We have they spent here. Lets hear it for cspan. [applause] there is no better crow crowd ie washington, d. C. Metro area. All of the viewers of cspan i think are in this room right now. We love you and watching the regular viewers and we welcome everyone to cspan. But theres a couple of other things. First im going to tell you about the difference between history and destiny. This is true. I cannot believe that this is happening. But my father may he rest in peace was struck by lightning. His father, my grandfather, im not joking, was struck by lightning. That means dont stand next to me at rainstorms. [laughter] this last week i was telling my son listen, my dad was struck by lightning, his dad was struck by lightning and he was like my gosh, we could be struck by lightning. I was like we wont be but sure, you might be. This is true, my son, my family, my wife and my kids were taking a train from new york city here in washington, d. C. For this event and their train was struck by lightning. [laughter] he was like you are not going to believe what happened. They will come running in late, so this is destiny. Something else we cannot do anywhere else in the country. First of all, where is jim day he does so much work. I love you, thank you for all you do. [applause] find him if you want a sticker, jim has been. He is your man. He is like a drug dealer of stickers. [laughter] thank you. Oh, that does look like me. This is yours. [laughter] heres the other person i want to thank. I dont get to do this anywhere else. Amy, this is amy. A couple of years ago, my history teacher contacted me saying she was sick and needed a kidney or she might die. He put it on my facebook page, and amazingly, people actually think you know what i said this teacher changed my life, could you donate a kidney to save her. And of all the people, i couldnt believe volunteered, there was one person who said brad, i volunteered but i didnt hear from the teacher and i never heard back. I was like youre going to hear back, dont worry. Shes busy. But for whatever reason, i forwarded it and said maybe theres one that fell through the cracks and the person that we missed was amy and what happened was when they got the email, they contacted her and emailed me back and said a new sense that, she was a match and so six months ago, amy came down to florida and gave her a kidney to my history teacher and we checked im going to give you a better reason to clap. Whatever happened to that original email and they checked and said that it went to spam. History and destiny. Lets hear it for amy. [applause] if you want to be a better person, donate and you get to be first in line tonight. [laughter] so this kid right here, i get an email, this is true, this kid has a Championship Little League game tonight and he said he is skipping his game [inaudible] [laughter] the world series of little league, skipping it because he wanted to come here for the book signing. His mom told me his dad is the coach of the team. [laughter] dad is so bad tonight. Sun is here with mom coming here. [applause] [laughter] thank you to my friends from the national archive. He said look for them. So thank you to everyone from the National Archives and to my wife and my kids the feast of lightning to get here. [laughter] again if you want to be a better person inside lightning and if you do you also get to the front of the line and that will bring us here. So now we talk about destiny, lets talk about history. This was written by myself and todd goldberg. People say where do the ideas come from and to be a good idea is a living thing. Someone told me a good idea, if you dont do it, eventually someone will spoil. That terrified me. Because the five years stuck with me. I didnt know what to do it. I didnt know how to get rid of it. This was going to keep going. We have to do this story. And the story started for me when i was in the National Archives and i was in what they called the treasure vault. That is where the teeth of the good stuff not open to the public. They took me in the back room, handed me a piece of paper and you turned it sideways and on this paperback, on a sheet of paper there was an oath of allegiance to George Washington gave to the top members of the military to sign. I swear i will never betray these United States. Number one in the top corner, number two, three, four and five. And number five was signed by a guy named Benedict Arnold. In that moment, that was the name that we kind of call each other. We say dont be a Benedict Arnold, sort of like a curse word for people that love history. But in that moment, it wasnt a name you call to someone, he was a decorated officer that thought that his country was reworded and promoted and was part of that circle of George Washington and he was a person that put pen to paper. Its among the most heartbreaking because with dear friends. In this letter from Benedict Arnold he said three things from George Washington, one of dont feel the staff of the heap and knife in the back of George Washington and said basically could i have my stuff. The amazing thing is nobody knows what was in the package nobody knows what was in that package. I couldnt shake the idea. Ive got to figure out how i did this idea and that is how i met my cowriter on facebook. When you pair up with someone, you can pick someone who you think is worse than you, someone as good as you and as bitter as you. They had no interest. The history writer to pair up with a further writer. Somebody that i would have loved to have worked with but they were busy. I have plenty of plot. I want somebody that can do character like nobody that ive seen before. And instead, i found a literary writer who was amazing and character. He told it. And what i loved if he wrote a wonderful book that came out in the six months after we were working together. It was like the book of the year and he wrote to stephen king. Who are you working with, i know, hes a killer. Trust me. But i love about the book and how its been received and the great reviews that weve gotten this because together we did something that neither one of us alone could do. So i always knew the opening scene of the book. There was a story of a girl that sits on her fathers lap and heres the story for the first time and she hears the story 6yearsold her dad posts a conspiracy tv show. I dont write any books until i left them, people. [laughter] he tells these stories that in the revolutionary times he says this body found when they did an autopsy they opened it up and inside was a i think block of wax and there was a priceless books that belonged to Benedict Arnold. A little sixyearold girls had to tell it again. Different than anyone else. She puts her hand on the stove and burns it into the next day comes packaged with a different hand on the stove to see and compare the pain, different than all of us. So, lets talk about the book. It opens up in hazell wakes up in the hospital grownup, 30yearsold. In the hospital and has no memory. She finds out theres been an accident, her father is now dead, the host of a conspiracy show. The last person her father was seen with him they found him dead and then they cut open his body they found, in hazell says the first memory she can recall they found a book that they want to Benedict Arnold. She realized those stories that her dad told her half truth to them. They had a device and they were all just for her almost like a training for his daughter all these years. And from there she find guns in her house and she doesnt know how they got there. Scars on her body, she doesnt recall those. She quickly realizes only by solving the murder can she figure out who killed her father, and also who she really is. She is the mystery of this book. To me, the great block is that best character and she is the character. She has no memory and cannot remember people she met. She has an emotional memory loss. Its not amnesia like a scooby doo plot. But emotional memory loss which means the people she was connect it to shes forgotten them shoes she can walk into a bar and she doesnt know if the guy shes attracted to was someone she loved or her worst enemy. Anywhere she goes now she feels like maybe i wasnt a nice person. She needs people and they are like dont start trouble again and she says again. She has a chance to restart her life and i love that as a character because everything becomes an adventure in that moment and everything is new. Think about that for a moment. If we can all start over inhofe our lives new ie with pick out a really nice hammer it is an amazing idea. What i loved about this as we picked it out, its an idea that ive been thinking around for five years and its Benedict Arnold. The fun of it is they all thinkf him as the bad guy of the story that he isnt the bad guy or the good guy. Like all of us he is a complicated man. We are all not good or bad. But they are all complicated. And i realize in hazell as she finds this life she used to have and that wasnt so good, she has a chance to suddenly be good, on some days good and some days bad, just like the rest of us, like the rest of us. We are all amazing and we are all terrified. We arthey are all brave and thee all cowards. Were all stupid is. Some of us all in the same day. That is how we are as people. And in his character, in this plot, we can explore not just hazell with the stories of Benedict Arnold, what it means to be good and bad. And was actually a spy for america. Why . The very best reason of all because of family. What happened one of the top lieutenant had a sick child who needed medical attention that only the United States could give. And exchange the dictator through the lieutenant gave us information about terrorist, weaponry and a financial investigation that nobody knew about. He will see it in the book. Its real it happened. I love i can fill the book with the details like that. Thats how secrets open and you can explore this world and explore who she is. And Benedict Arnold is amazing. That is where the book starts. Now this was been trying to get my intention the entire time. Thank you barnes noble for hosting but for all of you. Lets get to some questions. Leo has a question. Did the emily a ehrhardt lego set come out . [laughter] no. I will break your heart. I will show you something. We had somebody build a and here is the thing now america will help us. Heres what happened. Wego loves the idea he said you are not star wars or more of all. I understand that. You dont have to tell me that. [laughter] we want to put this on the idea webpage. If you get 10000 people to vote for it we will consider it that is how i met your mother set and ghostbusters was made. We Just Launched this and we have 2000 people. I considers over 200 people in the crowd so we should be at 2500 tomorrow. On but in lego Amelia Ehrhardt in google this is the first thing that comes up. Register your name and email give them the fake want to avoid telemarketers. [laughter] the point of this i also love i can give my kids a real hero like amelia earhart. And every set that we can do i appreciate it. Thank you. [applause]. Now everybody wants their own lego set. [laughter] she was susan b anthony. Eleanor roosevelt. Martin luther king junior. George washington. Say dad if you love me you will register tonight. [laughter] and if you dont then you dont love me. Say those words and watch what you get. You have the Scavenger Hunt in the book you have bigger plans for that quick. I love hiding things in all my books. I cant do a tv show called decoded without doing some decoded. So in the inner circle he put a secret code hidden and if you crack it hidden in the pages of the inner circle there is a reward that was there. If you found it the reward was hidden. Not telling you where in america but you got it. It took four years before someone finally cracked it and jim, sitting here was the first person in four years. He cracked it. [applause] he also loves a good little code so he was kind enough to put it back. It is still there it is hidden for the taking. If you want the treasure is hidden in the pages of the inner circle. He will not tell you. [laughter] but it is still there i will not take anything else they have hidden over the years. In the kids book i am hidden in every book. I saw that. [laughter] it is a guy that looks like me. [laughter] there is so many thing hidden in the kids book. I had the number 27. What else . [laughter] we hide a lot of comic book references and number 27 is symbolically special to me so now lets talk about the coding. Here is the thing. And he love conspiracy if you love comic books you are a fringe group. Thats how san diego started and now, books are everywhere. [laughter] and vince foster. And ufos the selected but the two main candidates running for the presidency are literally talking about major mainstream conspiracy. One of the fun parts of writing the book or the main theory is i get to explore what it was like to host the show. I realized over time that people tell me secrets. And with the department and said come spend a week in houston to george h. W. Bush. People from fort knox said they want to talk to me if there is real gold in fort knox anymore. One day John Wilkes Booth who shot Abraham Lincoln tracked me down and said this is the family of John Wilkes Booth and everyone knows the 12 days after Abraham Lincoln was shot, John Wilkes Booth was killed. This is his family and said they shot the wrong guy. He escaped and they have the proof and you want to hear the story cracks yes. I want to hear that story. [laughter] i love people tell me the secrets. Went to a private lunch in the white house in the private dining room nobody look twice at me because i write thrillers for a living and i hosted tv show about conspiracies and i am the perfect spy. Im. Maybe hes telling the truth. Thats what i want you to think. [laughter] i have the perfect cover. Everybody thinks im doing Fine Research for another thriller. Had were not use that idea in the next book . Also on the other side what happens is when conspiracies become mainstream and candidates talk about them that does develop an industry of conspiracy. Thats what we are at. It hasnt been about fear mongering that trying to get the hardest thing of all to the American People that is what decoded is founded on. That is the industry when you read the house the secrets you see the inside of what its like and to be regularly involved and then the holy grail all of these Amazing Things just because of the job that i have and i love i get to do that. Obviously codes and secrets are forever a part of the projects that i work on. I watch things i dont like and i dont know why. But today you go to the back of the line. [laughter] tv shows and movies. Tell History Channel they are great. It did everything they were supposed to do we were so happy with the readings and History Channel to and they change the channel and rebranded it and it does look like we will be filming a special by the end of the year and as for movies and things like that i cannot say anything delicious say i have something exciting to announce very soon. How is that . [laughter] storytime. I love a good story anyone that follows me on facebook realizes they were doing live video. And then we can tell stories and i like the idea that you can bring back the lost art of telling stories. I just got on facebook at 8 00 oclock on a sunday and i just read stories in the first and we had 200 people watching than 300 people after eight weeks straight we had 2000 people watching live. When we were done it was 100,000 people captain underpants himself came to my house and said it is like the waynes world of literacy. [laughter] doing it at my house. He sat there with me. And we had 50000 people. And someone is so famous its insane it is a funny a storytime youll ever see. And ill take a couple months because you want to save it. It is not gone but it is coming back. Had you go writing from yourself to an audience or submitting and publishing the book . I will tell you there will be 250 closest friends and i started writing and the week i got to boston my mentor took me under his wing and left the job. I thought iraq to my life. I did what any of you would do when you thought you wrecked your life and i said i will write a novel. I just wanted to tell my story for myself. That first novel got me 24 rejection letters there were only 20 publishers. [laughter] some people rejected me twice. [laughter] but i fell in love with the process so in terms of submitting your book you will see i have advice for those who want to write and publish but only one person has to say yes one editor and you are a published author. I dont look back on the experience to say i got 24 rejections and i was right and they were wrong. But just to say it is subjective. No matter what you d do, teacher, lawyer, military, t let anyone tell you know. If you love it, keep doing it and you will submit it and somebody will say yes. Keep going. Keep going. Keep going. Did you kill yourself off in the book . I did. Totally. He will see in the house of secrets what happens to the character that is supposedly me that has nothing to do with me. But her phone is ringing everyone looks at her. Now i bring attention to her so we get to put myself in the world under the microscope. If you dont solve a Conspiracy Theory if not they thank you are full of it you have to bring a truth or a factor a solution. If not they lose faith and go somewhere else. So every dream and right nightmare the government really was out to get you. They really were breaking into your house at night. And in that moment every conspiracy was water and sunlight for every horror story after that. Thats the interesting part about conspiracies. Even though its fiction and a thriller and then the second question was about michigan. But i will tell you one of the greatest moments of my entire life took place a couple weeks ago because i was in