Transcripts For CSPAN2 In Depth In Depth With Brad Thor 20240712

My childrens godfather is a former special forces group and he had a line he got from a commander somewhere in his career that said there are some peoplpeople just need killing. Some you will not be able to reason with or negotiate with and there is just evil in the world and that is kind of the approach he takes. He doesnt necessarily like it when he knows it needs to be done he went out and he does it. He runs through the bucs as a combination of multiple people that ive known in the world of government, diplomacy, part of government. Hhes actually named after somebody right here in dc who processes fisa warrants for the prophetic justice. So there is one over at doj, real life, and i hope it is a great name for a character. He is a collection of these people and then what i tell folks is that hes my alter ego. He gets to go and do the things my wife wont let me do. She let me go to afghanistan but she drew the line of chasing female operatives. So there is a line i cant cross. Host how realistic are some of the exploits . Guest very realistic. I spent a lot of time talking with people at the cia, fbi, special Operations Community about a lot of state dinners and i like to listen to stories. I find i learn more by not talking with them because just hearing them talk, but there is one question i asked repeatedly and i asked multiple times every single year what are you afraid of right now, what is keeping you up tonight and that is what helps to form the plots for my thrillers. Your protagonist com from the rugged, resourceful, smart, hes got unlimited funds, the brazilian girlfriend. What are his thoughts . Guest thats a great question. Its something that i began exploring a few weeks ago. I made a choice as a writer and my wife when she read the manuscript three or four books ago said i knew what he thought now i know what he feels. I think that he is someone that his dad was a navy seal who passed away and he didnt have a very Good Relationship with his father. He decided he didnt want to go to college. He had an opportunity to be an athlete on the professional circuit and went that way out of high school. That made his dad worked hard to get his education upset. So they had grown apart and his dad died. The only reason he was just minimally talking with his father is because his mom was holding the family together. So his dad dies, he loses his case for the competitive athletics and decides to go to school and follow his fathers footsteps. So there is a part of him that is kind of looking for approval to make his dad happy. He became a navy seal and in the most recent that we will talk about come he has a whole other set of father son issues with his mentor wanting him to get up and do something that he found more valuable to the country. Host your 18th book, spy master coming out on tuesday july 3. He works for a group called the carlton group. What is bad and do these type of groups exist in our world a . Guest they do. Its a private Intelligence Agency. Basically they offer everything that the cia would do without all of the bureaucracy. That is the fictional idea. As ive watched the increase in popularity and the contract is going to private military contracting firms like blackwater and other ones like that, i thought okay, the next step in this process is going to be outsourcing intelligence gathering, and maybe even an alice has had some direct action assignments, where it allows the u. S. Government to have liability. So i thought this is the next big thing coming. And i got introduced to somebody that is retired from the cia. I dedicated last summer spoke to him. He had just passed away, sadly. He had something he was doing where he was outsourcing intelligence gathering in multiple different ways. Whether it was gathering atmospherics on the ground to help inform the dod about how to keep the troops safe, he was an interesting and fascinating guy and i actually based the carlton on an. Host do that cia intelligence operatives have the unlimited funds that scott has . [laughter] guest they do not unfortunately. There was a great pretense of a nonfiction, that was called the human factor, and it was written by a cia operative who was very unhappy with the culture at the cia. He would request, he would send in requests to approach certain potential assets and have the request sent back five times in the claim because things were in the wrong places. It is easier to do that than to string him along. He was paying us versus out of his own pocket and it would take the agency too long to get the money to him. More often than not, youve got agents that are dealing with a big pure crissy as well as there are great men and women of the cia. At one point i always make clear. Clear. Theres amazing american spirit overcoming some of the nations most dangerous business. There are people that think there are no problems there and ive talked to some that think it is so bureaucratic. Theres so much red tape. Its part o of idea within my thrillers but i think makes them all the more real. Host can we read a political philosophy in one of your thrillers . Guest you know, i think think i write political thrillers and i think that ever since human beings have been together in politics. When we decided to move to tribes in cities and anytime there is an interest, politics are involved. If you are protecting an interest or trying to leverage an advantage, politics are involved. I think i hope that with my books do is shine a light on some of the complications that operatives have in this world. And also, let people know that there is no American Dream without the men and women willing to go out and protected. I think politicians get in the way of things too often, but i also think the cia being so closely tied to the state department i and having the obligations and other countries through an ambassador, you know, i have a friend of mine ou now t was just made ambassador to germany, rick grenell. Before he was finally confirmed in the senate, there was this whole terrible thing with the cia out of the berlin station where they pay all this money allegedly for dirt that some russians had or Something Like this coming up without having the ambassador there. In that sense, that might have been better, but i think with the cia kind of rotating people through embassies and stuff like that, it probably adds to the bureaucracy and thinks their job more difficult. Host from last years but one of the most counterproductive things the cia had ever done was put its operatives in embassies around the world. Too many of them began to think Like State Department employees. Guest yet. And there was another book i was reading an im going to drawa blank on the title deposit interest operation in the middle east. One of the people the cia allowed to go on this team come on this assignment, he had a severe medical condition. Because of hippa, this gentlemans medical condition could be revealed to the leader of the team. And he had an episode whether it was an epileptic seizure or whatever but now they are way behind enemy lines and have to figure out how to get him out of there and get medical attention. So with that kind of pure crissy that will get people killed. So i think that is the balance the cia has. They dont want to be bureaucratic. They want to be out there helping the nation, protecting and gather the intel they have to. This certain pieces attached that make it difficult. Thats why i love writing about a private Intelligence Agency where you have guys out there that as americans we all hope that they are Like Software theres no rules, use unshackled and ten go do what needs to be done, which markets the trial, the story was told in one survivor with mark wahlberg. The first time i ever saw marcus speak for the sake talked about the book. One of the greatest things you can do for us in the special Operations Community is to just kind of look away. It doesnt mean we have no accountability, but let us do what youre trained to do, trust us to do the right thing. There is an incredible story where they decided three of his teammates were killed because they made a decision dated to let those goat herders in afghanistan go and they brought a taliban army on top of town and marcus was the only survivor. Host before we get into the specific purpose, can you pick up any one of your 18 bucks or do you have to read them in order . Guest one of the best pieces of advice i got when i started in this business was, first of all, i never write intended to write a serious character. I loved the idea that i could visit a new protagonist with a problem and background in each book. My editor sent me down and decide how many times have you bought the book because you wanted to go on another adventure with that same character. It happens all the time. Even if it sounds like maybe the plot isnt something you like, you love the character. I said okay ive got it. That is the Business Model of the franchise character. The next piece of advice for one thing you have to make sure is if somebody goes into a bookstore and before the book is there and they are going to start with you pick never read the other three, make sure they are able to buy about one and enjoy it even if the bookstore doesnt have the first three. So the answer to draw it out is yes, you can start anywhere and you wont be missing a thing. Host welcome to booktv. And our special in depth fiction edition all month long weve had fiction authors and this month it is bestselling novelist and thriller writer brad thor. We will take your calls throughout this three hours but we want to put the numbers up into social media addresses so you can go ahead and start filing in et cetera. Here are the numbers. And for this show today, we want to ask for firsttime calls only. If youve never called booktv before. If youre a fan of brad thor, please call. 202 7488200 with you but in the east and central time zones, 202 7488201 for those of you in the mountain and pacific time zones. Now, you can also send him on facebook, and email booktv is the social media address depending on which system you use. And our email is booktv cspan. Org. We will begin taking those in just a little while. Brad thor, i want to talk about some of the themes that come through the books before we go into the specifics about the. Terrorism is not going away. No time soon. Guest its funny ive got a couple of my friends that are in the defense of history they say peace isnt going to pick out any time soon. I agree with you. Its been interesting, because im trying to juggle all the threats going on in the world. Obviously, islamic terrorism whether it was al qaeda, isis or before al qaeda, which ive covered in my second book. That stuff has been there. With a longer program we could talk about the class of nationalism and the Muslim Brotherhood and all that kind of stuff. Thats one thing. We also have on the cyber front of the warfare if you ar they wg with russia which is very much at the forefront in spy master, things theyve done not only here but in the baltics. Youve got the chinese. There was that big hack where they took a lot of u. S. Navy secrets, everything the north koreans have been up to. The world is a very dangerous place. I continually remind people of america has been one of the greatest forces for good and safety and security in the history of the world, but they are constantly being bombarded. And i think the advent of the internet and our reliance on it has only made us more vulnerable to a different kind of terrorism, cyber terrorism. Host real life events are part of your books. Guest they are. So, its funny some of the stuff happens in my books before it happens in real life candid and sometimes the events are a backdrop. For instance, we traded a couple of years ago in the Previous Administration five gitmo terrorists for the guy that walked off his base, kind of a fire base in afghanistan. And i have done it with fire to that where there was a trade of gitmo terrorists to get somebody. So certain things happen. As i was working into the pit of my second book out, the iraq east put out that they found him and hed been in iraq and committed suicide by shooting himself in the head multiple times. I dont know how you shoot yourself multiple times in the head. The iraqis decided they had no use for him anymore. A lot of that stuff happens because of the way that i read the tea leave leaves but im a voracious consumer of news. I Pay Attention to domestic politics and geopolitics. And i think if you look at it and say what is, and i think that is part of the thriller writers job is to look at reality and say what if, and that helps create some interesting scenarios. One of the things, i dont know stephen king, and i would never, ever consider to judge how hard his work is because its different. Whats interesting, i do look at stephen kings work with a little bit of all. I like his writing but i think it must be interesting to create the parameters of the world that your fiction exists. Your characters exist here, you can move the walls, whatever. I cant do that with my books. If i say a senator has an ability or a navy seal does this or somebody at langley does that. I have very specific walls around my work or guideposts if you dont have to operate there. I dont get the cheapest stuff or i will hear from people if i get it wrong. Host scott invokes murphys law a lot. Guest yeah, that is something that you hear from whether it is a green beret, the seals, dies at the unit. If it can go wrong as well go wrong. The battle plans you can have the best in the world, but the minute the bullets start flying, things change. The mindset of adapt and overcome his pig in my novels. The success of the mantra that success is only option. You have to think on your feet and thats is interesting how they select these guys to be in the delta force or end up on the fuels teams and eventually of at one of the tier one teams. Its interesting. You have to be able to think on your feet. Murphys law is something they can quote chapter and verse because something always goes wrong. Its because the mission depends not only on how it was planned, but how well you handle the thing that invariably went sideways. Host another theme is potentially illegal operations on foreign lands and brutal integrations. Guest yet. So, theres been a lot of that kind of stuff in the book. I think it was Charles Krauthammer the recently passed away and said there are kind of two types of acceptable, morally acceptable interrogations. There is the ok, weve got time, we can work on this guy. We can try to build rapport. It is a misunderstanding about our intelligence operatives and our military people go from zero to 80 in the blink of an eye. They do try to build rapport and realize a lot more can be done without applying difficult as. The other thing that he taught that it was morally acceptable is what you can do under the ticking timebomb scenario. If there is a new pit is going to go off at times square in an hour, you know, you have to be prepared to get rough with somebody. Where is it and how do we defuse that kindiffuse that kind of th. And i think that it was charles that made the joke if you walked onto the floor of the New York Times in the aftermath of 9 11 and said there is a taxi cab speeding towards your building with a bomb and we cannot evacuate the building but they have someone in custody that knows how to stop, how much body and what you have been on the newsroom floor of the times of what they have to do to stop the cab from getting the ear and killing people. So its easy from a distance to say we dont like certain things, and i understand that and i certainly dont want that to be the only tool in the toolbox. I think that the details on the bed rock are a thriller, youre asking somebody the suspended release that is come with you on this journey. One of the pieces if you want to call it that that im most proud of what i hear from men and women in the intelligence field and thats exactly how we do it, i have that or ive done that or i have that problem with my boss that happens again and again, and again, and you nailed the Office Politics thing that follows you into the field, the details for me are important because if im not getting those right, its like a currency, and Building Trust with you. And nothing drives me crazier than to read another author who does Something Like put the safety on a glock, no manual safety, they dont get that right, tells me they did not care enough to go nasa but who is an expert, my books dont happen in a vacuum, if i was not able, i would not be able to get the level of accuracy and detail that i do which is kind of a hallmark of my books that people enjoy it i get those right, i grew up reading, i dont want to give you 20 pages on how a missile works, its important that you understand that we have a special forces team, that for me is the limit, peoples Attention Spans have gotten shorter, i dont know other people can do the chapter links and stuff, perhaps they could, he is god and he has great writers that have continued his work, really strong writers, for me that was the one thing, the best piece of advice i can give is the person people skip, long descriptions about technology didnt enter didnt resonate with me so my books and going to keep it simple with important detail. Have you walked the streets in france or pierce and been to the lake in poland or the streets in syria, et cetera, et cetera. The polish stuff no, that lake is interesting, the lake is half owned by russia, i want to know what it is that look like, i went on google earth, i cannot get an idea, the next step for me if i cannot go visit some place, i want to talk to somebody, not as a tourist but who has operated their, if your life is depended on hope what youre noticing around you could get interesting color detail, i want to talk to maybe somebody that was on a Diplomatic Service Committee Team that had a u. S. Diplomat in the area, cia, Intelligence Officer, special operations and i want to see whether they pick up, a couple of books ago, code of conduct i set off in congo, i was talking to somebody who had operated there a ton, what kind of detail do you want from me, big rough guy, what if nobody else notices, give me a couple ideas, we were not getting there, it was not the stuff that i wanted, i said what im trying to ask, did you notice everybody had the same color a bicycle and he said oh my gosh yeah, they call the bike the black mamba and i said why do they call it the black mamba, they said all the bikes are black and the tires look like a mamba, that kind of opened the door and he understood stuff i was looking for and that became a neat detail for the book and if you gone to the part of the world you will say yeah, that bicycle, he mustve been here or he really does his research. How did you get started in this business, the first book came out in 2002, its a great question, i always wanted to be a writer ever since i was a little boy, my dad is a no longer active marine who got into the construction of ballistic Development Business and my mom was a Flight Attendant in the 1960s through new york, paris new york and the arts in our house for something to make you better rounded, they were not a career path, my dad saw both of his sons, of a younger brother named scott with 1t which is who my protagonist is named after and my dad did a lot of work in the Southern California and everything he worked with went to Southern California in the way they stuck together and hire grads from u usc, he said i want you and your brother to go to usc and Study Business Administration and then come to work and take over the business. I went to usc and i started a Business Administration and i cannot stand it, i was depressed, i did not like it and i went into the Career Counseling Office and they gave me the strong campbell Personality Test where they compare your interest to two or 300 other professionals who love what they do, does not mean you have an aptitude for that career field but it means a very satisfied and what they do, i scored off the charts for writing and publishing. So i change my major by the classes that i took, do not change it on a report card it was still going back home to my dad to chicago same Business Administration for introduction to fiction writing, poetry 101 and all the stuff, my junior year he was a gun and was going on but is two years, no business classes and i had to tell them and he was actually really good about it, he said this make it up to get a finance degree postgrad which i did not do, i went on, i saved money and worked in college and i wanted to write a book so i decided without money that i would go to paris and do something no american has ever done come all moved to pierce and write a novel, i got three chapters into it and shipped my laptop back home, i was afraid of failure, what if i take this year off and read a book that nobody right and it does not get published, it was easier to give into that one and say dont risk it, dont invert herself and then i pitch Public Television on a travel show which was my behavior and the weight of running away from being an author, and showed it very well and after two seasons i married my wife and we were on a honeymoon and she said what would you regret under deathbed of never having it done, she said right on my book and never have a published and i said to ours you write that make it come true. Who were the lion. The liens were based on a newspaper article that i found while i was in amsterdam on my honeymoon with my wife, there was a swift Intelligence Officer real life who had embezzled all this money from the swiss army and was training his own shadow militia with hightech weapons from his own arsenal, i thought to myself if you are training a modern swiss militia, we have the guard to protect the pope, what would a modern swiss militia do, what kind of jobs might they take, i was leading you taught the time in my wife was a dock for the u. S. Ski te team, president clinton had come, i think it was his second visit, two years in a row because chelsea liked to ski in the family would ski in park city and i wish somebody was a secret service, its gotta be a nightmare because you let other people skip the same time as the president. Thats when my idea came and i said this is going to be a president whose keys with his daughter in the swiss is going to get hired because there swiss and good mountains and good in snow and they will capture and take the president hostage during the ski vacation prethats where the idea came from. Was not written prior to 9 11 . Yes it was written prior to 9 11 and we had to stop the press moment where in the lines i talked about the biggest pierce attacks up to that point and he came out in january 2002, just a handful of months after the 9 11 attack, we had to stop the press, go back and as far as we know, i was the first thriller author to be published with a mention of 9 11 in the story. How did 9 11 change the trajectory of your book. It is interesting because i was already writing my second book and i was talking to the head of security for American Airlines before in the runup to 9 11 about a hijacking in conducting hijacking and how American Airlines might respond in the sky was not giving me any information and he said youre the writer, you figured out the last thing we want to do it American Airlines and my wife and i it was very close to 9 11 and i said is the fbi going to show up asking us were asking me why were you pinging the head of security for American Airlines asking these questions. They did not show up, was not an issue but obviously it changed me and that we now have a global effort with islamic extremism and i had been very interested in the islamic faith while at the university of Southern California because we had so many families from around with the downfall of the Southern California has a big persian population and a chicken interested in the different shoe knee and islam and why a small percentage of people can read the quran and the associated text and have a different interpretation in the majority, when the 9 11 attacks happen, i was not surprised they happened but i thought heres an area that is interested in i apply to my thrillers, i always try to balance my books if i had muslim terrorist and theres plenty of books that have momentum of islam at all but i try to be balanced so i have a character in different way to have a bad character i want to be fair like that and it allows the exploration in the exploration into that issue. You got in trouble with the left patriot. I did, the last patriot is really interesting and based on one of my favorite concepts and islam which was fabrication. He said it was a da vinci code of islam, the premise behind the last patriot is theres a chapter missing from the quran, if it could be found it would have an incredible impact on the religion, that in itself created a tremendous amount of trouble, the book got banned in saudi arabia and the quran as accepted by the muslim faith is a perfect copy of the perfect book in heaven, there cannot be a missing chapter, years ago when they did renovation, they found a bunch of old things and its a fascinating idea but the idea that the chapter could be missing in the race was on was not taken while in some areas. Did you get Death Threats . I got a lot of Death Threats, it is interesting because you can write a book about christianity and like my friend dan brown said with a da vinci code and you could do a broadway play and you dont have to worry about getting Death Threats and things like this, islam is interesting in that there are some very serious defenders that they dont even want to criticize like sam harris wrote a great piece in the Huffington Post several years ago when there had been the killing in amsterdam and i had to go on the run because of a hit list was stabbed through his chest and she was on it, but sam harris was a great piece called losing our spines to save our next, it was about how we hamper to work of muslim reformers and looking to advance religion and be able to do like judy who is separating mosque and state and that we dont do the faith of service instead of helping shine light on the areas where theres cracks where reform can come, that was part of the thing that i found interesting in the last patriot and also tied in with thomas jefferson, i used to ask people who is the first u. S. President that went to war against radical islam. It was not george bush or jimmy carter, it was thomas jefferson. In the idea that jefferson mightve been onto a missing chapter from the quran and this becomes irrelevant today, there is a fun thing to do and that thriller. This is a quote from the magazine in 2016 of yours, if mohammed came back today and handed out trophies to who the best muslims were, isis would get them, alqaeda would get them, practicing islam exactly the way he told them to practi practice. Not necessarily the best in the character of the people but people who were practicing the religion he weighed he wanted to practice. The majority of muslim people just want to get along with the neighbors, their christians as friends, jews as friends, they want to get Good Opportunity to get them into good schools in the same as you and i would with our children, there is that group and isis was in particular where they were going back to a seven century idea with what islam should be and where you dont take jews and christians for your friends you use the barbaric ways that they were torturing and taken from the cron and things like this, a fascinating discussion to have because iran is not organized chronologically and actually organized the length of the passages in the book and when i have discussions with people who dont like me to talk about religious text being used to support violence, your despair y picking, it was divided into two portions, he started out in mecca where he was preaching peacefully and then he went to medina where he got very powerful, wealthy and he became increasingly less tolerant of people to believe him and join his religion, you see the passages happening in his life than earlier in the concept that i talk about when we started talking about the last patriot, the concept happened because his apostles came to him and said mohammed, you told us this three years ago and now youre contradicting yourself, how is that possible, the age of gabriel gives us direct and is perfect, he cannot contradict himself, and put mohammed in a difficult situation and he went away for a couple days, came back and share this with his followers and said if i give you something today, that contradicts what i told you yesterday, forget your luncheon yesterday focus on what i told you today. If there was this chapter, final revelation that could change everything, his last which i fictionalize, that could be the entire religion, that would be an absolute game changer, it was meant to be a great set of muslim characters, very positive, it was meant to be fair but a fearless exploration of what was going on in that part of islam, that discussion that is raging of people who dont want change and people who do. Another theme, they are very successful very beautiful. I dont think anybody wants to see anything but a beautiful book want to grow when they go to a bond movie. I am surrounded in what i do by incredibly intelligent incredibly successful women mother is my editor, my wife, my agent, i am very fortunate to work with the people that i do and 70 that works for me in my office to my executive Vice President , when i write these women, i dont want them to be windowdressing, i have a huge female readership and being respectful for the commitment and women have to wor twice as d and a lot of these industries, weathers espionage or military or Law Enforcement i think no one has to work twice as hard and a lot of these things are physical endeavors and they had to be twice as tough, it is my way of recognizing and honoring these women and i think its fun to have them be attractive and things like that, because my men are too, it is very cinematic when i write these books, i see them unfolding like a movie before my eyes sewing casting as they go along, peggy get jessica biel, thats great itll be jessica biel, if its going to be Jennifer Gardner then its Jennifer Gardner. Often cut out pictures of actors and actresses and have them on the desk particular he would have multiple people in a novel and it helps me keep track of them and i know whose personality goes were. Who is scott when you cut out a picture. It changes from time to time, ill tell you who is on my mind when i was writing spymaster. My latest. It comes on tuesday, i saw josh and the way he was in the cario and it just came out friday two days ago because josh roland being an intel guy that was still in the field and picking up a rifle, he is taken every shortcut he can, hes not going to run ten box, they can get in his car and knock the guy over, thats what is going to do to even up the score now that hes creeping up in his 40s. So josh into cario was a little bit of the character touch stone because i love that movie, i think its a brilliant movie. How comes there have not been 18 movies. Thats a great question and i hope people from hollywood are watching, is one of the most disappointing things for me that we have not had a movie made. I think i have a certain reputation in hollywood as a guy who writes about islamic terrorist and hollywood does not want to touch that, they will touch russian bad guys or american neonazis. Try to think back, when was the last time i saw major hollywood release which had muslim bad guys, i go back to kurt russell in an executive decision, you have to go way back into the 90s, i joke were not at war with the irish, it was 19 guys from county cork that flew airplanes in the buildings, i think you can explore the things like islamic terrorism and what it means without demeaning a billion people, i think you can do that and i think film offers a great opportunity to put a story out there. But hollywood does not seem to want to touch that stuff, in that respect we have a lot of offers come in and then we work through the process and get to a level where studio has got to sign off on it in half my books dont even have muslim terrorists, take the movies, if i got nine movies made, that would be great and get me into my golden years, my old age, i would love to see nine movies made three years or two years, fantastic. But there seems to be a reluctant which is misplaced and thats whats disappointing. Spymaster, the most recent were talking russia and poland and nato, i dont recall any muslim characters in the book. In the code of conduct, and all had to do with somebody at the un in creating a viral, it was all about a series of murders taking place around boston and look like things that happen in the American Revolution to influence things that the federal reserve, i normally dont say its about the fed when i publicize it because it seems how can you make that sexy and how to be a thriller but that is just one of several examples where the lines were certain, the swiss martian errors, there was one muslim guy but the swiss brought them along to drop them on the scene to make the fbi think it was, that was one guy for two pages and that was all. Another theme, intergovernmental intrigue in the u. S. There is a lot of that, i talk to family members and things like this and not close immediate family members but friends who talk about intrigue and conspiracy in d. C. And this is the State Government that cannot run the post office, all these things that put on d. C. That makes for interesting fiction and we find it very easy to believe that there are forces behind the scenes, puppeteers that are controlling everything and i think that makes for interesting reading, i grope reading things like that so the three days of the condor with Robert Redford was seven days and fascinating and they were potentially be a group that read books looking for plots for the cia and all this kind of stuff. I think that intergovernmental intrigue makes for attention they can about the deep state politics, he sent out a tweet in april that we want to show her viewers, nobody else stepped up you were going to run against President Trump. My interest with that, that is born an incredible frustration, i was told im a father, ive two children and one of the things, you and i dont own this country, we are stewards regardless of how you vote or i vote, we are stewards of this republic, it succumbed it upon us to hand down a stronger for your more prosperous nation to the next generation. We nearly safeguarded and then handed on, we are not doing a good job of responding 1. 3 trillion on the spending bill. That was the pinnacle of my frustration because i been told of republicans could only control the house things and start happening and if we could only get on the Senate Things and start happening and if we put a republican in the oval office, things would change, im tired of listening to my political party, i dont want anything to do with republicans anymore, talking about fiscal responsibility, that is a National Security issue in somebody who writes thrillers and things like that, im very concerned about national issues, to have a republican, they control everything, they controlled all, they of the white house and congress and they put out the budget and the president signed it, that was reprehensible, we were promised that would not happen, i did the tweet because i was so upset and then i had a realization after words. Number one, im not running for president because to run i have to get to the republican primaries, thats what i was more interested in getting on the debate stager donald trump and not being afraid or confronted to bring up issues but i have to be part of the Republican Party to do that and i dont want to be part of the Republican Party anymore. It is not going to happen, go over to the Libertarian Party and my friend was pushing me too run, the president ial candidate, and just focus on my thrillers, thats what im going to do the old chinese curse is that you live in interesting times, the really interesting and its just crazy. Is it accursed to be a conservative writer . I find myself a conservatory and. Im conservative when it comes to financial issues, im not conservative when it comes to social issues, i have tons of gay friends and i believe the government should not tell you what to do, nor who to do it with, im very much with h. W. Bush, he had a great tweet during pride month in the family put out and thats exactly what he said, the government should not tell you who to be in love with. Im conservative when it comes to debt and deficit and keeping a good financial house in order, the rest is libertarian, i want the government to leave me alone and be as small as possible and i want to be judged by the people my community, my neighbors and the people at the churches and that kind of stuff, the closer you keep control and decisionmaking and to the impacts, the wiser the decisions will become i dont think the federal government should tell some guy what to do, it is not my thing. As a writer and painted with the brush, i think the only people here conservative and they got a terrible review in the Washington Post but it was all about me and not about my book. I got great reviews, people who really read these books, i got somebody that only wanted to talk about my politics and i said this is interesting because if you want to review my politics, that is on me, as a reviewer i would hope that you can put the writers politics aside and what i think the shame is the person who did the review saw me in a certain light and decided that he would signal to his fellow travelers because he doesnt think and act like us, what the shame, they cannot have a lot more in common than he thinks we do, i think we could go to lunch or dinner and have a lovely civil time and find out that we agree on a lot, this is my big thing with all the politicals and toxicity and politics right now, theres so much more that unites us and divide us, the end of the day were americans, i dont want to be a 9 11 the hostile pull us together, this idea that i cannot talk to you because you did not vote for trump or you voted for bernie or i did not vote for hillary, whatever it may be is silly. Its not healthy for our republic. As a reader of brad, nicholas has grown on me and i dont trust him. Nor does nicholas his employers. I do not trust him. Thats probably a good thing, some people have not read my fillers, nicholas is a character who started out as a bad guy and suffers from dwarfism, hes under 3 feet tall, he grew up with very brittle bones and they did not thank you going to live any has. The one question i get more and more people say word is a character come from, you have the troll, a little person that is a master in cyber and has made his living blackmailing people through the appropriate enter purchase of intelligence and its interesting because the place he came from is not very exciting, i had my kids and we watched a lot of dora the explorer and theres a grumpy old troll under a bridge and you have to figure out riddles. My kids used to ask me about that, then my children as i took them to the neighborhood where we used to live there was an actual little person, we would see this person going to work every day, very sharply dressed and my kids say where you think this person goes to work and it did something in my mind and for the character i love the troll under the bridge, and if you do not have even a normal size height, what rome could you be successful is, if it can happen in between your years or your brain matter what might you do if you really had a powerful intellect and thats where the troll came from the combination of the person who lived in my neighborhood, the door explorer and they really developed a relationship with the person but nobody else around him thinks its a good idea, i think youre right not to trust him. Lets take some calls, first time caller only today and lets hear from mike who is calling in from nashville, tennessee. Hey brad, im a real big fan and a real smart guy, i am sorry to hear that you are not running for president and you have great hair, used to have hair like you, ill get on to my question, in your first book, these are page turners, i just love them, scott is skiing down the mountain with the president s daughter in his arms and their being chased by an avalanche. For the day and that is kind of where we spend our time on the weekends together with ski passes. Good question. Host on in new york. Good afternoon. Caller good afternoon. Ive been watching with great interest. Thank you, mr. Thor and put tv. I wanted to ask mr. Thor if his name influenced his sensibilities and writing at all, and i also want to suggest that for his next thriller he could do a reluctant author pulled into a political campaign. [laughter] anyway, you are a very engaging personality. Thank you for writing all of your great books. Guest thank you for that. I appreciate it. A lot of people ask me is brad thor might real name, and it is. Way back i think in the 18 hundreds, the Spanish Government said we have so many [inaudible] and that used to be because they would take your dads name and add the sun or daughter depending on the gender. Thank god we had a great, great grandfather who said we are going to be thor. So im very pleased with that. Brad thor works very well on a book cover. Host if you cant get through on the phone lines, you can do that on the social media and people scroll through those addresses here as we go but this is a question from facebook. Larry wants to know how many more scot harvath books do you envision adding update on lions of guest great question. Scot harvath isnt going anywhere anytime soon. Hes doing everything he can to stay in the field and i think that you will enjoy seeing what hes up to in spy master. Spy master. He still wants to be out in the action. As far as the other, theres no updates. We are kind of at a standstill in hollywood. In fact, i just took a big meeting on spy master, where some hollywood producers bob spy master would be a great place to start with the franchise so its up in the air, and i dont count my chickens before they hatch. We had a good thing going but it didnt materialize. There are stories about movies that almost got made and finally did. Back to the future is an incredible story of how long it took to get it made. Its incredible. Host so, when did you start working on spy master . Because its talking about social media and the use of the russians and election disruption or propaganda guest last summer. When i went on the tour this time last year kind of the end of july is when i started writing it. There was so much going on. And it wasnt just here. You looked with the russians were doing in Eastern Europe and i was fascinated by something. September 30 of this year, we will celebrate actually, celebrated as the wrong word. They will recognize the anniversary of the munich pact where hitler and mussolini got together with metal chamberlain in france, and a chunk of czechoslovakia and they said they wanted to protect the land, and it has very much the echoes of what happened with the Crimean Peninsula where putin was saying we want to protect ethnic russians in all this kind of stuff. So history doesnt repeat, but it does brian and so we start to see some shape of that and that is in spy master as well. Host lets hear from dan in jackson heights. Caller i read your stuff because i was a number of years involved in that area. I had the feeling that in the novel i did read there is an appreciation of how insightful to feel what you are covering and how the people who make things go or not the action people, and actually a lot of the people who die in the end are not the people that started this operation. I was wondering if you think you might be [inaudible] into the other thing i wanted to say is [inaudible] to have hybrid and insight it might be interesting to show how much you appreciate the field and how much is habit and how much is inside, because insight is a specificity for where you are and what you are doing. To grasp what say the new biology of this and then apply it to a field that is mental and very little physical or novel did a good setup of that. Guest thank you. One of my favorite film characters us from jackson heights, so its kind of neat to get a call from there. Randy watson, great film character. Thats fascinating. So i agree with you. I get to do a a lo lot of traing with people on the novels. And theres a lot of. They say you train like you fight and fight like you train. You brought up the habit and insight. Its absolutely fascinating, the challenge for me would be how i make that exciting. How i get people to turn the pages and give them just a little bit of that to learn why thats important. And that probably is a very interesting insight the readers would enjoy saliva file that away and think about it Going Forward thank you for the suggestion. Host another theme that theres a lot of safe houses in the world. Is there truth behind that . Guest it depends on yes, they exist, and its something thats very, very necessary. Sometimes they are temporary. They are setup just for a certain operation. There is something i talk about in my book called the capability kid, thats kind of a suitcase with currency and some cards for phones. Going back to murphys law again, youve got to expect murphy is going to show up at the worst possible time. Its going to throw the operation into chaos. And if you are going to fix it on the run, if you can catch it for a couple of seconds just to think thats helpful so that is why does exist. Host have you started work on the followup to spy master . Guest i have. My wife, their is a guide to the galaxy, Douglas Adams and he had a great quote about deadlines. He said i like deadlines. I like the sound they make when they go whooshing die. I missed my deadline on spy master. I kept wanting to tweak things and tune them. I put simon and schuster up against the wall. Its neither difficult and it was time for the editing and publishing. Stuff in the real world was changing and i wanted to look to the north news that already happened but that is about to happen. I kept saying weve got to do this and the fact. My wife didnt like that, having me in my Office Seven Days a week and working that hard and night. My family is incredibly supportive. If thats what it takes to get the book done, they support me. They will bring a tray of dinner. With my kids i have a beautiful waiter and waitress to come over and give me a hug and say they hope the book i puck is going o. But the goal is with the next one, i have started it, is to actually get it put to bed in the fall so i can have a lovely christmas and go out shopping with the family and not have everything be a lastminute run. Host you are hoping to finish by this fall, the followup. Guest late fall of 2018. Host the ending of spy master is frustrating. [laughter] guest he made that very clear before we went on the air how you felt about that. As i told you and i will repeat for the viewers, it is what the news told me to do. I had no choice. I am a big fan of ndp leader of personal responsibility and taking responsibility for your actions. When the news says to do something, i do not ignore. If she says this is what youve got to do, i trust that. If i second guess the news too much, it takes off. Up from where shes sitting and she will go someplace else. And it is a nightmare to bring it back. But you had a reaction to it. Its the first thing we talked about when i met you. So ive done something. Even if it makes you angry, ive done something. I think theres probably other readers that are going to have the same reaction, but there is a blogger called the real books by said the ending of spy master is an absolute jaw dropper of an ending. That was one of the callouts he did in his review. I hope people really like it and its something they appreciate and excites them. If they just look it over i havent done my job. Bringing out the emotion in you, ive done my job at host if people ou out there are brad thor fans, that means they followed scot harvath through his career as a secret Service Agent and operative, and now private cia operative, could you envision killing him off . Guest wow. Host there would be some anger out there. Guest there probably would be. I dont i have no plans to do that, and i couldnt imagine doing that without being sure that the supporting cast i put together were enough to keep the readers excited. I mean, people tell me they plan vacations around these books. Its important to know when the release date is, because they want to read this over vacation. I have no plans to kill scot harvath off. I cant think of the worst career move than to kill him off. I can see coming off this book doing a spinoff book for two of the younger operatives and maybe dealing with some of the stuff in this book and having them go out on their own. And seeing other readers react to be unpacking the the master vectors. But scot harvath is still coming back. Hes still kicking in doors and shooting bad guys. So thank you for giving a collective view. No im not going to kill him off. Host there were a couple of insights in spy master where it seemed like you were promoting his successor. Guest i think its important. So, scot harvath tracks some people i know that are out there doing these things. When i talk about what he has to do physically to stay in the field, i know people who are doing those things. I did and just pulled that out of thin air. So its really and he does wake up in the morning and need to pop a couple of motrin to get his day going and stuff like that. It is real and thats what i try to do in these books. I wanted to be exciting. The action starts on page one, short, crisp, cinematic chapters but i need to find it believable, likable and relatable. He cant just theres some characters are a reader that i loveilove that has never aged, d thats great, but it isnt hes always kind of tracked with my age. So there was a year here i slowed down a little bit. Because i am not actually enjoying having a year every year to my life. It beats the alternative, dont get me wrong. But scot harvath is going to be around for a long time doing interesting things coming at itg to be a combination of things. The early reviews on this have beehasbeen so positive with hows kind of looking at balancing those things that i think this is probably it depends on what the readers think, not what i think, but i hope ive created one of the most engaging and revealing books about scot harvath and this will end up being one of peoples favorites out of the 18 that ive written. Host is hulk juice a real thing . Guest yes. Whenever you are on an airplane looking in the magazine and see that there is that ad where the guy is bold and gray, but he is like a hulk i had them take me to a facility where they get tuned up before the combine and everything. It was amazing to see that they were doing for their physical therapy. The special Operations Community realized that a lot of these injuries that Football Players are getting, the same thing is happening with the seals and delta force guys and we should be combining to take the were bringing the techniques or even better can we bring our own operatives down to train at the facility to rehabilitate . You have a lot of time and money invested in these incredibly brave people in the special Operations Community. The quicker and better can help them, the quicker they will return to the field and they can get back out doing business for the nation that needs to get done. The physical therapy stuff and the diet stuff thats going on, theres other places that are looking at what works, with performanceenhancing drugs, because there are no banned substances when it comes to fighting bad guys. If you want to use steroids, used steroids, growth hormone, its all out there. Theres a list of substances he will not be doing, not hard drugs and stuff like that. You see that with the bad guys. So, you will see speed when the hotel attack have been favorite for 46 hours just handfuls of speed. That is and what our guys do. But if theres something in medical science that can give you an edge whether it is muscle mass, ability to get on target and fire faster than the guy targeting you, that is fair game and why shouldnt we be trying to make the war fighters the best they can be. Host john is in michigan. Good afternoon. You are on booktv with author brad thor. Caller good afternoon. That is an excellent segue to the question i was going to ask. I dont know if youd call it a complication with scot harvath, has that ever really been kind of caught up in your mind because i know you are a fan of [inaudible] guest she has a wonderful character named mitch. We have the same publisher and i got to know him before i was ever published. He was kind enough to say what they give you an introduction to my agent. Hes an incredible writer. So his books are fantastic. We get a lot of fans. Unfortunately, several years ago he passed due to cancer into the jungle and a writing his books now, kyle and i are buddies and i knew him before i became a writer. My godfather and his dad were in the fbi together. So, it is an interesting question. There was no competition between me and mitch as far as we basically share a lot of the same readers because my books were an on ramp to his books, and especially early in my career, his books were an on ramp to mine. So its always been a nice overlap. But a lot of fans would love to see a team that. I think ill would do it at the end of the day it comes down to how much time do we have in a year to write something. And then with the estate would they agreed to team us up. Now i do have two thriller bodies, jim and steve, and i think it was steves idea one year that we all write the others being tricked her into one of our books. I dated for jim and steve we all did it and every once in a while someone will pop up on facebook or twitter if they keep this character in your book and i will joke i ought to sue him. Its kind of an easter egg for the fans that love the genre to see my character or others. Host i think one of your seals at one time was reading a brad meltzer. Guest i love brad meltzer if you ever have the chance to interview him hes one of the smartest and nicest. Of the people ive met in my industry, along with jim and steve and so many others, David Morrell who is one of the reasons i wanted to become an author. So many good people. And brad meltzer is at the top of the list. He was also in the department of Homeland Security when i was working. Host we will talk about that in a few seconds. Brad meltzer will be on our special section in depth edition in december. And if you go to booktv. Org, weve interviewed adults are several times you can find that online, booktv. Org. What was the red unit . Guest in the aftermath we talked about 9 11 a little bit. Before the 9 11 Commission Report ever came out, the federal government realized that what had happened on september 11 was largely due to a failure of imagination on our part, on the governed is part. One of the criticisms is that they were always fighting in the Rearview Mirror expecting the next fight to look like the last and that they hadnt been created enough. When did of Homeland Security stood up, they enacted the red unit, and the idea was lets not all just sit around the washington beltway inside the beltway talking about what the next attack might look like. Lets bring in some creative thinkers from outside who dont think like us at all that have interesting minds. So, brad meltzer, me, michael bay who did the transformer movies, the director, they brought us in and put us in rooms, probably the most forward thinking federal program i have ever seen. And i and the limited governmet make the government as small as possible, this is one of the best things i had seen them do. They said okay, we are going to talk about different scenarios. If you were a lone terrorist with these resources, what would you do and if you were in a group what targets would you be interested in. It was basically a big think tank on steroids. And they paired us up with people from different agencies across the government spectrum. And thats what would have been. If you had this what might you do. And i remember, i told people that it the las vegas of government programs. What happens in the red cell program stays in the red cell program. I have to agree i could never use any of it for my books. For me, the son of someone whose life had been made in the United States marine corps, meaning they made my dad then he is. He got to see the world, went to college on the g. I. Bill. For my country to ask the see of service not about picking up a rifle butt to use my brain and think was an incredible honor. I said i will pay my own way. I dont want a per diem stipend. I will do this 100 voluntarily out of my own pocket and thats what i did. But i remember one attack that happened somewhere in the world and it was a scenario that i had been working on in the red zone. I called my team leader and i said can i talk about this now that its in the news and he said no you cant. The only thing they ever let out publicly, the kind of stuff was terrorists targeting communities who were about to be hit by a hurricane. Think about people being titled into shelters and emergency vehicles being marshaled away from kind of the eye of the storm so they could rush in and of those being targets, those were the only thing made public. That is a scenario and i can tell you that they could even further than that kind of stuff. To get a bunch of creative people together and to channel them and not let them go off in wild directions is like herding cats. They really were incredible with how they handled this. And it gave me so much faith in the steps they are taking to keep the country safe and keep americans safe both at home and abroad it was an unbelievable thing to be asked to be part of. Host lets hear from jeremy in massachusetts. Please go ahead. Caller hello. An ion . Host you are. Caller i wanted to ask brad thor a question. [inaudible] guest great question. So the tweet was come and he has it a little bit wrong. Hes asking if it was divisive the stand i took offered in two by George Zimmerman a gun after his trial. Im a big believer in personal accountability. The police were only minutes away and after he was acquitted by the department of justice under eric holder had said we are not going to give him his gun back. They were slow walking an investigation on their own saying hes not going to get his gun back and i thought here i ia guy acquitted by a jury of his peers yet now the department of justice its almost like double jeopardy. Heres the department refusing to get his gun back and i said if the department doesnt want to ge give him back one, i willy for one for him. I will buy one essentially whether it is a gift card i can strawman purchase a gun for him, but i can understand the interpretation might be that its divisive. From nine position i thought here is a guy that needs protection. He has tons of Death Threats and i dont think the government should be able to keep their boot on the neck of an american citizen whos already gone through the Justice System due process. There was no finding they were kind of saying in the department of justice there may have been a civil rights violation. There was nothing found in his trial in florida that said i was there. My thing is okay the department wants to keep their gun, if he needs one, i believe that he there was no legal reason he shouldnt have one so that is the position i took. Some people didnt like it. I understand, but thats where im coming from. I am a believer in the Second Amendment and people should be empowered to protect themselves, their property and their family. Host we are talking with bestselling novelist and writer brad thor this month on in depth. 202 7488200 for those in the east and central time zones, 202 7488201 mountain and pacific time zones. Zones. Firsttime callers only today. Andrea is in washington. Caller hello, this is andrea. And i am half norwegian and my husband is also half norwegian and i joke that my dad would only let me date someone that had norwegian. [inaudible] your name as a new author was new to me and i just finished the book and i thought your name [inaudible] i turned the tv on and there you are. I wanted to tell you i finished madalyn operates book on fascism and that is pretty heavy reading for me. I like mysteries. Anyway, i was delighted to see you this morning. Thank you so much for writing and i will read all of your books. Thank you. Guest thank you. You have an absolutely lovely last name. And im glad to hear that. I will tell you, peter, one of the things, she said she saw my name on the bus has a new author. A lot of people ask me about the reading devices and if i like them. It has a big pro. That, whether it is a kindle or ipad, when somebody gets to the end of one of my books they can automatically get the next one. Thats great. Youve got them right there. The con is you dont know what anybodys reading when they are on the device if it is on a bus or subway or you pass somebody at the beach or the lake. I think weve lost a little bit of the fun of seeing people read a book. I used to get on airplanes and think that is the fifth time ive seen this or that book. How do you like it, because i am seeing it everywhere. So, im always glad to hear from ththe reader is particularly no one could see how they discovered me. So we are doing bus advertising in washington and a reader had my butt out, thank you. Host your name when you look at your book titles, your name is as big if not bigger than the book title. Guest i hate to apply this to books but everything seems to be a brand. So its nike or whatever and i want it to be recognizable for folks and they see it because my job is to get better with each book. The people that read my books, those are my bosses, those are the people i work for. With each book i strive to do better than the last one. So i think you are buying a brad thor book for research and experience and my promise is and will always be my best work. Host is there a formula that you use . Is there an outlying . Guest there are some hallmarks where the action happens on page one, short, cinematic chapters. The only thing that i do, is to tell me where i am in the book, i will do a microsoft spreadsheet into his columns, so the chapter, the number, where its happening, what time of day and what is happening in the chapter and i color code them so i can see its been six chapters since weve last seen scot harvath. Maybe now it is time to bring him back that the changes each book. If i laid them out you would see a different rhythm for each book and that is guiding me. Its hard work. I think it was Dorothy Parker said i dont like writing i like having written and i think that is a good wine. Its good writing, good reading is darn hard writing. Host you started your book tour today. We appreciate that. Do you enjoy the book to her and meeting fans . People who love to read a passion, for me like a book club and i get a talk about my books and ask what the reading and what do they like and what do they want to see more of, for me its a lot of fun, theres authors that dont go out on the road, it is fun, i enjoy it, and a hotel room and im away from my family but my readers are my second family so its great to be out and see them. How many people have walked up to you and said i found you at an airport. [laughter] thats a big one, airports are big place, and how that happened a lot, a friend of mine before he passed away used to accost people in airports and put me on the phone if he saw them reading my book. It used to drive me crazy, a stranger walks up and hand you a phone and said you need to talk to this person right now, like your daughter just been kidnapped but thats a big way of people discovering but the big weight is wordofmouth, there is no better marketing mechanism than an author and somebody to handle book and say love this author, thats why i give them as gifts, its one of the nicest things you can give. Nighmike, new york. Good afternoon. Thank you. So my question is, i know brad is a fan of all old hollywood and purdom stayed a couple of times, we keep hearing him say who he would like to play in the modern area, i was curious if he could have anybody from classic hollywood, who would he have . Thats an awesome question and ive never been asked in but i tell you steve look clean, the young steeple queen, i heard he was a marine and he had all the right combinations, one of the things i talked to hollywood, thank you for such a great question, as a talk to hollywood about current actors, one thing i keep coming up with is the intelligence level of the actor, it cannot just be a pretty face, one of the reasons i found matt damon so believable of jason bourne in the movies, a quick fact when he goes to his safety deposit box in switzerland and pulls out his passport to see who he is, thats my exact birthdate, people make fun of thats august 21, 1969 but the thing that cemented boarding for me, i read those books as a kid, how smart matt damon is, you can see it in his eyes, there are some great actors i would never want because they think their pretty faces and not intelligent so ive always use matt damon, not as the actor but thats the smarts that youre going to have to have in a guy that plays on. A tweet that came out a year or two back, you can see on your screen. [laughter] what are we looking at. That happened at this time last year during bridge gate it was the aftermath of bridge gate when the beaches were shut down and Chris Christie decided to go, the governor of new jersey has a couple of houses, the Governors Mansion but also a beach house and that was over the fourth of july weekend and Chris Christie was on the beach with family and friends in the way we came to doing this, he was not reading my book but i was on the phone with a guy that does my website and we were watching this unfold in real time and he said you know what governor christie is missing and he said yes and what is amazing, only a handful of journalists reached out to meet on twitter to say is this a real picture or photoshop, i think ap and reuters reached out but its amazing how many took as legit and in fact there was a writer for the Boston Herald that absolutely hated christies got and said not only is he on the beaches, he is reading a trash novel and then the guy tags me in his tweets, hello brad, hes not only taken a shot at christie but also at me and i guarantee he didnt reduce the force and i said lighten up francis, it was a joke but it was amazing how people were so upset about christie that he sitting there reading a book as nothing going on but we had more fun in watching it and thats my most successful tweet that what may go viral, people are way too serious. Another theme in your book, its been increasing over the years, the use of technology and social media. It is a big thing i really focused on technology and i did some stuff in the black list was where i drilled down on it, theres a double edge sword, i have a problem, i dont like Bradley Manning or reality winner, i think the idea that the 20 somethingyearold kids are going to have to decide what is going to be in the public realm and what is it, if you think there is not much malfeasance in government you can get to rand paul, hes the biggest championship but a champion for privacy, the idea that youre going to dump it and put all the stuff out there i dont like that. Also at the same time i dont like it truce of spying and that the nsa is set up for the facility to destroy all the metadata and i would rather see tax breaks given to Companies Like verizon and sprint and if they have to give it up, you have to get a warrant from a judge and if they are going to monitor phone calls, even if its a computer monitoring for keywords, theres a keyword hit does that mean the listen to the next phone calls or does that mean the next word the keyword they can go back and listen to the phone call that happened and thats being recorded, i have a concern about this and how certain technology and ive been fascinated if theyre looking for bad actors coming together, they can look at your water bill. Somebody is flushing the toilet, you must have more people there, lets look at your group of friends, this guy built in poughkeepsie is not flushing his toilet, his water consumption has gone down, lets look at his credit card, hes been go buying gas and is on his way to d. C. , theres all these Ways Technology can be used in in the Brookings Institute they did a fascinated study, not a view u. S. Government but what they found the cost of data datastorage the amount of surveillance they were doing was going up in one of the big problems you have with camera footage being held for a long time and things like this that you created per crossing of torreon time machine for the government can go back and there is a case decided in michigan whether or not the gentleman cell phone Tower Records can be used to place him in context even the proximity of a crime and could they do that without securing a warrant, theres a lot of individual freedom issues that come up with technology and i also think theres a lot of good that can happen as far as preventing things that can happen but theres a butchered phrase that get situated to ben franklin which a lot of people say he did not say, those who would trade a little security for a little added a little bit of freedom for little security deserve neither and will deserve both. He warned us when he was on the today show in the 70s after the commission that he had overseen, he said very soon will get to a point surveillance wise this is in the 70s where the government has the power to know everything telegrams and phone calls and mail and if the government ever turns its years in from looking outside of the United States to inside the United States, that will be something we have crossed and nothing to get back. What happened after 9 11, those years got turned in, under the banner of safety and we had a tremendous track record of keeping america safe, there have been some attacks but there hasnt been anything like 9 11, that is really a tradeoff that we need to be discussing as citizens and stewards of the republic, and the things that might protect us today are the same thing that could go toward rounding up my son or yours at some point in the future, their Scary Technology that is incredibly invasive in my opinion should not exist, i dont think theres enough of a public safety, im worried that things could be abused. Thats my biggest fear. The protagonist scott has used basal recognition technology. He has is very interesting and not only they try to get bad guys but also in real life created incredible problem for all your intelligence operatives, used to be able to stay passports and go to this country in that country and everybody has the cameras and doing facial recognition it makes it very difficult to slip in and out of assumed identities. It is a tool but there is also the potential for abuse and thats what im concerned about, the private citizens having their liberty infringed on by the government without due process. Next call is jim in brooklyn. Hi, how are you. Im a big fan ive been a big fan when i picked it up on vacation in 2002, im wondering why under book tours you never stop in new york city. From your lips to my publishers ear, they seem to think getting enough fans in new york might be tough but we pack our events only go to new jersey. I think they see as downtown manhattan, i would like to try it, if you will agree to come to that event, im guessing you would, i will be seeing my publisher tomorrow and i will tell him i had a public request on the tv to do a signing in new york city and i would like to give it a try. Even if jim shows up we will have a great time, ive always said that from the beginning get the rock and roll musicians and they get upset if the stadium is not full, those people are there for show and ive always thought my leaders, people come to my book signing should get the same energy and enthusiasm and show that that would be there if there were a thousand times more people in the room, im going to use jim as a lover and will see if we can get something put together. You think in the acknowledgments, the assignment in chief, and your editor, how long has she been your editor and she has her own imprint. She does its an interesting story, on my honeymoon, my wife and i shared an overnight trade ride from munich to amsterdam and i had my travel show, i did a lot of train travel and i thought i wanted a private compartment on my honeymoon in the show was being written by a group out of new york that do the real passes that you can buy and as a wedding present they gave us this overnight train ride as we wanted, its a great way to save money if youre on a budget, we were newlyweds in the last leg of our trip we could not get a private compartment i was driving my wife crazy in every time i was like theyre going to get a cancellation, we ended up going, we had been at oktoberfest, i learned the hard way that beer is much stronger in germany than here and i got on the train with an oktoberfest hangover dreading that we would have miserable compartment mates and it turned out to be a lovely brother in sister from atlanta, georgia and as i told you before if we have a shared love of books we have a same language in the sister was a huge lover of books and we spent the entire night talking about books and we only got an hour or two of sleep and she and her brother were a fan of my tv show and they love to travel when they go on vacation, and we put on the station in amsterdam, she said what are you going to do when you get home will you make more tv shows and i told my wife i would get a book and publish it. When we exchanged business cards, she was a sales representative, she said if i can help you, let me know, she read the manuscript and eventually got it to one of the top editors in the business and emily has been my editor and now my publisher that she has her own imprint, shes been my editor from the getgo in my publisher for several years. David from ohio. I enjoy your comment and i have a question and i hope its not a dumb one, what would you call your Favorite Book that you wrote, theyre all like your children but which one were you pleased about writing. David are you a brad thor reader. Yes i have read some. What is your favorite . Im not read that much. Take you for calling and. You took half my answer david, i say they like my children and how do you pick your favorite child. To be honest with you, it sounds like a madeup answer, my favorite is always the one im currently working on, David Morrell who in love is a fabulous author and wrote rambo and he likes to tell people he is rainbows daddy, he wrote a great book about writing in its Lessons Learned from a lifetime of writing, he often should not talk about the subject matter or anything within the book they are currently writing because every time you do that you take the energy away, the idea for the book is supposed to feel you throw a whole year, i get really excited about the next book because often when im working on now and i get amped up, if i have to say what im publishing, that is fine master, thats the hardest i ever had to write because things were changing in the geopolitical world and they raise the bar so high for myself as far as what i wanted to do with Character Development and story and it took a lot of risks and i did not know how fans would react to, i did not know where the edge is and how much was internal struggle that i could show and what i found from the early viewers, it was the right amount and people enjoyed the insight and it helped him feel closer like they better understood him, a lot of action in the book but the human struggle as well as the internal struggle as well as the external. You write about Current Events that are going on in the world that is focused on russia, do you personally see russia as a threat. Always have i do, i think their huge threat and it is one of the things that is interesting and particularly with the angle of the book in the article five that is in the nato treaty which is an attack on one is an attack on all, thats only been invoked once and we invoked it after september 11 and we asked our partners to help us come fight in afghanistan. One of my underlying questions that was going through my mind what i read to the book, if one of the smaller nato members got attacked, would we go support them or is america to war weary and i have a fictional president in my book, its important that people understand that i make my politics fictional in the book its not about the Trump Administration or the obama administration, certain things are happening particularly, the timing is unbelievable that President Trump will go to the nato summit in a couple weeks but this idea of wood america agreed to get into another war in europe to protect a country that most americans could probably not find on a map, there are some americans ive not heard of a couple of these countries and if put putin rolled in and took them it would be different the way russia is set up to get them back and what would that mean for nato because russian and putin sees the two biggest enemies the United States and nato, if he can weaken the nato alliance, he thinks its good for him and he wants to reconstitute the soviet union and he wants the breakaway sovereign nations back in the fact that we let him take the crimea peninsula, that only encouraged hitler to do more and that is my worry about putin that we will see history, maybe not repeat but rhyme. If somebody picks up spymaster, the discussions about nato, are they going to learn a little history of nato, true history. Im a thrilled writer, my job is to entertain you, book in hand toes in the sand, i want you to have a White Knuckle thrill ride i dont wanted to be heavy, i wanted to be fun, easy and you skip it across the top of the waves and is over before you know it and like wow i only wanted to read one chapter but i read 12. That is the goal of the book and thats my job as a writer, if you just asked, you close the book and you go while i learned a little bit i know a little bit more and it did not feel like i was learning things, i have some fans alike to deep dive and say they read with their laptops open because they cannot believe certain things that are happening in the story are true and they search them up and it exist, that is a cherry on top of a brad thor thriller youll close it smarter but it will not feel like youre getting a lesson, it was an natural part of the mechanics of what was in the plot. I find myself opening google maps and following myself on the streets et cetera. What about the picking of names, yet a lift a weenie and intelligence opportunist with the last name, was that on purpose, the first president after the freedom. Theres a lot of stuff that goes on that is intentional, that was because there is a certain air base that used to house and aircraft that the United States and a bomber could come around job on the United States and much later we realized it was never going to work because they cannot carry enough fuel to get back home, that was very intentional and sometimes ill put it in people i know, chase palmer are named after my two children because my son is chase and my daughter is flown and i get uncomfortable questions at book signings where people would say you think chase or sloan are ever going to hook up and im not that is never going to happen even if you put a gun to my head i cannot like those to getting together. There is a lot of things and many things that i do intentionally and i almost named a polish character in this book after the polish king, it is an interesting part of history and im dealing with questions about maintaining western civilization and he has such a role to play in a local point in european history and that could be too heavyhanded. I appreciate the fact that you caught a subtle one, that is nice to know that people appreciate that, the names do but not always often times have meaning. We continue with brad thor, you are on book tv on cspan2. I would like to thank you for all your books and my question to you, my father was pow mia in siberia russia during world war ii and the plane was shot down and for 50 years was topsecret, my question to you, would it be a good idea to have a coauthor writer to help write the story in my fathers crew for the windy city of the b29 and the 20th air force and theres a show on the History Channel about my fathers plane plus the fact there was a picture of my fathers plane taken by a journalist in 1947. Thank you for your comments. Thank you for your question. There are 70 Great Stories out there and i get asked a lot of times, is this a story you would be interested in working on and its probably one of the greatest compliment you can be played if somebody loves it enough and say i would like to share a personal story that would excite readers, Something Like this to end up in siberia and your dad being a pilot is something a fascinating story, my problem is, im on track for a book in a year and ive signed multiple book contracts, i do not have the bandwidth, there was one year i wrote two books and i did athena project in the same year and that was a big heavy lift to due to books, media maintain the quality and to keep Getting Better every year, i told my editor emily, when is the book going to be done and i said its good to take as much runway as it will afford to take off, i dont know how much runway until the plane is lifted off. What i find the harder im working the more runway im looking at and thats where my wife said get the plane on the tarmac as soon as you get on book tour so you can get lift off. These are wonderful opportunities and i would encourage you to find somebody even a ghostwriter or Something Like that or somebody can work with to tell you that story because of it moves you that much it will move other people and unfortunately i cannot participate in anything, i dont have the time, my job is to keep you happy with my books and im sure theres a great writer of their with the with the love your dad story. Im a longtime frustrated writer and screenwriter, what is the best way to get an agent. I will tell you the best way, there is something called the writers guide, you can order from your local bookstore, go to bermans and noble. Com, it is like a telephone directory, it will show you agents that are looking for new authors and what areas they are looking for, it is the best thing and ill give you one other piece of advice, every agent watching this is going to hate my guts, i dont care, this is important for writers agents will tell you that you only want to be crude wanted a time if you send agent number one and wait until they reply, they dont like you doing multiple submissions, if it takes the first 13 months until you know and you have to go through 12 agents before you find years that is three years out of your life, pick five to ten best and hid them all at the same time, if there an agent they will see your talent and snap you up. And they should have to compete for you. You mentioned the athena project, where did the idea come from. We talked about you brought up the concept of the beautiful talented women in my novels and i told you there is some people that i work with im surrounded by beautiful talented women and im a father of a beautiful talented young woman and i wanted to write a set of characters that would appeal to my daughter into the athena project was about the Delta Force Team and is very interesting, the theory that we put beautiful women into the field and they have to go up against men even the toughest men and men often shut off the threat part of their brain because beauty is not perceived as a threat, theres a lot of stuff you can do and achieve not just tactically but kicking indoors and shooting bad guys but also at a bar, in a refugee camp and things like that, task fine half operative, this is been talked about very quietly in the spell to special operations about going to the ironman competition in tapping these women on the shoulder, the professional athletes and saying how about given up sports and serving your country, its fascinating because it does exist and i want to be the guy that wrote the book on it and i need to write another one because fans love it, its a matter of balance between doing a book every year and maybe i need to focus on can i get a quarter of one done before the end of the year end try to wrap it up. Whats your approach to sex and bad language. Theres two separate issues for me, i dont think sex is necessary, i can hint it is about to happen and we fade off as it walks handinhand toward the bedroom it doesnt need to be described, not that im a prude im a social libertarian and a dont have a religious or any other issue about sex and books. I think it leads to the imagination and not the sexiest thing you could do people pick their own picture but i respect that i have readers that do not want to see it there. I dont have anybody beating down my door say not putting enough in the bookstore, i do hear from people if there is not, i know thats fine and i know theres people out there so i dont put it in, the language is one thing where i do get a little pushback for some fans who do not like it but i explained to them respected and im not using it gratuitously, im trying to replicate the speech that happens with some of these people, theres a lot of funny giving another hand gestures or using certain words and certain phrases that have salty language, and being authentic im not being gratuitous, i will leave the sex out for some bad language will always be there. We wanted to show you some video, this is our author, guest brad thor talking about the books that he read and used while doing research for his most recent book, this is from his website. I wanted to share some of the fascinating books that i read in addition to those as i was doing research for my new thriller by master that comes out on july 3, the world of espionage, of recruiting spies and runnings prize is fascinating because it requires exceptional leadership, inspirational and management skills, i wanted to share a few of these books because i think theyre fantastic, whether or not youre in a leadership capacity or just interested in how organizations work and how to inspire people or whether its just espionage, spies in general and youre interested in those stories, you will love these books for both reasons. Lets start out with aam great game, i should not call him freddie, frederick hicks, this is fascinating because it looked at the greatest by novels ever and compared them with how the world of espionage really works, the Intelligence Community really works, hes a Intelligence Officer himself, he did a good perspective to bring fiction authors get right and what we get wrong and how the real world of espionage works. This was fascinating and this is the top of my stack but this book ties into the last book that i will share with you. This book called the handbook of spies, the handbook for spies was written in the 1940s, an englishman who is recruited in the soviet intelligence and how they set up their networks and his role within them, particularly the lucy network in switzerland, a fascinating, fascinating book and very tough to find, i had to scramble to pet my copy i of this and if you are interested in how a Real Intelligence network runs, how is put together and managed and how hard it is to keep Something Like that going in the skills that are necessary, i highly recommend Alexander Foote fo ote, handbook for spies, a fascinating true life account, great stuff, another book that i read that is amazing, i talk about the bravery of our men and women in uniform and what they the field,rcome in it is amazing, great plans for combat last until the combat begins until First Contact and immediately youve got to change, rearrange what youre doing and find a different way to do it, the brenner assignment absolutely captivated me, very good friend lent this book to me and i was thrilled to learn about these incredible operations run by the precursor to the cia, something called oss, this is all about ria percival courage, the ability to take adversity and turn it to your benefit, fascinating, fascinating account and what was happening with the americans in northern italy and world war ii as they tried to shut down not the supply lines and really harass them. There was a lot of operations and very few wenthi according to plan and how the incredible operatives had to move in the field and change of their plans and also what it took to recruit partisan italians to come over to the american side to work with us and to keep them motivated throughout the war, this is an awesome book in any leader will enjoy this book. The next one that i read was conrad, the brenner assignment for those of you who cannot read is by patrick k odonnell, a fabulous book, patrick kate odonnell, the brenner assignment, another book while i read while researching, all of these are nonfiction books,io conrad j and this is the untold secret of russias masters by in america after the end of the cold war, this was an amazing book, not only how this russian kept himself hidden from his intelligence services, he came over to the american side but what he had to do to keep his own networks in place in theee management skills in the personal attributes that he needed to have in space to be successful spymaster, this is a fascinating book, you will love. This book and i wish the subject was still alive, i would love to have interviewed him as i was working on my own thriller, i think he wouldve been a fascinating man to talk to. , i will wrap up with one of the most fascinating spymasters ive ever known and read carlton in my thrillers based on this gentleman, this is deweys book called the spy for all seasons, its amazing and he was an incredible american and an incredible spymaster himself, set up the Counterterrorism Center at the cia and this is a story of his life, it reads like a thriller and you learn about as with all these other books, what it takes to be successful in the world of espionage, many are things we need to be successful in our daytodayay lives whether managers and companies, Small Business owners, these books are all fabulous and not places you might think to go to to pick up management secrets, we have a lot of great seals and delta force guys that are writing phenomenal management books and leadership books and i talked about those in the past but it is fun to dip into the world of espionage and see what we can take to be better leaders herself, this is my stack and i will post a list of these books and where you can find them and i hope this video was helpful. Thanks a lot. Brad thor, thats a bit of research you have going on the there. That is part of what i love about my job, if i can read great books, particular nonfiction and then distillate and channel into what im writing now, i am a very nice recognition from politico where they named me one of the 50 most influential people and politics and one reason they said because i had been creating the cold war thriller for a new era of conflict, that was a heckuva complement and they recognize theres a lot of people and governments and beyond, it is a lot of fun and i like to take things that are important and like i said what are we thinks coming over the horizon and put that in my thriller so when it happens in the news you can say i read that in spymaster, thats the fun part of my job. To other thriller National Security riders that we had on, david, do you read them as well . I do, david i like a lot, i not only read his fictions, i read his nonfiction. He is a hell of a storyteller, i never met him but i sat at the dinner where he spoke but not met him in person but i think it was davids book the director, and of course it was an unbelievable book in a fabulous movie with Russell Crowe and leonardo dicaprio. Some that you say are your favorites and your Favorite Books include kin, stephen king, sidney. A lot of people remember sidney, i went to school in paris my junior year end i was able to find a fabulous bookstore called shakespeare and company, it is right george was an amazing guy and i was able to get my hand on sidney books and she did doomsday conspiracy, he had an American Military intelligence operative and i was really excited about his writing and how he did it and sheldon led me too reading david and he wrote some great thrillers, yeah he wrote romance type things as well but he wrote incredible thrillers, he actually dictated them and had a stenographer in his office and he dictated his novels which i thought was interesting. Can a historical fiction writer. How you take as a backdrop hundreds of years to build a cathedral and tell the stories of the lives of the people and make it riveting, that is on my bucket list to be kin, i would love to meet him, his book was given to me by a tourist while he was on my honeymoon with my wife, we met a young couple and he suggested both of those by stephen king and thats what kicked me off with ken in stephen king so we traded books on a boat going from greece to italy. Two things that brad mentioned as a quick plug for booktv. Org, we have visited shakespeare and company in paris and got a profile of the bookstore, if you type in shakespeare and company in paris into her search, you can watch the online and we have interviewed ken and you can watch both of those interviews online, right now were talking with bestselling novelist and thriller writer, brad thor, two at 27488200 for those of you on the east and central time zone 202 7488201 and those in the mountain and pacific time zones and a reminder for this program, first time callers to book tv only, we will cycle through our social media, you can make a comment or ask a question that way as well. But im going to read this facebook comment that we got from gregory and only because you have talked about this in the influence in the past but he wants to know how the authors parenting influence, the personality and character that you have now, in other words what is mr. Doors parents did right and wrong. What a great question. My parents instilled in us a sense of responsibility and duty, patriotism and kindness and also they were both entrepreneurs, it was thrashing around the dining room table in the kitchen counter, my parents got divorced when i was nine years old, that is was interesting, my brother ended up going to live with my dad and i went to live with my mom and they both had different styles which probably led to the divorce, two different styles and took them into different directions. But it was interesting, my mom was a brilliant brilliant, brilliant woman and put a lot of emphasis on creativity and intuition and things like this in my dad, the marine, the super tough guy, nose to the grind, i used to watch him do cold calls and it was an amazing thing in an incredible learning experience to watch him say, if you get a no that means the yeses that much closer, so imbuing us with this determination to of never giving up, there is marine corps in him that hardback has, a lot of scott hardback is my dad, even the seals do this that failure is not an option, its very much part of my dad and who he was as a marine, i think they did a great job in teaching us love of country, responsibility and citizens in our community and also, i grew up in one of the greatest periods of american history, the 1980s, its really an unbelievable time for music and fashion and you may not like the fashion, i liked it was a lot of fun but i grew up in this time where my dad he was born in 1939, a up in a time where was an incredible in abundance in the United States and you can be and do anything that you wanted and that was reinforced at home, even though the arts were not looked at as a career path, this idea was still there, if i had something i believed in and i love and when did that money would follow, do what youre passionate about and do what you believe in and everything will flow behind that. Your mother has passed. My mother is suffering from severe dementia, whatever medication, she always smiles where i go see her but shes even having trouble recognizing me as her son and all that kind of stuff, that has played in a little bit with hardback and whats going on with him if he had a great cia operative that was struck with alzheimers and there was a race to extract all the great wisdom out of him and also to protect him because the brakes come off, thats one of the symptoms of alzheimers and could somebody with all the secrets that were still highly sensitive, could they speak to a caregiver when nation and stuff like that, there is a catharsis that happens with every writer and you can tell from Drinking Coffee because little. In the book a lot and theres a time when there are multiple references to red bull in my book in the apostle and a half and because i went to afghanistan and i never had one until somebody put one in my hand and we have cases in the truck to keep us awake. So that worked its way through the fiction, there is working through my stuff that happens in the novels. Your father . My dad is alive doing very, very well in chicago and still has his business and still working and hitting it out of the park in the love of his life. Has he ever been approached and asked, last name thor, first name brad also. [laughter] hes been a big flyer for years, he sits in the front of the airplane and they look at the manifest and theres a broad thor seat next to them. Any place as far as he can play it. Another theme in your books is the 6 cents the agent seem to have. Im a believer in man is the only animal that ignores their intuition, we have a rule in our house that the only time you can use earbuds is when youre in the house, you dont get to shut up your hearing when you go outside, i knew some folks that were involved in the investigation in times square where there was a horrible, horrible killing where the man drivedrove his car down the sidk and injured a bunch of people in times square and i had a talk with my children about that saying happen very quickly, and makmight not of made a differene but if you had heard people screaming, you think a fraction of a second what about you a chance, maybe you couldnt because it happened so quickly but intuition is a big thing, trusting your gut and if you talk to people who put their lives on the line, things like this, first one is chance, second one is coincidences third is enemy action, there is something being successful as an Intelligence Officer and you cant teach, you just havent and i think that comes from trusting intuition. Lets hear from george and wayne pennsylvania. We are listening. This is georgia i always wanted to have the opportunity to ask an author if the number of words he has to use in a book because i find them a big reader and author seem to do a lot of filling. Its a great question and thank you for the question. Most authors have a contract where there is a target of words, i cannot speak for other people and what theyd gotten everything but i think when you have a contract and being paid by your publisher and given in advance they will want to determine a book thats only five pages, i think they have to say theres a certain realm that you have to operate within but as we discussed earlier, my love of the books and one thing i would skim is when theres a lot of details about technology and things like that, i think some authors, my dad was convinced, you could not convince him otherwise, he had read some article in the 80s and he was convinced that it was by the word and i thought that was the worst encouragement or the worst way to incentivize in the authors by the words because you get, he said take out the parts of people are going to skip, if you read my books you will not find that but i think a lot of it comes down to the relationship of an author and an editor, stephen king has a great expression and says you have to be willing to kill your darlings and you cannot be so married that you refuse to take it out in an editing process, it makes it faster, smoother and you have to be willing to take it up as some people fight and dont take it out and thats why georgia has had that experience. Stand in lee summit missouri. Stan are you with us. I hit the wrong line, i apologize, d in wilmington north carolina. Hello thank you for receiving my call, emigrate reader in a red most yearbooks in recently low, why are you aging him and bringing in the secondary characters a little higher than he is . Good question, why am i aging my main characters, why am i bringing in the secondary characters, you are obviously reading the books very closely if youre noticing he hasnt frozen in time and one of my favorite characters is clydes he decided he was going to do james bond underwater and i heard that was the way that he describes it, ive never heard him say but thats what i was told. He reflects a lot of people that i know in real life you are doing the hardback things, i heard about and i cannot talk about it on cspan but fascinating operations of the u. S. Has been involved in, high risk and high reward and very important operations out of happen with teams, and a couple of my books and brought together the secondary characters, not only to reflect that commodity in the challenges of putting a team in the field but to showcase another part of hardback, how does he deal with leadership, we know how he does, he likes it a lot and does he like having to run a team, thats the funny fees been forced to take a team and is being pushed on him and how does he react, lets throw some curveballs, its because i want to test other parts of his character and hopefully that is revealing things that you did not know and that you found makes it more enjoyable. What is the toughest part for you. Tying the pieces together, is it coming to a conclusion. I think the toughest part is getting started, its amazing and authors are incredible procrastinators, there is something that will pop up the seem so important and me being a consumer of news i can convince myself that what is breaking right now is so important and needs my intention and ive done a lot of commentary on Cable Television and other outlets where i say i need to focus because they might get the call from cnn or fox or eat msnbc and they want me too talk about and i better know whats going on and its a mechanism it takes you away from your work and i think thats probably the hardest thing for me, i talk about getting the train rolling on the tracks, getting it moving forward, getting all my storylines, getting forward momentum, it takes a lot of energy to get it going, you have to pull all the cards out of the station and that tends to be the hardest part, once i get it moving it gets easier for the rest of the book, thats the hard part is getting started. Why are you living in nashville . Great question we moved to nashville four years ago last month. From chicago, born and raised in chicago, my dad is from the south side of chicago, if you put that question to my children they will tell you freedom and i will tell you im an economic refugee from chicago, we moved to nashville where they have a balanced budget in the running a surplus and theres no state income tax, they have great schools, low property taxes, very low regulation and going back to me in a fiscal guy and having a responsible government is important to me. I was paying higher and higher property taxes and income taxes and things like this in chicago and always getting less and less enjoyment out of my city because the violence was getting to a point that i had to tell the babysitter dont take them to the beach, the park or the zoo and i thought this is kinda like when i was a kid and i would watch a cartoon of two characters stranded on a Deserted Island and they would be starving and one would look at the other and the other one was a pork chop, i saw all the politicians look like and the answer was not to change what was wrong it was always to attack tax the citizens, i thought i am contributing by staying, the great thing about federalism that you can move from state to state and being an author i could move my job and my family, its hard to do that to start over with new schools and a new dentist in a new barber in your children how to make new friends but it was the right move for us because i fe felt, the politicians had their hands so deep in my pockets they could tie my shoes, it was there but i thought im working harder and harder just to keep up with more and more taxes and i thought nope i would rather save the money for myself and all moved to state and city thats been responsibly run and thats the great thing of the capitalist portable it could not be more true. Lets hear from stan and lee summit missouri. Hi. I first heard of you when i read an interview of you in the in spe bulletin, its been a couple of decades ago, ive been a fan ever since, i love your technical accuracy, for instance you would never have scott operate these for example. Yup. My question is very simple, are you still a pe and what state. What is that stand for,. National society of professional engineers. I was never part of that and im not a professional engineer, maybe someone spoke nicely at one of my books but i appreciate you like the technical accuracy as im assuming youre an engineer in the technical stuff is important, i have to tell you i got things wrong in the beginning of my career, i talk about the smell hanging in the air and i use the term clip instead of a magazine, i made mistakes as far as firearms early in my career and what was nice i had people come to me and say we can help you, let us take you shooting and let us get you with a certified instructor who can explain all the safety issues and i started doing training and learning about the parts in the pieces and all that stuff but i will still hear from somebody today that the First Addition paperback from way back when word gone back in further additions and corrected the things that were wrong and somebody complained, its not a clip, its a magazine and their 100 right and i wrote it but i work very hard now not to get those things wrong, i built up over 20 years in the business of working knowledge of things like that, it doesnt not mean imperfect but i worked hard to make sure it is right. And spymaster you think james ryan and the acknowledgment, who is not. James ryan is a friend of mine that has done some very selfless and Dangerous Things on behalf of the United States, thats about all the all i can say. His name is james ryan and thats what he told me i could put in the book so he can show his children and say that was me. Bob in chicago, good afternoon. Hi, im a dear friend of you and your books and i cannot wait to get my hands on spymaster, ive learned over the years to start reading this in the morning because i know i will not put it down until im finished with it. And i have to get up early, i wanted to make a comment about something that you said about giving of crimea, i just finished reading a couple of books and i think that would like to recommend, internationalist written by two people, two professors in hathaway and shapiro who deal with International Law and crimea has been taken by russia but that taking has not been recognized by any nation in the world and because of International Law, its an interesting take and i think you would enjoy it, more exciting was a true book of nonfiction which i probably learned about public tv by bill called red notice, hes a chicagoan but thats not what the book is about, hes a moscow investor and he was responsible for the actonel of the, that is more exciting than anything ive ever read and he is still around and very active, anyway i want to thank you again and its good to see you on television and what you said about your dad is absolutely right, hes a tough hard guy and i love him to. This before we hang up is this bob s. You can email me the book i thought i recognize the book, thank you for calling in ensuring two nonfiction books. Bob is a longtime friend of my dads, can i say his last name. Bob, a wonderful wonderful guy, longtime supporter of mine in a dear friend of my dads, what i love about bob, in chicago we had every creation of maxines restaurant in paris built in chicago and when the owner died she left it to the city of chicago and once a month they would bring in acts, im a big cabaret fan, i love the Great American songbook, my huge fan and they would have one act once a month, you could come in local hotels and cater it with hors doeuvres and they had a bar and bob would be there every time i was there with my wife and we would listen to great music together, it is great to hear from them. Another Great American city is brooklyn and here is polly. Hi, brad, interesting listening to you, i did not know you were the author, i have not read any books that you sound like a smart and interesting writer and i love mysteries and i was wondering what book i would start with in your list of books, i wanted to make a comment, i just heard your comments about George Timmerman and that you are interested in replacing his gun and i thought i really cannot support you for that and i dont think i can support you as an author. Who were some of the authors that you enjoy reading . I read patterson and now im blinking on what i read. Will go with james patterson, that is good, thank you, your position as a fellow american, i respect how you feel and i want to thank you for saying it so nicely, if you dont want to read my books because of my position, i absolutely understand that and thats the nice thing, i am believe in civility, we can agree to disagree and thats no problem, i thank you for calling in. In short form for viewers tuning and what were your comments. My comments that we talked about earlier, after George Zimmerman was acquitted not enchanand found notguilty, the f justice decided they would launch their own investigation and they decided he would not give him his gun back, he was being further prosecuted after being acquitted and i use the term the government was keeping a boot on his neck and he head d to protect himself and i tweeted out an author that is the department of justice was going to do this and not return his weapon i would help buy him a gun. People did not like that and thats okay and im a big believer. Exist. Host will show a little video here and then we will have you explain it. Prologue, seattle and georgia. Shouldve gone to bed hours ago. She shouldve ignored the second bottle of white burgundy in the fridge, placed her empty wine glass and i think had upstairs. But the 45yearold was feeling nostalgic and the more she drank the moores nostalgic she became picking up a bottle as she stepped outside. The night was warm in the ocean air. With that magnolia just beyond her pool. Host brad thor, what are we saying . Ask about the amazingly talented broadway actor who is reading the audio version of my book. Host does he do all your books . Guest he does. Hes amazing. They say why dont you read your