of SEAL Team Six attacked the heavily armed nine hostiles on duty. All nine were killed with no harm to the hostages, who were quickly airlifted out on a military rescue helicopter.

Throughout the ordeal, every moment Jessica Buchanan spent suffering in captivity was matched by that of her adoring husband of less than three years, thirty-five year-old Erik Landemalm, a humanitarian aid worker who carefully chronicled each and every day of the ordeal in letters he hoped to one day share with his wife. This book will detail their mutual journey during those torturous months. In this dual memoir, Jessica and Erik will alternate voices in relating the events prior to the kidnapping, the drama of Jessica’s efforts to stay alive, and Erik’s efforts to bolster and support the hunt for her while he acted as liaison between their two families, the FBI, professional hostage negotiators, and the United States Government.

About the Authors

Jessica Buchanan and Erik Landemalm worked in the humanitarian aid field in Somalia. They have recently relocated to the United States, where they lecture on their experiences while raising their son, August, born in October, 2012.

Anthony Flacco is the author of numerous nonfiction books and novels. He holds an MFA in screenwriting from the American Film Institute, serves as an editor, frequently gives seminars on writing, and is an editorial consultant to Martin Literary Management in Seattle.