Chris & Mike review Chapters 1-16 of Dead Fall, the latest release and 22nd book in the Scot Harvath series by Brad Thor!
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00:00:17
Hey, guys, I'm Chris. And I'm Mike, and welcome back
00:00:22
to this week's No Limits, the Scott Harvath podcast.
00:00:27
How you doing this week, Mike? Chris, I'm good.
00:00:30
I've been waiting to tell you something.
00:00:32
I counted up the episodes. Congratulations on recording
00:00:35
episode 200 of No Limits here tonight.
00:00:40
Wow, two 200. That is 200.
00:00:43
That's crazy, dude. That's crazy.
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I was just thinking when I was saying the intro line that I can
00:00:48
just say that in my sleep. You know, I've said it 200 Times
00:00:51
Now. Probably said it more than that,
00:00:53
depending on how much, how many times we have had to rerecord
00:00:56
certain things. But wow, 200, congratulations,
00:01:00
Mike. Congratulations.
00:01:01
Yeah. Dude, you two, we have 120 on
00:01:05
the Mitch Rat pod. Something like 5055 maybe on No
00:01:11
Limits, The Thriller Pod and This feed.
00:01:13
We're coming at you today. The Scott Harvath pod.
00:01:16
I believe this is going to be episode 29.
00:01:18
So Deadfall will cover 2930 and 31 because one of our next two
00:01:25
episodes will be an interview. With Brad Thor, I'm so excited.
00:01:32
I got to bring out the good stuff for our conversation with
00:01:34
him. That time I'm I'm, I get back.
00:01:36
So I'm we're recording this right before my trip with my
00:01:40
kids to the West. We're going to Montana doing
00:01:43
some camping and I come back and the day after coming back I have
00:01:47
record with Brad. So it's it'll be a good time.
00:01:50
I have my books. I've been to audio books.
00:01:52
I have Kyle's last book I'm going to definitely crush on my
00:01:57
trip across country. So looking forward to that.
00:01:59
But man, first let's give the people a little bit of an
00:02:03
update. I just spent three wonderful
00:02:07
days with you in near Gettysburg, PA Did did you have
00:02:10
as much? Did you as much fun as I did?
00:02:12
Do. What a fantastic time.
00:02:15
It's unfortunate the golf took over the whole weekend.
00:02:18
Well, excuse me. The golf, the cigars and the
00:02:21
bourbon took over the whole weekend.
00:02:23
It didn't leave much time for podcasting, but uh yeah dude,
00:02:27
what a good time. I absolutely love seeing you
00:02:29
catching up. If only we we could have
00:02:31
squeezed in a podcast recording. I think that would have pushed
00:02:34
it over to the top, but that would have topped it off.
00:02:36
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Dude, it was awesome.
00:02:38
It was great, and MM wants some money this year, so he didn't
00:02:41
leave empty handed. I want a little bit of money I
00:02:44
made made part of the entry feedback, unlike last year where
00:02:47
I walked away with the big fat 0.
00:02:48
So progress going up, going up. All right.
00:02:53
Well, you mentioned it today. We are covering Brad Thor, 22
00:02:59
Deadfall. Are you ready?
00:03:02
Dude, I'm so ready that I'm just going to give you my Limerick
00:03:05
right off the bat because I I've been waiting for this one.
00:03:09
Let's do it. Let's do it.
00:03:12
Headed to the front lines on a train, it's Scott and the troll
00:03:16
in Ukraine. Deadfall is here.
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So let's raise a beer to strong stomachs.
00:03:22
Cuz shit's going insane to strong stomachs.
00:03:26
Wish I had a glass of wine like the troll did.
00:03:29
Was the troll drinking wine on that train?
00:03:30
He unpacked a whole lot of snacks.
00:03:32
You know, I would love to travel with the troll, I would love to
00:03:36
travel with Brad, I'd love to travel with Scott.
00:03:38
But I would really like to travel with the Troll.
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See, no matter where he goes, you can be in the middle of a
00:03:42
third world country, the middle of a war-torn country, and he is
00:03:46
going to have his creature comforts packed in some nice ass
00:03:50
bag somewhere. And you know he's just gonna
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whip up like a nice asparagus risotto on the front lines of
00:03:58
Ukraine with the night and parrot.
00:04:00
Have a perfect wine bearing with it, you know.
00:04:02
Sounds like us on the golf trip, just pulling out prime rib the
00:04:05
first night. You know, some cigars and you
00:04:08
know, 11:00 PM just just chilling.
00:04:11
Had it right there. The sausage sticks that Joe came
00:04:13
around with. Perfect.
00:04:16
Yeah. So I guess we should say that we
00:04:18
are covering when we have actually only read because we're
00:04:21
a little bit behind. It's been a kind of a crazy
00:04:23
summer for the both of us. But so we have only read up to
00:04:26
Chapter 16 in the novel. If you're doing the audio book,
00:04:30
that will be Chapter 20 on Audible.
00:04:32
It's roughly not quite halfway through the book, right?
00:04:36
Yeah, looks like it's a short book.
00:04:38
It's a short book and it felt when I was listening to it,
00:04:42
there's no way we were halfway through this one.
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I think coming off books like Only the Dead recently, which
00:04:48
are you know, like Tomes, this one at Chapter 16 which is page
00:04:53
160 is where it ends. We're leaving off at physical
00:04:56
page 160 in the book. That's pretty much halfway
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through and it felt like it just ripped.
00:05:03
I almost feel like it could have been the first quarter of the
00:05:07
book, the first third of the book, yet we covered I would say
00:05:11
three or four incredible action set pieces.
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And we met a zillion characters already, many of whom I really,
00:05:19
really like. And the fact that all that is
00:05:21
packed into 160 pages, which is the first half of this book, I
00:05:26
think that's an incredible feat. By Brad Yeah, I think it's
00:05:29
really crisp. You know, when I was looking for
00:05:32
the novels on Audible and on Scribed, actually, first, you
00:05:37
know, it lists out all the hours of like of of all of his books.
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And like some of them are 1617 and some of like the other books
00:05:44
that you've purchased. You know, you just went on a
00:05:47
spending bonanza on Audible and got all of Mark Greeny's All of
00:05:50
another authors because they were on sale on for the prime
00:05:53
day was a prime day, you know, and a lot of those are like
00:05:56
16/17/18 hours. I was like, oh, this one's
00:05:59
clocking in like 11 hours. And I noticed like Kyle's also,
00:06:03
you know, doing around 11 to 12 hours.
00:06:05
But this one was going really fast.
00:06:07
And I, you know, even though you told me to stop roughly halfway,
00:06:11
I I was like, wow, how can we be halfway already?
00:06:14
Like, I don't, I don't want to finish this.
00:06:15
I don't want to be halfway. I wanted to be a friend.
00:06:18
Definitely. You know, in our discussions,
00:06:20
obviously we're not going to do the scorecard this time.
00:06:22
But a lot of cool plot lines, we're sort of like leading off
00:06:27
with having tugged at every single thread.
00:06:29
So I believe will be every single thread so far we we're
00:06:32
introducing all these characters.
00:06:35
I want to see how it connects. I wanted to post something to
00:06:38
you and it's I think it's something that Scott sorry that
00:06:41
Brad does a couple Times Now maybe we haven't covered them
00:06:45
all yet since we're only like halfway through a series but the
00:06:49
most recent one being the apostle and so this is having
00:06:53
two storylines that are deeply intermeshed but yet the
00:06:59
characters will never interact. So I'm I'm going to be intrigued
00:07:03
if somehow Brad ever sorry not Brad.
00:07:07
I keep doing that somehow, if Scott ever interacts.
00:07:11
We've done that, whether it's Mitch and Vince or Brad and
00:07:14
Scott constantly. I do it a lot more with with
00:07:17
Brad and Scott. But yeah, whether or not, you
00:07:19
know, these FBI agents and like the whole Russian subplot with
00:07:22
them, like how is that going to interact with what Scott's doing
00:07:27
with the Russians? And so it reminds me of, like in
00:07:29
the Apostle, when you had the whole Secret Service plotline
00:07:33
uncovering something behind the scenes while Scott was over in
00:07:38
Afghanistan doing his thing, you know that the storylines were
00:07:42
intertwined. They were important to each
00:07:43
other. Yet, you know, it's only like a
00:07:45
Venn diagram. They only like partially touched
00:07:48
instead of like fully intermixing.
00:07:49
So do you like that style? Yeah, yeah, I think that's
00:07:53
incredible insight. I mean, I love your comparison
00:07:57
to the apostle because I was trying to say this could.
00:08:01
Almost come off as a very singular story.
00:08:03
Scott's in Ukraine. He's kicking this group, the
00:08:06
Raven. You know, where we hear they're
00:08:08
called the Ravens, He's kicking their ass.
00:08:10
And like, that's all we're getting.
00:08:12
I'm surprised that I'm really, really, really enjoying what
00:08:16
sometimes I might criticize as a side plot.
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I don't see where it's going taking this out of the story,
00:08:21
yeah. Yeah, and it's almost Brad's
00:08:23
formula that there's some cop or investigative agency.
00:08:28
And usually they're partners. You got a good cop, bad cop
00:08:30
routine going on. They're trying to shake people
00:08:33
down, follow leads, and we never quite know how it's going to
00:08:36
match up it. I feel like it happened, like
00:08:38
you said in the apostle, it happened in the Athena project.
00:08:41
And I feel it's a really hard thing to pull off.
00:08:44
Yet I'm so invested in FBI Special Agent Carolyn and his
00:08:49
partner Jennifer Fields. I love what they're doing,
00:08:52
tracking down the guy who fell out the window.
00:08:56
Going to the Commodore Yacht Club, that's tied in with
00:08:59
conspiracy theories and, like you're saying, tugging on these
00:09:02
strings. It's halfway through the book.
00:09:05
And I'm really, really craving more on this former senator Greg
00:09:10
Wilson because the way the scene is written with him, he was out
00:09:15
with Berman, the guy who fell at the window getting drunk the
00:09:18
night before. But Kyle Paulson is like this
00:09:22
Jackass who thinks he's smarter than everyone who thinks he's
00:09:24
running Senator Wilson. Getting him to do his dirty work
00:09:28
in Washington and advance his policies, But then the end of
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the chapter, and this is so Brad, Greg Wilson is like, I've
00:09:35
got them right where I want them.
00:09:36
So we think Paulson's in charge pulling the strings and Wilson
00:09:40
is the tool. And Paulson's telling us that
00:09:43
he's, you know, he basically uses this guy.
00:09:45
But then Wilson, he's masterminding the plan.
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He's actually manipulating Paulson.
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Yet we don't know much at all about these two characters.
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We do get an interesting I guess we can just jump right into
00:09:55
that. We we do get an interesting
00:09:57
tidbit and he mentions his handler will be happy.
00:10:00
Now why else would you drop that line if you didn't think and it
00:10:04
makes complete sense, right if his handlers are the Russians,
00:10:07
he's he wants to have someone who is anti Ukraine, you know
00:10:12
gonna put all their money in to stopping the support in
00:10:17
Washington. And so yeah, I fully, you know,
00:10:20
I fully think that Wilson is in the Russian.
00:10:24
He's taking the Russian money whether or not he's full SVR or
00:10:27
he's just he's a plant. He's you know he's been turned.
00:10:30
We don't know yet. But definitely intrigued by that
00:10:34
storyline. Yeah.
00:10:35
And there was a mention to further back up your point.
00:10:38
There's a mention of Dasher, who is an asset, a high up asset
00:10:42
that the intelligence guy Gretchko has in his pocket.
00:10:47
And he's talking to Big Love, who works for the Russian
00:10:50
President Peshkov. And they're like, I'm surprised
00:10:54
you brought up Dasher. You know, it's not something we
00:10:55
should be talking about. Here is Greg Wilson Dasher.
00:10:59
And, you know, how was he recruited as a former senator?
00:11:02
And I think that storyline, I'm absolutely shocked, has my
00:11:06
attention and wants me to keep reading.
00:11:10
I thought this book was going to be solely like the apostle Scott
00:11:13
on the ground Ukraine. That was going to be, you know?
00:11:16
The whole kit and caboodle right there.
00:11:18
I'm shocked how much I enjoy the the FBI agent and him looking at
00:11:23
the cameraman who's taking pictures for this blog.
00:11:25
So there's a disinformation campaign going on.
00:11:28
It's connected to a former senator, a lobbyist, Russian
00:11:32
intelligence. I think he's really weaving A
00:11:35
tapestry that gets at. The real fabric of America right
00:11:40
now with how manipulated we are. I was just this whole weekend
00:11:43
when we were getting drunk spewing conspiracy theories left
00:11:46
and right at one point. But I know after being with you,
00:11:51
talking conspiracy theories, and then immediately jumping into
00:11:53
this book, I was like, wow, this is this is Mike's book, man,
00:11:56
this is Mike's book. Did you see how one was
00:11:59
basically Pizza Gate? Yeah, yeah.
00:12:03
He was like, oh, at the Yacht Club.
00:12:04
What if, you know they have children in an underground cell
00:12:07
and everyone online is like accusing them of trading,
00:12:11
harvesting? Harvesting organs and drinking
00:12:14
their blood and I'm like, Oh my God, that's exactly what's going
00:12:17
on right now on Twitter. Or I should say X.
00:12:20
What's that? That substance that they claim?
00:12:24
Adrenaline or something? Andreochrome.
00:12:28
And it's something like adrenaline.
00:12:29
It's something that that Q Anon people think is going on.
00:12:33
Brad's playing with those people, though.
00:12:34
I feel like he's playing with those.
00:12:36
He is, and this is another topic I wanted to get into, and maybe
00:12:41
it's just because I didn't read his original novels when they
00:12:46
actually came out. But is is this the first novel
00:12:50
you felt where it's so closely commenting on the moment of the
00:12:57
time? Like, you know, obviously, I
00:13:00
guess because the stuff was coming out right right around
00:13:02
the, you know, war in Afghanistan and war in Iraq.
00:13:05
So I guess it's probably the same.
00:13:07
But this one just feels like cuz it the still war is still going
00:13:11
on and we're being beaten over that.
00:13:13
I felt like, what was the coverage like?
00:13:15
Can you remember what was the coverage like of the war in
00:13:17
Afghanistan and the war in Iraq? I mean, what do you mean the
00:13:21
coverage? I feel like the the media has?
00:13:26
Well, if it bleeds leads, right? So I don't.
00:13:28
Know well the Internet is played and social media is playing a
00:13:31
totally different role. Yeah, no, you're right.
00:13:33
I would, I would say less on the coverage of of the conflict, but
00:13:37
more on people's easily persuaded or manipulatable,
00:13:43
manipulative handling of that information.
00:13:46
Like it's not certain media outlets are covering things
00:13:50
differently. I think they're still like
00:13:51
reporting what's going on. But I think the difference is
00:13:55
how easily unreliable sources can spread messages where I feel
00:14:03
like in both Gulf Wars and everything, we were getting the
00:14:08
mainstream media and that was our primary source of
00:14:11
information. And now our primary source of
00:14:14
information is headlines and tik toks and whatever which is on
00:14:17
the line. So yeah, right.
00:14:19
And even the mainstream media sources are probably more
00:14:21
unreliable now because like you said, if it they're being
00:14:25
influenced as well, you know? Yeah, I feel like that was an
00:14:28
error where we could trust the media a little bit more or, you
00:14:32
know, the nightly news shows, right, The Hourlys, you know, I
00:14:35
feel like we're so much more reliable and now we just have
00:14:38
this deluge of information. And all that was really making
00:14:42
me nervous for this book. Like you were saying, it's so
00:14:44
topical. I wouldn't say it's the first
00:14:46
book to do that, but I would say it's unique in that it's so
00:14:52
recent, kind of like how we felt with Chris Howdy covering
00:14:56
January 6th, right? You know, obviously a lot of
00:15:00
books in 2001, two and three were about September 11th, but
00:15:04
this is like it's happening now and.
00:15:08
It's almost a one to one of what's going on and we drop a
00:15:11
fictional character into it. I feel like it's a little
00:15:13
different than how all of the al Qaeda books and then Taliban
00:15:17
books and then ISIS books handled it.
00:15:20
It was easier to drop figures and stories, I think, into that
00:15:24
reality. We're dropping it into this
00:15:26
reality is like a whole different political, politically
00:15:29
and socially charged thing. Yeah, I guess you, you hit the
00:15:33
Nolan head. And I think like that comes to
00:15:35
say, do do you feel like this is a commentary from Brad on his
00:15:38
stance of the war? I mean of, of course it is.
00:15:43
And I I just, I was. He's never been one to pull his
00:15:47
punches. He always speaks his opinion.
00:15:49
I just was. I guess I wasn't expecting this
00:15:52
maybe him to come down on this side.
00:15:53
You know like to have Scott be you know so pro Ukraine, but you
00:15:58
know not that I, I I object like I I agree with you know
00:16:02
everything that Scott is is saying so.
00:16:05
Well, I think timing there also, right, because the book would
00:16:08
have been written a year ago from now essentially.
00:16:12
Right. And I think perceptions have
00:16:14
greatly changed like the troll give statistics right. 76% of
00:16:20
Americans support, you know, some sort of or or against the
00:16:23
the Russian invasion. And Scott's like, wow, that's
00:16:26
amazing. You get 75% of Americans to
00:16:28
agree on something, but it's slowly.
00:16:31
But it's slowly. It's slowly eroding and the
00:16:33
troll even cites like, well, new information of people who are
00:16:37
against us Sending so much money and weapons doubled, you know,
00:16:41
from 12% to 24%. So I feel like this was still on
00:16:45
an early era before people were seriously questioning the amount
00:16:49
of resources and the amount of material being sent to the front
00:16:54
lines. I feel you.
00:16:57
This must have been written right before that kind of
00:16:59
switch, when it became a political point and like we just
00:17:02
said, due to social media and unreliable sources and whipping
00:17:07
up hysteria. Now the debate is if you support
00:17:11
the Ukrainian side, you're just labeled, you know, a left wing
00:17:15
liberal who wants to give away all our money and tax dollars
00:17:18
and not help Americans. And the opposite is true.
00:17:20
Like if you say you're against sending money and weapons
00:17:23
because you don't want to start the next Afghanistan, you know
00:17:26
you don't want to be bogged down in the next Iraq or something.
00:17:30
If you're against that, well, you're just a right wing
00:17:32
conspiracy theorist who doesn't want to help the cause of
00:17:34
freedom and and NATO and you're a Russia lover.
00:17:37
I like we we can have a middle ground here.
00:17:40
Yeah. I think I I like how this book,
00:17:42
you know, it's almost like a a snapshot in time to focus in on
00:17:47
how everyone felt during that time.
00:17:50
The early days and then to read it now like a year post.
00:17:54
That's why I'm like sort of thinking about it this way, you
00:17:57
know, like to look back on what it was like, you know.
00:18:02
So I don't know. Anyways, we don't have to go
00:18:04
much further into that, but yeah.
00:18:05
No, no. But think about the 9/11
00:18:08
connections, cuz the same thing happened, right?
00:18:09
A lot of books in those early years were very jingoistic.
00:18:14
And I would say some of them borderlined, stereotyped a lot
00:18:18
of the the Muslims in their books, right.
00:18:21
And then over time, I think they became more nuanced and I think
00:18:25
they were willing to address the impacts on communities and
00:18:29
individuals not related to the extremists.
00:18:31
But if you look at the first few novels, I'm sure at the very
00:18:35
early, you know, 2003, Iraq and everything, I think we were
00:18:39
probably very much gung ho. Get the terrorist, Hunt them
00:18:43
down. Almost like Brad has written.
00:18:45
All Muslims are bad or whatever. You're either a good Muslim or
00:18:48
bad Muslim type of lines were written early in the 2000s where
00:18:53
if you read an ISIS book by Kyle Mills or something like The Last
00:18:56
Man by Vince Flynn, it was a lot more nuanced on the ground of
00:19:02
who was involved, who was turned, who was the bad guy.
00:19:05
It wasn't just everybody over there is the bad guy.
00:19:07
So I feel even later stage Brad, even later stage Brad.
00:19:10
Exactly, exactly. Yeah.
00:19:12
Yeah, no, it's interesting, it's interesting you know we're we're
00:19:14
seeing this evolve in real time and like these books exist as a
00:19:19
snapshot of someone's thinking at the time.
00:19:23
And then you know we've we've covered both Vince and Brad
00:19:27
through 911 and on and like you said to ISIS and now we're
00:19:32
pivoting to obviously the last book was commentary on on China
00:19:36
and the rise of influence in in India.
00:19:39
I don't know I just I really liked and like we haven't even
00:19:42
said like do I like this book. I really like this book.
00:19:44
I'm digging it. And I liked, just like I liked
00:19:48
In the Blood, Not in the blood. I liked it in The blood too.
00:19:51
But rising Tiger. Rising Tiger.
00:19:53
Yeah. So I'm actually pleasantly
00:19:56
surprised by this one. And then again, I don't want to
00:19:58
go on and on about the the, the perceptions and politics of it
00:20:01
all, but I was hesitant. I don't know if you Remember Me
00:20:06
saying. It might have been on the main
00:20:08
feed, it might have been on a patron only special.
00:20:11
But I did say I'm a little nervous for this one partially.
00:20:15
Is it too soon? Also, we're all being inundated
00:20:19
with the Ukrainian conflict and it became politically charged.
00:20:23
So I'm just like now you got to walk on egg shells with some of
00:20:26
the stuff and Brad, don't walk on egg shells.
00:20:28
So I was just wondering, is this, is this setting things up
00:20:32
to be a controversial book for the series?
00:20:36
You know, like you take what happened in the in the Vince
00:20:39
Flynn Kyle Mills series and like Enemy at the Gates really tore
00:20:44
the fans apart, right? It it caused this rupture.
00:20:49
We won't spoil it in case someone has a Red Mitch rap, but
00:20:51
a main character, did you like that he died or did you not?
00:20:54
Did you like that he was on one side or he was not?
00:20:57
It really caused this rift and I'm just wondering, touching
00:21:00
something like the Ukraine conflict, not when it first
00:21:03
started, but where we are now in July of 2023, touching that
00:21:08
could be a really, really, it could be a landmine.
00:21:11
And I was hesitant about that. I was also just hesitant of do I
00:21:16
want a one off? Do I want a novel that puts
00:21:19
Scott in a random conflict just so we can see what he does as
00:21:23
opposed to developing the storylines, you know, keeping
00:21:26
the series going, building on what we had in Black Ice, You
00:21:30
know, the Arctic waters, the Russian navigation, the Chinese,
00:21:34
and then Rising Tiger, the Belt and Rd.
00:21:36
Initiative, the Chinese trying to expand their influence in the
00:21:39
South, Asia and the Pacific. And I'm like, I want these
00:21:44
threads to build on one another. If you're just going to all of a
00:21:46
sudden go to Ukraine just because I was nervous it was
00:21:50
going to interrupt the flow, you know, of the series.
00:21:54
Not at all. Not at all.
00:21:56
I am pleasantly surprised with how much I'm enjoying Scott on
00:22:01
the ground in Ukraine. We're going to get to the
00:22:03
setting eventually. I I was wondering if it's just
00:22:06
like too much for me. I've heard about this war.
00:22:08
I followed it for over a year now.
00:22:10
It's like too much. Not at all.
00:22:12
I not at all. I'm enjoying every moment of the
00:22:15
descriptions of the cabin, the trains taking you to the front
00:22:19
lines, the armored convoy. And then this will get to this
00:22:23
action scene which ended Chapter 16, perhaps the longest, most
00:22:27
drawn out action scene we've read in a while, this battle
00:22:30
around buildings in an urban landscape, It almost felt like a
00:22:34
guerrilla warfare with guys flanking each other.
00:22:37
Scott has to double back on himself, draw traps at
00:22:40
explosives, all in, you know, this urban environment with
00:22:44
snipers on the rooftops. It was like, is this Fallujah?
00:22:47
So it was almost refreshing in that it wasn't something I was
00:22:51
bored of as I wasn't expecting to like, oh, a battlefront in
00:22:54
Ukraine. OK, great.
00:22:55
I've been reading so much about that.
00:22:57
But it's offering this fresh, really unique perspective to
00:23:00
read it as fiction, and doing that is a really fun experience.
00:23:05
So this book, so far, is soaring above my expectations.
00:23:10
Yeah, no, I agree. And I think like you said, it
00:23:15
had, it almost had this weird. I was just being reminded of
00:23:20
various when I was reading that action scene, I was reminded of
00:23:23
various things that I liked, you know, I think of.
00:23:25
You can go back to World War Two and like the Band of Brothers
00:23:27
sequence or the Saving Pride of Ryan, you know, we're talking
00:23:30
about sniper warfare. So like, what, the enemy at the
00:23:32
Gates or American Sniper? You know, you have, you have a
00:23:37
pretty intense scene that that might be in Volusia.
00:23:40
You have what, what else? Oh, Black Hawk Down.
00:23:44
You know, I was thinking like thinking of that, like all
00:23:46
these, you know, seminal artwork that have depicted these sort
00:23:51
of. Invasion or you know rescue
00:23:54
scenes in a in a bombed out village.
00:23:56
He he hit the nail ahead. He just the description was
00:23:59
perfect. And I I felt like I was watching
00:24:01
it or like visualizing it, you know, immediately.
00:24:04
Yeah. And I think being able to
00:24:08
experience it this way, it's it's a different way of like
00:24:11
thinking about what's going on, you know, while being thoughtful
00:24:15
yet in enjoying it, you know, like not enough, enough.
00:24:18
Feeling like guilty that I'm enjoying it, you know what I
00:24:19
mean? Yeah.
00:24:21
And I'm pleasantly surprised that I am enjoying it and that
00:24:25
part of it because I I wasn't sure how I was going to react to
00:24:28
it. So what do you think?
00:24:30
We we talked a little bit about some scenes.
00:24:32
Do you want to get into a little bit more nitty gritty?
00:24:34
Like I want to ask you what was your favorite action scene so
00:24:39
far? Because we get the opening set
00:24:40
piece operation boathouse the hit on the convoy.
00:24:44
That was interesting. Yeah.
00:24:45
Where Stalin comes out with the RPG, Scott's boys, you know,
00:24:49
blow up this Iranian, I guess he was a Colonel or something
00:24:53
selling drones and missiles to to the Russians.
00:24:56
But then and I'm like, OK, well, that's a really great action
00:24:59
piece. Then we get the hit on the train
00:25:02
that was bananas with the train. And then the cabin in the woods
00:25:07
is another great shootout. And finally, this convoy in the
00:25:10
middle of Kharkiv, when he gets there in the city, what did you
00:25:12
like the most out of all those? Ooh, that's tough.
00:25:18
You know, the opening scene is cool.
00:25:19
It kind of like sets the stage. It reminds me of, you know, when
00:25:23
we first meet Mitrap in transfer of power like that, that sort of
00:25:27
head, head, that sort of vibe, like, all right, being placed in
00:25:30
this in a desert, you know, where they're actually in
00:25:35
Belarus, right? They're in Belarus, Yeah, yeah,
00:25:37
yeah. But undercover, because we can't
00:25:39
undercover blowing up Iranians and Russians in Belarus, right?
00:25:44
And you know like I I knew for while that the mission was or at
00:25:47
least I I suspected the mission was you know it it was going to
00:25:50
happen without a breeze and then we were going to move on.
00:25:53
Yeah that was cool. I think it's a tie between the
00:25:55
train or the the end scene the like the attack on the convoy.
00:26:02
I think I'd have to lean more attack on the convoy just
00:26:04
because it's it's more drawn out.
00:26:06
But the train sequence it's so fast.
00:26:09
Like you know, we're first Nicholas.
00:26:14
And Harvath are on this train. They come to Nicholas's
00:26:18
departure .2 other people come on, they're going to be his
00:26:21
guides. Get him to his team on the front
00:26:23
lines, meet him with this other GRUGRUGRU chick and then we're
00:26:29
going along. You know throughout that entire
00:26:31
thing we're getting description of the land and of life and how
00:26:35
like during war like time goes on.
00:26:37
So like, I enjoyed it. Like the built up to the scene
00:26:40
and then boom, as soon as we. The train stops.
00:26:43
You know, like, uh oh, it's like it's like a horror movie, like
00:26:46
something something's going to happen.
00:26:49
And then he like, tells him to put on the helmet and he's like,
00:26:52
I don't want to wear the helmet. But then as soon as the guy who
00:26:54
steps out, boom, gets shot by a sniper like it's it's just all
00:26:57
right, this is where we're going.
00:26:58
We're going full steam ahead. And then boom, the mortar
00:27:00
started going. And Scott just immediately has
00:27:03
to keep, keep moving, keep his head in the fight.
00:27:06
Like both him and. Jack have their main character.
00:27:12
Both Brad and Jack have their main characters like, say those
00:27:14
words like whether like it's like keep your head in the fight
00:27:17
or or you gotta, you know keep moving, force of action, you
00:27:20
know, like keep. You can't stay still.
00:27:23
Get off the X. Get off the X, Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:27:25
I don't know. It's just that scene was so
00:27:27
propulsive, you know? And then he's fighting the, you
00:27:31
know, he gets the drop on the sniper at the end.
00:27:33
That was cool too. It was really cool.
00:27:36
My favorite tidbit and why the train scene is pushed to the top
00:27:40
of that list. So when he takes the fire
00:27:43
extinguisher and he explodes the fire extinguisher just to give
00:27:47
himself a little bit of cover, a little bit of haze for the
00:27:50
snipers, not to be able to pinpoint him through the train
00:27:53
windows, I I loved every minute of that.
00:27:56
And then when he jumps off and finds, I think Kozar was his
00:28:01
Ukrainian. Escort.
00:28:02
He's like, why the hell don't you have your tourniquet on?
00:28:04
He gave it to the woman who he saved also in this ditch.
00:28:08
Put the tourniquet on her. These two are dying out.
00:28:11
I feel like those two plus, later on in the I'm calling it
00:28:17
the Guerrilla warfare scene. In the In the Armored Convoys,
00:28:21
he loses that young kid Ole. And he's like, this young kid
00:28:26
shouldn't even be here. He's not a soldier.
00:28:29
He can't shoot. And I just think it shows the
00:28:33
human toll. And also the way he's describing
00:28:36
the countryside and the villagers.
00:28:39
One of the guys he's, and it's funny, the troll is joking with
00:28:42
him. He's like, my wife took the
00:28:44
dogs. I miss my dogs.
00:28:45
So he's really happy to see the old Charkas.
00:28:48
It's like my wife took my my teenage daughter and the dogs
00:28:50
and they're living with her family in another country.
00:28:53
They had to flee. He's like, oh, do you miss them?
00:28:56
And the guy's like, what my my teenage daughter or the dogs and
00:28:59
the trolls like, no, the inlaws. And then and they're having a
00:29:03
laugh over it. I just think it shows the human
00:29:06
impact on on the everyday people in Ukraine.
00:29:10
And I wasn't expecting to be so bought into that because I hear
00:29:14
about it in the news. Why would I need my fictional
00:29:17
characters to be going through the same struggles?
00:29:19
But I'm. I'm really enjoying it because
00:29:21
it's a different way for my brain to take in that
00:29:24
information, a different way for me to interact with it, knowing
00:29:28
these stories are fictional, yet they're real.
00:29:31
It's just a I wasn't expecting to like that, and I really do.
00:29:36
Yeah, What did you think of the Cabin in the Woods sequence?
00:29:37
We got this. We got this Fake Zara and the
00:29:41
real Zara don't get much out of the out of the two of them other
00:29:44
than, you know, Scott immediately knows something's up
00:29:47
because he's amazing at picking up those micro expressions.
00:29:51
Brad loves to put that that phrase in there.
00:29:53
It's authorism. Definitely.
00:29:55
That to me had. I don't know if I've mentioned
00:29:59
this to you or are on the pot already, but just, you know,
00:30:01
vibes of Inglourious Basterds, that the scene where they're in,
00:30:06
where they're in the like, they the one, what is it Michael
00:30:10
Fassbender like slips up, right. You know, it's like, you know,
00:30:12
how do you act like a spy and and fully blend in and then he's
00:30:17
able to, you know, fight his way out of that.
00:30:19
The guy's like in the roof. He's shooting at the roof and
00:30:21
then the mothballs. I had no idea that mothballs
00:30:23
sublimate. That was wild.
00:30:25
And the gas are super flammable. Flammable like that.
00:30:29
That was pretty cool. So yeah, I felt like that one
00:30:32
for me didn't hit as hard as the fire extinguisher.
00:30:36
That was almost let's do some really cool creative stuff just
00:30:38
to jazz this up a little bit. But it was cool.
00:30:41
The overall the cabin scene was great.
00:30:43
I think my favorite thing was Scott picking up on Zara Zira,
00:30:47
the undercover Russian chick, knowing she was fake.
00:30:51
That might have been my favorite part of the whole thing was that
00:30:54
deception. And then yeah, he has to kill.
00:30:57
I think it's three different people as they're trying to
00:30:59
escape out a window. And then the guy like comes
00:31:03
through the fire, like a Burning Man walking out of the fire and
00:31:08
he's coming towards them with a knife and Scott just pops him in
00:31:12
like the head and the knees or something.
00:31:14
I I was curious about that one because I'm like, I think Brad's
00:31:18
trying to show you how this war is being fought because in my
00:31:24
mind, I'm like, that guy's an idiot.
00:31:26
I knew he was getting out of the fire and he knew Scott was armed
00:31:31
and will kill him. But that didn't stop him, right?
00:31:34
It wasn't like, I'm going to stop, drop and roll over here
00:31:37
because I'm on fire and it wasn't like, oh, I have no gun,
00:31:39
so I probably shouldn't pursue this guy.
00:31:42
No, I think Brad wrote that intentionally that that guy was
00:31:45
focused on coming after Scott with a knife while he was
00:31:48
burning to show just the Russian desperation.
00:31:51
The way the war is being fought, no matter what you have, you're
00:31:55
at a supplies, you have run down junk you, your first six waves
00:32:00
of soldiers who were actually trained died and now you have
00:32:03
guys, they literally say turning on one another.
00:32:06
And it's like if you retreat, you're going to have a more
00:32:09
painful death than if you just died in the fight and that you
00:32:12
want to martyr yourself. It's almost like a different
00:32:15
form of extremism. The way Scott describes the
00:32:19
Russian motivations to fight this war, it's it's actually a
00:32:23
sadder one, I would say, than people who are just straight up
00:32:25
manipulated by zealots and who martyr themselves for A cause.
00:32:30
This one's almost sad because it's almost like you have to
00:32:32
martyr yourself because you have no other choice, because life is
00:32:35
so bad you don't even believe in anything.
00:32:38
And I think that guy walking out of the cabin on fire, knowing he
00:32:42
was beat, knowing he was unmat, he was mismatched.
00:32:45
I think Brad was trying to say something with that.
00:32:47
I don't know why it stuck with me.
00:32:50
That is interesting. Yeah.
00:32:52
You know it's it's like a little bit you realize that they have
00:32:57
no other choice because like you said, if they if they fail, like
00:33:01
they know that failures often worse than, you know what's
00:33:06
worse than death. You know, like what you know.
00:33:08
Torture, not being able to dishonor.
00:33:11
You know, dishonored to your family, like whatever they would
00:33:13
do to your family. So, you know, it's it's crazy.
00:33:18
You know, it's kind of a side note.
00:33:20
You know what else? Surprisingly, I was okay with
00:33:25
and I wasn't sure if I was going to buy this at first.
00:33:29
I was like, why is Scott even here in the first place?
00:33:33
And second, why is he going solo through the countryside hunting
00:33:36
down these Ravens, which we haven't really even gone back to
00:33:40
Anna Royko, who's the aid worker who gets taken in the?
00:33:44
We got to talk about that. And so I'm kind of excited that
00:33:48
another little little thing Brad did to wet my beak was we built
00:33:51
up the Ravens, this team of these psychotic murderers let
00:33:55
out of mental asylums to go ravage the countryside.
00:33:58
Yeah, we haven't seen that happening, you know, in 160
00:34:01
pages. So anyway, I'm, I'm kind of
00:34:02
excited for that. But my question is why is Scott
00:34:05
just running through the country on his own, like chasing guys
00:34:08
down? But when the troll explains
00:34:11
basically plausible deniability, right?
00:34:15
If we gave you Stalin and the other guys and we fully kitted
00:34:19
you out and you went in and everyone knows you work for the
00:34:22
Carlton Group, basically because the Chinese hacked OPM off as a
00:34:26
personnel management of the US government, the Chinese would
00:34:29
tell the Russians, You know, this team, if discovered, is an
00:34:33
American group of operators under the Carlton Group.
00:34:36
You wouldn't have plausible deniability.
00:34:37
It would look like the US government is sending soldiers
00:34:41
and it's an act of war. But if it's one rogue soldier,
00:34:45
you know, they can deny that. the US government can say we
00:34:48
have no involvement. This was a trained individual
00:34:51
who decided to go. There were no orders given.
00:34:54
So I I bought that like hook, line and sinker.
00:34:58
But another reason for that is because it happened, right, like
00:35:01
a bunch of guys. There was one I was following on
00:35:04
social media, just kitted up and went.
00:35:06
They just flew in, They went to Poland, They found some way
00:35:09
across the border or went wherever, and they took the
00:35:13
oath. And I think it was so cool to
00:35:14
watch this Ukrainian guy administer the oath to Scott
00:35:18
saying, you know, you got to follow the Geneva Conventions.
00:35:21
You're coming here under No, you know, pressure from your
00:35:25
government or our government to do this.
00:35:26
It's totally your choice. And I think that's what really
00:35:30
is happening with a lot of our guys, with a lot of American
00:35:33
citizens, you know, British, Canadian, French, whatever.
00:35:37
I think that was happening. And so it was really cool.
00:35:38
I bought that. Scott would be one of those
00:35:40
guys. Yeah, he would have the network
00:35:42
of the trolls intelligence. Right.
00:35:45
Yeah, definitely. I wasn't sure if I was going to
00:35:48
question that, but the way it was delivered, I'm in.
00:35:53
I'm absolutely in. Buy in Big score so far.
00:35:57
So big score on buy in so far. And I was nervous about it.
00:36:00
I will be honest, I was nervous. All right.
00:36:04
So we we kind of touched on the convoy thing but is there
00:36:07
anything else you wanted to to cover with that?
00:36:10
No. I think, I think my favorite
00:36:12
part was his relationship with what I'll consider this young
00:36:15
boy, young man fighting for Ukraine, Ole and the other one
00:36:20
is his description of just what the soldiers are doing as the
00:36:24
convoy's going. Right.
00:36:26
They like reading books. He wished she had a book, they
00:36:29
brought magazines, wish she had a book, and little she.
00:36:31
Mentions Conor Sullivan. Conor Sullivan?
00:36:34
One of the guys was reading Wolf Trap, so I thought that was a
00:36:37
really good shout out right there.
00:36:33
Yeah, Wolf. It's usually Jack Carr, you
00:36:40
know. Jack and Brad, I feel like have
00:36:42
done that for each other, so he wanted to find somebody
00:36:45
different. So I like that part of it again.
00:36:47
I think that scene for all the badassery of the snipers and
00:36:51
shootouts and turning around corners and abandoned build
00:36:54
abandoned buildings, my favorite part might have been the human
00:36:57
element in that fight. And my second favorite part was
00:37:01
adjusting tactics. We are back to, like you said,
00:37:04
the apostle days or I'll go back to Mitch Rapp.
00:37:07
You know, seeing him in the Middle East, we are watching
00:37:10
Scott do literally what he does best.
00:37:14
Fight a war and direct guys and use his tools to out think your
00:37:21
opponent. Not beat your opponent
00:37:22
physically, but to out think them.
00:37:24
The way he rigs part of their convoy to explode.
00:37:27
He knows the convoy is a sitting duck, so he takes all their
00:37:30
grenades, all their explosives, leaves them behind, but rigs
00:37:34
them as a trap. And it seems like they're not
00:37:38
going to attack the convoy. So they're going through the
00:37:40
town, they get the guys to flank them, and he realizes he can
00:37:44
distract a group of them because the Russians split up.
00:37:46
One's going after the main group of guys, another one is
00:37:50
flanking. He distracts the guys who are
00:37:52
flanking and it kind of double s back almost and gets them and
00:37:57
he's and and the trap is set. So initially they weren't going
00:38:00
to fall into his trap. He kind of just left it.
00:38:03
Then he realized, wait, this other group broke off.
00:38:05
I can direct them. I can then save the main team
00:38:09
from being hit from the side. So I just really think that was
00:38:13
seeing Scott do what Scott does best which is out think your
00:38:16
opponents on the battlefield. I also appreciated his
00:38:20
commentary on, like, the status of like, the Ukrainian weaponry,
00:38:26
as well as the status of, like what, you know, the the spoils
00:38:29
of war are. Yeah.
00:38:31
You know what? He's riding in this in this
00:38:33
truck that has a has a gunner, but.
00:38:36
The gunner's like, protection is missing and he goes through
00:38:39
like, all right, well, it could be because of this.
00:38:41
It could be because it had to get used somewhere else.
00:38:43
It could be because it got stripped down for parts.
00:38:44
It could be for enormous dumb reasons.
00:38:47
But it is what it is and that's what they do.
00:38:50
You know the type of gun that they use.
00:38:52
The Ole is like that gun literally could be the first gun
00:38:56
that Mucha Hadin stole from. Right.
00:39:00
Even for the Russians, like back in the day, like that's how old
00:39:03
this gun looks, Felt like it came out of a enemy museum.
00:39:07
Yeah. You know, it's the little
00:39:09
details that Brad is putting in the beginning part of this novel
00:39:12
that I think is really selling it for me.
00:39:15
The descriptions of the setting description of the people, like
00:39:18
you said, the human element of it that I'm really, really
00:39:21
buying, really digging. So and of course the Rumsfeld
00:39:26
quote had to come up. You go to war with the army you
00:39:28
have, not the army you want. I mean, perfect time to use
00:39:31
that, that, that quote that's been recycled a million times in
00:39:34
these books. Yes, the last real piece we need
00:39:39
to talk about and you kind of mentioned them, but you know we,
00:39:41
we did a whole breakdown of the prologue during our first when
00:39:47
when it dropped on the audio book dropped, but there's this
00:39:50
Anna Royko character and again. The human element in exchange
00:39:54
people going over there to be aid workers.
00:39:57
She gets kidnapped by these Ravens.
00:39:59
And so the Ravens are the tagline of the the novel like on
00:40:04
Amazon, you know it's like they they're they're mentioned
00:40:07
they're going to play a big part.
00:40:08
We're 160 pages in. I I can tell you that I did read
00:40:13
a little bit past this. So I know that the the very next
00:40:15
chapter or like the not the next chapter.
00:40:17
The the next chapter after that is a large deep dive on.
00:40:21
The kernel that we get, so we're we're we're about to jump into
00:40:24
that soon. But we've only really had one
00:40:27
scene. We we understand that these guys
00:40:29
are are crazy and then that they're trying to capture
00:40:32
treasures. They have a boatload of art,
00:40:37
man. Listening back to that prologue
00:40:39
was was super creepy. You know, like just these guys
00:40:42
that are coming through, they're howling, they're painting like
00:40:44
their face or white skulls, They're ravaging, trying to
00:40:48
find, trying to get searching for their next high while also,
00:40:52
you know, raping, pillaging, you know, Harkins back to like some
00:40:55
Game of Thrones shit, you know? Yeah, real intense.
00:40:59
So I'm. I'm intrigued to see where the
00:41:01
Ravens storyline goes. Obviously, Scott is directly
00:41:05
headed on a collision course with the Colonel.
00:41:07
That's no lie. That's where we're going to end
00:41:10
up. Either he's going to save Anna
00:41:12
Royco or, you know, avenge her. I love how he says the best
00:41:15
thing I can do for Olay is to kill every single last one of
00:41:17
these Russian fucks. Yeah, and I think multiple
00:41:20
people say, like, I don't know what you're here for, but if
00:41:22
you're here to kill Russians, like, I'm OK with that.
00:41:24
Like, I'm. I support that.
00:41:27
Scott at one point was like, Is that a common greeting to say
00:41:30
goodbye here? Kill as many of them as you can.
00:41:34
Yeah. So I I like these little these
00:41:36
little one liners that he's putting in here.
00:41:37
They're they're they're cool. So of course.
00:41:40
That's a Thorism right there, the one line quips.
00:41:42
Absolutely. As Brad Thor's wheelhouse.
00:41:45
Definitely. Definitely.
00:41:46
You're right, though, because you told me that scene is coming
00:41:50
next where we go back to the Ravens.
00:41:52
We really get into what they're doing in the ravaging the
00:41:55
countryside. And part of me, when we decided
00:41:59
to pause halfway after Chapter 16, I was like, that's just what
00:42:03
I want. Like Brad is hitting all of the
00:42:06
beats. Every time I want more of
00:42:09
something, boom, that comes right out.
00:42:11
Think of some books where we said we didn't get enough of the
00:42:15
main character, you know, and we we had to spend too long in the
00:42:18
introduction before we saw them really, you know, kicking ass
00:42:23
and taking names. Well, I feel like we've gotten
00:42:25
all of that right up front. I've had so many fun adventures
00:42:28
with Scott. We've seen him do so many cool
00:42:31
things. I got that out of the way and
00:42:34
now I'm like, OK. What about that prologue?
00:42:37
Let's go back to it and boom, Chapter 17 is going to be that.
00:42:40
We're going to get right into it and right when.
00:42:42
I want to know a little bit more about not to bring it up again,
00:42:45
but it's a part of the book. I'm really enjoying the FBIA,
00:42:49
Special agent, his partner and their thing.
00:42:52
You know, we get a little snippet of what they're doing
00:42:54
and they're going to track down the guy now who is taking
00:42:58
pictures of them for this public truth blog.
00:43:01
It's like every little thing is coming when I want it as I want
00:43:06
it. The pacing on this book so far
00:43:09
has been extraordinary. Had some questions about that in
00:43:13
Black Ice, even Near Dark had a lot, a lot of issues with pacing
00:43:18
and action set pieces. I think Rising Tiger, some
00:43:22
people had an issue with, is this even a Scott book?
00:43:24
Is he even the main character here?
00:43:26
Is is he the protagonist? Deadfall is almost overcoming
00:43:31
all of those. I don't want to call them
00:43:33
negatives, but any of those drawbacks that we pulled out of
00:43:36
the last few books. Deadfall is moving so far away
00:43:41
from them and just satisfying on all levels.
00:43:43
Yeah, definitely. So yeah, So I guess we can just
00:43:47
finish up with what what do you expect or what do you want to
00:43:51
see the most out of the second-half of this novel?
00:43:55
We know these authors are amazing at it.
00:43:57
I want to see the stories connect.
00:43:59
I really want to know what this Russian intelligence officer
00:44:03
with an asset they have called Dasher, what OP are they
00:44:07
running? What, what kind of psyops and
00:44:09
manipulation of the American public to erode our support of
00:44:13
this, the Ukrainian resistance, How are they operating?
00:44:16
And if they've got this Wilson in their pocket and they're
00:44:20
playing this Paulson guy, I want to see how that dynamic works
00:44:23
because I think it's super cool. I want to know how what the FBI
00:44:27
agents are doing. We'll both stop that from
00:44:29
happening on the home front, but also give some Intel to harvest
00:44:34
on the front lines. So I think I want to see this
00:44:36
connection between what the American public is doing, what
00:44:41
the FBI is doing somehow supporting the actions on the
00:44:45
front line and saving lives like Annaroyco.
00:44:48
I I think once all that starts clicking, this is going to be an
00:44:52
incredible bit of storytelling. What are you looking forward to?
00:44:56
Yeah, I know. I'm all those things.
00:44:58
I'm. I'm also weirdly looking forward
00:45:00
to see like the troll in action. You know we got that brief
00:45:02
little like someone's watching him in wherever he is.
00:45:08
He's not. Is he in?
00:45:09
He's, he's in the Capitol, right.
00:45:10
He's in Kiev. I gotta imagine he's near Kiev.
00:45:12
Yeah, cuz he didn't take the train all the way to car keys.
00:45:14
Oh yeah, he got off. So yeah, I I love seeing the
00:45:18
troll in action in the last novel, so I'm intrigued for
00:45:21
that. Yeah, You know, I want to see,
00:45:24
you know, we get this kind of mention of, it's funny, like, I
00:45:27
feel like, you know, you think back to transfer power and it
00:45:31
was like a trope of Mitch raps since the very beginning.
00:45:32
But, you know, Brad wants to get out.
00:45:34
You know, like what? Or Scott.
00:45:36
Mitch wanted to get out. Now he wants to get out even
00:45:39
more, you know. And then what's this whole
00:45:41
dynamic between him and Lawler and him and the Carlton Group?
00:45:47
You know, I feel like there's some animosity because he
00:45:49
decided not to take over, Right. What?
00:45:51
What's up with that? I you know my my questions maybe
00:45:55
aren't going to get answered in this novel, but.
00:45:57
Yeah, you know, you took all my things, so I had to say
00:45:59
something different. Well, well, let me ask you this.
00:46:03
We've been saying almost from the beginning.
00:46:05
Does Brad or does Scott have a a woman problem like he was sold
00:46:10
to us as the Norseman, this womanizer.
00:46:13
And then for a while in early Brad, it was I want to have
00:46:16
kids. I want to settle down.
00:46:17
I want to have a family. And then he went through what he
00:46:20
went through with Laura and that boy.
00:46:22
And I'm just like. And now Solvie is kind of this
00:46:25
nice, happy medium of we can kick her to the side because
00:46:29
she's also an intelligence officer.
00:46:31
Yeah, she works for Norwegian intelligence, so she gets every
00:46:34
mission he has to go on. Is that, is that the easy way
00:46:39
out? You know, is that a device that
00:46:43
is a little too easy to rely on, or is it good that it frees up
00:46:47
the character to operate? I don't know where I feel on
00:46:50
that. Same with the troll.
00:46:51
I was really looking forward to the impact of the last book on
00:46:56
his his marriage and basically him becoming a father.
00:47:01
And we get here, Scott's going to be the godfather, that
00:47:03
they're going to have a christening soon.
00:47:06
So I'm like, I I maybe am lacking a little bit of that.
00:47:10
So thinking back, maybe that's one beat that hasn't hit yet for
00:47:15
me now that I think about it. But I'm not sure I want it yet.
00:47:19
I want it. I just don't know if this book,
00:47:22
being so crisp and tight is the time and place to have him
00:47:26
wallow in. Missing Salvi.
00:47:27
Yeah. Salvi, no, this is not the time
00:47:29
for that. Or this is not the time for the
00:47:31
troll to want to talk about the birth of his child.
00:47:34
I'm just like, do we want that? Can we delay it even more?
00:47:38
Is it cheap to delay it? I'm not sure where I fall on
00:47:41
that. Yeah, I think he's doing a good
00:47:43
job of like giving us a little bit of the beats to connect the
00:47:47
books, but while focusing mainly on this plot, in the plot in
00:47:51
hand, so. And that's why I was nervous of
00:47:54
this book being a one off. It doesn't feel that way.
00:47:57
But is it in some way because of we're missing that stuff?
00:48:01
I don't know or is rising Tiger the one off and we're now just
00:48:05
continuing the Russian story beat.
00:48:07
Yeah so boom, we got a lot. We got a lot to yet to cover.
00:48:11
Now Vijay is going to show up and help Scott on the front
00:48:14
lines kick out Vijay and Asha. They're just going to show up
00:48:17
out of nowhere and save on a Royco.
00:48:20
There you go. There you go.
00:48:23
All right. So next time we'll be coming to
00:48:25
you with the second-half of Deadfall.
00:48:28
After that, we'll give you a interview with the man, the
00:48:31
myth, the legend, Brad Thor. Please say subscribe to both our
00:48:36
channels. All three of our channels.
00:48:38
We just dropped a long overdue Mitrad pod update.
00:48:43
Yes, check that out. Code Red is coming.
00:48:46
Code Red is coming over on the Thriller podcast.
00:48:50
What did we cover recently? Oh, all the centers bleed.
00:48:54
We did. Chris.
00:48:55
Howdy. We have a couple more things
00:48:57
we're gonna be covering soon. So.
00:48:58
I think our next book over there might be Lethal Range with Ryan
00:49:02
Stack, yeah. But that feels far away, simply
00:49:05
because we've got code red and before code Red we said we want
00:49:10
to try to read fade. Right, to give a tribute to
00:49:13
Kyle. So we got a lot going on in
00:49:15
Mitch, Rapp and Scott Harveth for the time being.
00:49:17
Yep, Yep, Alright, we need to thank our patrons, our special
00:49:21
operator Sherry F, our special agents Daryl, Kevin, George,
00:49:24
Penn, Matt, Dawn, Peggy, Ray, Bridget and Mark.
00:49:27
Please subscribe right in your view using your favorite
00:49:30
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00:49:35
Thriller Podcast and, as always, to a strong stomach.
00:49:40
Or what's that other thing that they say?
00:49:41
The it's like the Ukrainian word for bread.
00:49:46
Ohh, that was that was a neat touch how that's like a code
00:49:50
word because Russians can't pronounce it properly.
00:49:52
You ask it like a question. Yep.
00:49:54
And then they respond to you and you know that if they can
00:49:56
pronounce it right, then they're they're actually Ukrainian.
00:49:58
And then in the way back at the end you say it again just to
00:50:01
just to verify. Yep.
00:50:10
Show me, Aaj Ka.