graph = {} graph["you"] = ["alice", "bob", "claire"] graph["bob"] = ["anuj", "peggy"] graph["alice"] = ["peggy"] graph["claire"] = ["thom", "jonny"] graph["anuj"] = [] graph["peggy"] = [] graph["thom"] = [] graph["jonny"] = [] def person_is_seller(name): return name[-1] =='m' def search(name): search_queue = deque() search_queue += graph[name] searched = [] while search_queue: person = search_queue.popleft() if not person in searched: if person_is_seller(person): print person + " is a mango seller!" return True else: search_queue += graph[person] searched.append(person) return False from collections import deque search("you")