Chris & Mike review the second half (Ch.17 to the end) of Dead Fall, the latest release and 22nd book in the Scot Harvath series by Brad Thor!
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00:00:21
Hey guys, I'm Chris now. Mike and welcome back to this
00:00:25
week's No Limits, the Scott Harvath podcast.
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How you doing today, Mike? Good dude.
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Coming off that interview with Brad Thor, I feel like I'm still
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riding high. I'm on Cloud 9.
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How about you? I feel great.
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Excited to talk second-half of this book.
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Yeah. What?
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What a great interview we had last night was the last night,
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two nights ago. I forget they're all planning
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together. But yeah, he was gracious enough
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to take a little more than an hour out of his time.
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Talk to us. He's, you know, like we said, I
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don't want to take away from that that pod.
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So go listen to that interview if you haven't.
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But you know, we said that he's he's such a great guy, took the
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time to talk to us, actually cared, you know, very sincere.
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I didn't feel any fakeness so. No.
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Genuine was the word I think I used.
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Yes, genuine. I stand by it.
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I absolutely stand by that. Yep.
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Yep. Well, Chris, like you said, we
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are getting into Part 2 today. I'm really excited to get your
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scores on this one. A couple of our patrons have
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told us they love this book. Mark.
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He rated it very high on our scorecard.
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I saw that. Nearly nearly a perfect score.
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So I'm a little curious how how you and I are going to end up.
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I personally, I haven't given it a score.
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I haven't really went through it.
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I wanted to process it here on the pod out loud and definitely
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get your take on a few things before I give it the final
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judgment. Yeah, no, I this book is
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interesting to me and I don't know if it can kick off the
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second-half of our discussion, not now that it's the negative
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thing. It just felt different and you
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know we talked about the first half and then we're we're going
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to talk about the second-half here.
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And you know we we did cut it like sort of you know halfway
00:02:04
through the audio book. But to me the second-half we're
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not we're really not taken outside of Scott.
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Like it's it's really it's Scott's story.
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It's Scott's stories in Ukraine. You know, we we have a little
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bit of, you know, tieins with with some other people.
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Like there's maybe one or two chapters with the troll.
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There's one or two chapters with either Wilson or the FBI agents.
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And then there's that one, only one chapter with Gretchko, which
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is a hilarious chapter. I want to talk to you about that
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one with with the drunk Putin, not Putin, but, you know, like
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essentially Putin. Right.
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But, you know, I feel like either in past Brad novels or,
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you know, some of the other things we've read recently,
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there would have been a lot more jumping back and forth.
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And I felt like, you know, definitely after listening to to
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Brad tell us about, you know, what this book kind of meant to
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him. It felt right.
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Like, did you find yourself, you know, just you were immersed in
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that Ukraine story and like you wanted to be there, Like, you
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know, I wrote this down, like, did you want more?
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Did you want, like did you want more story?
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Did was there enough? Like, it's a short book.
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It's, you know, it's just a short audio book, too.
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Yeah, it's oh boy. I don't know if I'd call the
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double edged sword because let me just start by saying yes,
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yes, yes, yes. I wanted more because Scott in
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Ukraine and he doesn't meet up with the team hookah.
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Jack's Biscuit and Kruger, he doesn't meet up with them really
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until the second-half. So we're only getting half of
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this book where he is actually embedded with a team of
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operators doing what they got to do.
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So the the action, the first half was incredible in Ukraine,
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I would say it maybe even gets better here.
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A couple of the assaults on the Ravens in the villages and then
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culminating to the final attack on the fortress, so in that
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regard. I thought this book was Lights
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Out. I meant to tell Brad I think
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it's his best action writing start to finish in any of his
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books throughout the series. The best bar none action start
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to finish that he's ever written.
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So in that regard, I love Scott and Ukraine, Scott and the team
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going all over the countryside. And eventually, perhaps my
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favorite scene, maybe in the whole book, is when he's running
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with the RPG slung over his back.
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Through the village after they had taken the hostages.
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And he's just calling an audible, hopping fences, running
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across fields. We'll get to it.
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But all that stuff I loved could have taken more of it was
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incredible. The double edged sword is that
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the first half also set me up to really be invested in the side
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plots. So when we did leave Ukraine,
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which I didn't want to, but when we did?
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It was surprisingly more intriguing than I expected.
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Carolyn and Fields as FBI agents, love them.
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As the good cop, bad cop kind of duo, the old guard and the next
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generation in the Bureau. I was really loving it.
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I'm not sure if I was fully satisfied with how that wrapped
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up. Or maybe I should put it I'm not
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completely satisfied with how it didn't really interact at all
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with what the troll and Scott are doing in Ukraine.
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Yes, they tracked down the conspiracy theorists who are
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trying to turn the American tide in public against people like
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Scott. But there was no real direct
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link in the end that I kind of wanted them to uncover this
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piece of intelligence or a certain name that would link
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back to the Ravens, you know, and and and help Scott and and
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the troll achieve the mission. So it just kind of left me
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wanting there a little bit. Same thing with Senator Wilson
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Paulson and and all the other things that he's doing.
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I really liked when he got caught in the end.
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But before he got caught, I was looking for him to make one more
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move, one more big kind of I'm going to screw somebody over,
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I'm going to put somebody's life in danger, just make that real
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big, you know, big Dick energy play that ultimately fails and
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really causes catastrophe. So that when he gets taken down
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and the FBI or the windbreakers, you know, show up and and scare
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him out of his boots. Quite literally, I.
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I wanted that to have a little bigger impact than it did.
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So double Edged Sword is absolutely love Scott and
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Ukraine. Everything about it.
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But the parts that got me hyped about the two side plots in the
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first half, I'm not sure how satisfied I was with how they
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wrapped up. Would you agree or or were you
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still digging those in the second-half?
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No. Well I I just think that it's
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hard to dig when they just weren't there.
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You know like as I, as I'm writing out you know the
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chapters or you know the scenes we need to discuss we're we're
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just with Scott. You know and I almost think that
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you could you could get rid of the senator What I mean
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obviously you need to I can see what Brad was going with he
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wanted to sort of sell the entire picture.
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Right. You know, to show that not only
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is this a war going on literally, you know, the actual
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literal war, but you know all the other all the other players
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that are that are being involved and and how that's interacting
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back home with you know, our politics, you know, our justice
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system, whatever people who are in you know, either Russian
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spies or people who are taking the Russian propaganda and in
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media bait. So I can see where he's going
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you want, you know, it's like filler.
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But I almost, I could have just done away with all that and just
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I would have appreciated this and I appreciate this book.
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But like I, if you did this had just been Scott and you know,
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maybe the troll, you know, I obviously put him there, but you
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know, just tracking him from Belarus, Poland, Ukraine back to
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Poland like that and give me like a little bit more time with
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the boys like you know, that would have been even more
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elevated than what I think this is.
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Does that make sense? No.
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Yeah, I think you're right. I think you're right.
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The only thing I would say is I surprisingly liked it in the
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beginning of the book. Sure.
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And it was you don't know where it's going to go.
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Because I don't know right. It was that buy in that made me
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because I originally I thought exactly what you were let's stay
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with Scott. Let's be in Ukraine.
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That's all point of this book and I'm I'm kind of maybe being
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a hypocrite because I was apprehensive about this being a
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singular story that was just too, too narrow.
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And before this book came out I I felt pressure.
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I was like, man. You're doing Ukraine.
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It's another Scott Harveth book. This thing has to hit.
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This has to be a rock solid book.
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And it absolutely was. And and I think it was way
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better than I was expecting. But if I were going to nitpick,
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it's a Senator Wilson stuff and the Carolyn stuff, which in the
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end, I don't think satisfied. And you're right, If none of
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those people were in this book, that wouldn't make it a worse
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book. No, it wouldn't.
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It definitely wouldn't. So yeah, I agree with you.
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But at the same time, I'm going to again, we're just at the
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same. Time.
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I love them. I love Fields.
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We're a bucket of of contradictions.
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The I think that Brad told just enough.
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You know he kind of even said that he had to tone things down
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what he did and I think like you know the story that he did end
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up telling, you know on the front lines had had amazing
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action sequences. We're going to get into had just
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enough, you know, little clips of humor here and there to, you
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know, elevate you while also bringing you down, you know,
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going into that that convent and like being describing the
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horror, you know, what went on there or, you know, even parking
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back to the prologue and like thinking about that and then
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thinking about like what these people he's trying to stop are
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is just, you know, obviously he mentioned in his interview that
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he's pulling not this it's he didn't have to I think too hard
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to come up with new scenarios because like all of this stuff
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has been done before whether or not it's been doing right now
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it's, you know, happened in Germany, happened in turn World
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War 2 happened in, you know, pick a pick a war and stuff like
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this has happened. You know.
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So there's like you know there's going overboard or there's you
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know, sort of hitting that right.
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That right tone of cool action capturing the realness of you
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know, what he's trying to to tell in the moment and then
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also, you know, having it be a Scott Horvath novel, you know,
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and having him be a badass, be funny, be a brute, you know,
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there's there's this one line where I think it describes like
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what I'm trying to the best. Where Kruger biscuit.
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They're all joking and and they're asking like, what should
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we ask for next? And Scott comes back and says,
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you know, how about how will we save an American, you know?
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And the girls and then the two girls.
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And then he immediately realizes like yeah I shouldn't have been
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that hard like that that that was uncalled for.
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You know they were just these guys are over here sacrificing
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just like I am you know And that kind of like sort of tells like
00:11:00
the the fine line he's trying to tell in the story.
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You know that to be it obviously has to be a bestseller has to be
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an action. But he also he he wants to make
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a statement and I feel like I really want you guys to go
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listen to the interview because there at the very end he he lays
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out, you know we kind of dive into what he thinks and you know
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he we know that this has been he does it.
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He puts what he thinks in his novels whether it's parking back
00:11:25
to the war in Iraq, the you know, Taliban, whatever.
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He's not going to be blunt. He's it's on the page.
00:11:33
Yeah. And I think, I think he did a
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good job. So that's yeah.
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So. Yeah, I agree.
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And I think your point was perfect when Brad was saying how
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he had to dial back the humor. Because it was such a deadly
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scenario in which these guys are operating at the same time.
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That humor needs to be present or else you just can't handle
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the job. You're right that that's
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perfectly summed up with Biscuit and the guys.
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And Biscuit was that one who was a little more nervous too.
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He was like that quiet or shyer guy, so you do wonder about him.
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So when they're all joking, when I thought he died, like I got, I
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got emotional, man, like a little bit.
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I was like, oh shit, he's going to.
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Then he didn't die. And I'm like, all right, cool.
00:12:13
Like, it's better, but. Dude, I I agree him.
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We were so bought in and we were only with these guys for half
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the book less maybe you know where we were truly hearing from
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them and they don't even have a lot of words like in terms of
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they don't speak a lot yet we were so connected to them and
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that's brilliant writing to make us buy in.
00:12:35
How many times has Brad? You know, we covered the first
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half of Brad Thor's books? How many times has he introduced
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us to a team, you know, like the one in New York City?
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What was that blowback? He's got a whole team there.
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He's working with every other one.
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When he's on his adventures, he's kind of assembling and
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getting these teams of guys. This is definitely one of the
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most memorable. Like, I don't know if it's
00:12:55
because it's the current Ukraine conflict, so we can kind of
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picture it in our head, but who could?
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Jack's Kruger and Biscuit to me are just like right there.
00:13:03
They're so present, they're so vivid and I really think it's
00:13:06
one of the better teams that. He assembled to be around
00:13:09
Harvath. I I do wonder, and I get the
00:13:12
argument of the Ukrainians couldn't spare anybody.
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Did you feel it was a little off putting that?
00:13:18
It was all Americans, Canadians and Brits on his team.
00:13:22
Like it was only international legion guys, I would have loved
00:13:26
one Ukrainian specialist or a translator.
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I know that's very hard for them to give up.
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And so I I bought into it. It didn't affect my buyin, but I
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was just like, oh, it's just Western dudes over here, you
00:13:35
know, fighting it out for him. But I liked how we had that
00:13:38
interaction with him and the Gru on the on the train and then
00:13:43
that guy who he, you know he got his APC blown up and then he's
00:13:47
like all right, if you figure out how to how to, you know,
00:13:51
allow me to save this Jeep, you know which Scott makes like the
00:13:55
chalk paint like which is, which was pretty cool the Russians.
00:13:58
Did you know I didn't get your Jeep blown up?
00:14:00
The Russians did. The Russian Yeah, like, I like
00:14:01
that little interplay like that that was needed.
00:14:04
But like, you know, if that guy had been there, you know,
00:14:06
continued on with the group, like, I feel like that, you
00:14:08
know, maybe that would add a little bit extra.
00:14:10
But yeah, I think like he was going for this because he wanted
00:14:12
to tell the story of like, are there are these people over
00:14:14
there that are ex special forces who have, you know, given up
00:14:17
their lives to, you know, either and like you said, like you can
00:14:20
either believe in the cause or you can be itching, you know,
00:14:24
itching for that. You're sort of scratching your
00:14:27
itch since you got out. Or or both, you know, Like a lot
00:14:29
of them are both so. Yeah, that dude was awesome.
00:14:32
Heevey, heevey, Heevey. But however he says his name, he
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was. And and that's kind of like in
00:14:39
the first half we talked about Ole, the young kid who was
00:14:43
fighting this war and needlessly, you know, like he
00:14:46
Scott was very clear. This guy's not a soldier.
00:14:48
He shouldn't have to be here with a gun in his hands.
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He should be a college studying somewhere.
00:14:52
And then heevee, you're like this guy put in his time, you
00:14:55
know, like he's a truck driver. He was a truck driver.
00:14:57
Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
00:14:58
And it's like he he's just a laborer.
00:15:00
He's just trying to, you know, take care of his family, earn a
00:15:02
buck and do what he's got to do. Yet he's giving up everything to
00:15:05
to transport kind of behind enemy lines, you know, bringing
00:15:10
people and supplies. And I'm just like, I love oh,
00:15:14
and then. So they're not the only
00:15:16
Ukrainians we meet. We meet the whole Bush Telegram
00:15:19
people, right? So I feel like that's where
00:15:21
we're getting our Ukrainian elements, you know, meeting the
00:15:23
locals. And I agree.
00:15:24
And I was OK with that, with the villagers.
00:15:27
And then those two men we just talked about being the Ukrainian
00:15:30
kind of perspective, really well done.
00:15:33
And the, yeah, the old lady and then the younger lady who has
00:15:36
the cell phone who's actually contacting the other villages.
00:15:39
I really like that. I was just wondering.
00:15:42
Why not one Ukrainian on their team or or even a poll or you
00:15:48
know, someone from a NATO country in Central Europe that
00:15:54
is also given instead of just the American, the Brit and you
00:15:56
know, the Canadians. But it's a small nitpick and it
00:16:01
it's probably not a valid one on my part, simply because he did
00:16:04
paint an amazing cast of Ukrainian heroes who were doing
00:16:08
all sorts of jobs to contribute to the frontline.
00:16:10
So. It's probably not a not a fair
00:16:13
criticism on my end. Maybe these are based off, he
00:16:16
didn't say it, but maybe these are based off of real people
00:16:18
that maybe he didn't meet but he'd research on, you know, that
00:16:21
he either looked up on YouTube or because he said he just
00:16:24
watched a lot of which I don't know how you could do that but
00:16:26
watched a lot of like GoPro if you had a footage of, you're
00:16:30
right soldiers over there, so. Well, yeah, there was one.
00:16:32
He was saying that. There was one guy on Twitter
00:16:35
that I was following the early days of the war who was doing
00:16:37
that same thing. And.
00:16:39
I was like to be honest this book felt exactly like that
00:16:42
footage and and the pictures that he was posting and
00:16:44
everything that I saw felt just like so talking scorecard in a
00:16:48
little bit the setting can you cannot have done a better job I
00:16:52
don't think painting what it looks like.
00:16:55
This train we didn't even talk about this the train going
00:16:57
across from Poland into Ukraine. I it felt so cool to be on that
00:17:02
train the way it was described. So I think everything about the
00:17:04
setting, even if we're not traveling super heavy globally.
00:17:08
The setting was still just lights out.
00:17:10
Yeah. And I think this book is very
00:17:12
crisp, clean, like there's no wasted, no wasted word.
00:17:16
And he, he does a great job of painting that landscape, you
00:17:20
know, allowing us to understand what these villages are.
00:17:24
You know where Scott is going that you know, even at the end
00:17:27
like describing that fortress that they're going through and
00:17:29
like the various rooms and like where everything is set up
00:17:33
describing the vineyard that they go to and they they hold
00:17:36
out on previously describing, you know, the various places
00:17:40
that Scott has been. You know, I think he does a
00:17:42
great job of that. And to go back to just one
00:17:45
second on the point you said about, I think Brad does a great
00:17:48
job of getting us to buy in quickly to like a ragtag team,
00:17:54
like the characters that like last longer.
00:17:57
I feel like he, you know, the ones that hit, hit, but like,
00:18:03
you think back to like his first team.
00:18:05
You know, what was that guy? I'm blinking on his name, but he
00:18:09
was in like a couple ones. There was Gordo, Aviliano,
00:18:12
Gordo. I wonder what happened to him.
00:18:13
I know, like I bought into him and.
00:18:15
The Scottish guy. Yeah, yeah.
00:18:17
And then he brings in, all right.
00:18:19
The first one, like the his, his goofball team from the Secret
00:18:23
Service. Yeah.
00:18:24
But yeah, like you mentioned the the team from blow back or take
00:18:29
down whatever the New York one. It was take down.
00:18:30
That's what I meant. He does a he does a really good
00:18:35
job at introducing a new character.
00:18:38
New like he's one off side characters and make investing in
00:18:42
them and getting you to believe as a reader that they're
00:18:44
important. Even though and even though they
00:18:47
you know sometimes they do go on to be make a couple more
00:18:50
appearances. You know or like the troll who
00:18:53
knows. That's be a good question to ask
00:18:55
him. Did he know that the troll was
00:18:56
going to be in every single book, you know, going forward,
00:18:59
Almost every single book going forward, when he made that
00:19:01
character? Yeah, you know.
00:19:02
Well, you remember it was just a couple of books ago on the pod
00:19:07
where we got the first hint of the troll and we were like, yo,
00:19:10
that was definitely a seed planted that he knew needed to
00:19:14
grow. And then like 2 books later, the
00:19:16
troll is actually present, not just a hint.
00:19:19
Oh, there's this guy selling, you know, secrets.
00:19:21
Then we meet the troll. And then you just know right
00:19:24
from the gecko that he he had a goldmine of a character and
00:19:27
every book since has essentially had Nicholas in it.
00:19:30
So I don't think, I I think the second he made that character it
00:19:34
would like it tweaked something and he was like I I think this
00:19:38
is going to be a long term, long term play.
00:19:41
You can tell like with some other ones that he maybe wanted
00:19:43
to keep around he gets tired with like.
00:19:45
It's true, yeah. More often than not, it's
00:19:47
Scott's love interest, you know, And at the moment, like, we got
00:19:53
to talk about the solvie of it all or, you know, even like
00:19:55
Nicholas's wife, not girlfriend, like of it all, he didn't.
00:20:00
We didn't ask him that. You know, and I felt like it
00:20:02
wasn't the right conversation to ask it.
00:20:04
You know, I felt we talked about before and I was like, should
00:20:06
we? We'll see how the interview goes
00:20:08
and like, we'll know if we can talk about it.
00:20:10
And, like, it just didn't feel like the.
00:20:11
Right. Yeah, we had, we had wondered if
00:20:14
we were going to ask about this and then we didn't.
00:20:16
But for me, I didn't ask because I forgot I was so wrapped up in
00:20:19
what we were talking about. Looking back, I I do want to
00:20:22
know the answer. So for the audience, we'll tell
00:20:25
you what Chris and I are talking about what happened with the
00:20:28
Trolls family, because in Rising Tiger, we know that.
00:20:34
And it was his wife, right? They were married and she was
00:20:38
pregnant, going to have a baby. And what did I say it was?
00:20:42
It's the Havana syndrome, like incident right there, right?
00:20:44
Exactly. The Chinese are doing the Havana
00:20:46
syndrome, but it was near dark. I went back to near dark or
00:20:49
black ice and the troll did say the baby's doing seven months.
00:20:55
So that was 3 three books ago or or so.
00:20:59
The troll did say, you know, she's doing seven months, so
00:21:02
she's already a few months into the pregnancy, which means by
00:21:05
rising Tiger. She's absolutely far along and
00:21:08
we were worried about her. And then here he's just off in
00:21:12
Ukraine doing what he does, the ending.
00:21:14
He says I'm going to stay here, I have more work to do here.
00:21:18
He even tells I don't know if it was Kozar, one of the other
00:21:21
guys. He tells Julia.
00:21:22
He tells Julia I don't have a wife or I'm not married, so I'm
00:21:28
like. So you mentioned that to me,
00:21:30
that maybe he does that because he knows that Julia is the mole.
00:21:35
He can't trust anyone and especially her.
00:21:37
Yeah. Or maybe he can't trust anyone,
00:21:38
so he's just not trying to give any.
00:21:41
And you know any personal information up so you could you
00:21:43
could sort of brush brush that aside but when he stays at the
00:21:47
end when he's so gung ho of I have work to do here.
00:21:50
That's weird. Especially if if she was already
00:21:54
a few months pregnant as early as near dark, like it was near
00:21:58
dark or black. I swear I looked up.
00:22:00
He said that. So I'm like, there's no way like
00:22:03
what happened? Yeah, and to have no mention of
00:22:06
like what you know, that was a big part of.
00:22:09
Him and her being attacked Rising tiger.
00:22:12
Rising Tiger like to have no mention of that, which is weird
00:22:15
to me. So same here.
00:22:17
Same here. But he didn't mention like
00:22:19
they're you know, these things are written to be stand alone.
00:22:22
And you know, sometimes authors just get tired of something they
00:22:25
wrote and that this gives them the ability to to not.
00:22:30
And all these sickos like us actually pick up on it, you
00:22:33
know? I like, all right.
00:22:35
I like my listeners to you know are we wrong on this you know or
00:22:40
is were you thinking the same thing like what the hell is
00:22:43
going on with Nicholas cuz we're so bought into the troll and
00:22:46
like his family and his family life and you know I don't know
00:22:50
that was that was weird to me. Yeah.
00:22:51
If you are like us give us a hashtag you know daddy troll.
00:22:57
Yeah we got it. I gotta know do you guys care as
00:22:59
much as us. And to to me, if it was just an
00:23:03
oversight, I I really can't believe that's the case, The way
00:23:06
Brad is so tight with his writing and his stories.
00:23:09
If it wasn't oversight, okay, sure.
00:23:11
But if you intentionally played out the troll family man
00:23:16
pregnancy, going to be a dad for a few books and you just about
00:23:20
face and decide to drop it and you're going to act like it
00:23:22
never happened moving forward to me that's that's that that's a
00:23:29
big no no. I won't say it's unforgivable,
00:23:31
but it's it will sting. I'll put it that way.
00:23:34
It will absolutely sting. You know, I gotta go back and
00:23:36
reread the first chapter when Nicholas is with Scott and see
00:23:41
if anything comes up. You know, cuz maybe I just
00:23:46
missed it like maybe or anything.
00:23:48
Yeah, like you know, something like that.
00:23:51
I got. I'll go back and then in the
00:23:52
next spot, I'll follow up on that.
00:23:54
But yeah, guys, we want to hear your thoughts on this.
00:23:56
Maybe we're crazy. Actually, I know we're crazy,
00:23:58
but maybe you also are crazy with us.
00:24:00
I don't know. Can I bring up one more while
00:24:05
we're on this? Because another key player the
00:24:07
troll is working with besides Yulia, Is Kosar really like
00:24:13
Kosar? Did you also have suspicions
00:24:16
when he was watching the CCTV footage and the troll is
00:24:21
explaining to Yulia all the different operations that he's
00:24:25
referencing from World War 2 in the Cold War?
00:24:28
And he says something or or Yulia says like, oh, wow, that's
00:24:31
very clever. Oh, it's no, it's working like a
00:24:33
double agent. So you you find the mole, but
00:24:36
you don't expose the mole. Instead you use the mole and you
00:24:39
feed the mole fake information so that they bring that fake
00:24:42
information back to their handlers.
00:24:44
And Yulia's like, oh, that's very clever.
00:24:46
And then Cozar is watching on TV and he says very clever indeed.
00:24:50
And the chapter ends. Did you not have a hint of
00:24:53
suspicion that maybe he was the mole?
00:24:57
I I thought maybe that Kozar thought that the troll was the
00:25:00
mole at that moment. You know, when he says very
00:25:04
clever indeed. And I it's a typical Brad Thor
00:25:07
cliffhanger I interpreted as, oh shit, can I no longer trust
00:25:11
Kozar? So when the mole was revealed as
00:25:13
Yulia, it was like a burden off my shoulders.
00:25:17
It was a relief that I knew Kozar was clean.
00:25:20
I don't know, maybe I read that wrong.
00:25:22
But that cliffhanger I I really did like that little end to the
00:25:25
chapter. Very clever indeed.
00:25:27
So Speaking of cliffhangers, we we don't necessarily get a
00:25:31
quintessential Brad Cliffhanger at the end of this novel.
00:25:34
It's a little more wrapped up. Like Scott, you know,
00:25:37
essentially says let them try to stop me while he goes to hang
00:25:41
with Salty. But I wanted to ask, do you, do
00:25:45
you think what he did with the troll and Julia?
00:25:49
Julia is is that the cliffhanger that we're supposed to expect?
00:25:51
Are we supposed to then expect to follow up on that because we,
00:25:55
like, aren't supposed to deduce that the trolls figured out that
00:25:58
Julie is the mole, but we, you know, there's no repercussion.
00:26:01
We never find out what the repercussions of this are.
00:26:03
And like, is that we supposed to then believe that we're going to
00:26:06
follow up on this? Or you know, no, I don't know.
00:26:09
I can't see the next book following up on it, but I I I
00:26:15
think it's just supposed to be left to our imagination that the
00:26:17
troll sticks around a little longer and uses her and feeds
00:26:20
her fake information and is able to help bring the thing, you
00:26:23
know use her as a tool. But I agree I don't know how
00:26:28
that worked as a cliffhanger and another one, Gretch go
00:26:32
defecting. I had the complete wrong read on
00:26:35
that when Brad talked to us and said he wanted to basically make
00:26:40
Gretch go almost sympathetic in that he realizes, you know, he
00:26:45
was working for buffoons and he was ready and just sick of
00:26:49
Peshkov and this other oligarch. Because, you know, the oligarch
00:26:52
took his girlfriend and married her and basically destroyed that
00:26:56
part of his life. And Peshkov is a bumbling idiot.
00:26:59
So he was turning because he legitimately was giving up on
00:27:02
that, that leadership in Russia. I that's not how I read it at
00:27:08
all when it happened. I read it as, oh crap, this dude
00:27:12
is like 7 layers deep and he's going to go defect to the West
00:27:16
but secretly be a mole and use Solvie's naivete or the whole,
00:27:22
like Norwegian intelligence apparatus to get into the
00:27:24
American intelligence field and secretly be a fake defector and
00:27:30
really be working for Russia from the West.
00:27:32
I thought he was going to play Solvi, so I was really excited.
00:27:35
The next book that's going to be it, you know, like Gretchko is
00:27:39
this Russian defector intelligence operative, but who
00:27:42
is still playing the game, even though now we and the Norwegians
00:27:45
think he's on our side. I thought we were going to get
00:27:48
some real like Lake Her a kind of mold effector story.
00:27:52
But it sounds like Brad wanted us to read it as Gretch Go was
00:27:55
in the end, just kind of a guy with a conscious who was ready
00:27:58
to come clean. Yeah, I think he wants us to
00:28:01
think that he's done with that story, too.
00:28:04
Yeah, I don't think I read that as a as a done and dusted kind
00:28:07
of storyline there when he met Salvi.
00:28:09
No. Like, I I to me right now.
00:28:12
Now that I'm like, talking it out, I I think there are no
00:28:15
cliffhangers like this is the clearest, It's rap like.
00:28:19
Rap story and it, you know, if you think about it kind of makes
00:28:22
sense. You know what are you really
00:28:24
going to you know there's no outcome yet to it.
00:28:28
You know obviously you have to think about he's writing the
00:28:30
next book now and so we're we're still in the midst of it and
00:28:33
nothing's really changed. It's a war of attrition, so.
00:28:37
Where else is is there to go with this story?
00:28:39
Nowhere. So you have to kind of do you
00:28:41
kind of have to do a hard, this hard reset and boom, Scott can
00:28:45
literally can literally do anything, anything now.
00:28:48
Yeah, yeah. Though the reason I really like
00:28:53
the ending at 1st, and knowing this information now, I'm a
00:28:58
little hesitant about the ending cuz I really like the fact that
00:29:01
it seemed Gretch go defecting to solve the Scott and Sully about
00:29:08
to get together. It almost seemed to me like, OK,
00:29:11
there's going to be a Part 2. And the good news here is that
00:29:13
Sully's job is going to align with what Scott and Nicholas
00:29:16
have been doing. He's leaving it open.
00:29:19
It could be. It could.
00:29:19
It could be. It could be.
00:29:20
I was really excited that that was going to happen because the
00:29:24
moment they canceled their date in Poland and Scott had to leave
00:29:28
on a mission and Sully said. I understand.
00:29:29
I'm really busy too. I was like, OK, here's another
00:29:33
typical way we're going to get out of a Scott Harvath
00:29:37
relationship. You know, how many times does
00:29:39
that happen? They mutually part ways going
00:29:41
back to the early books, you know, So I'm like, oh darn.
00:29:45
I thought for sure Sully was gone, but they're engaged,
00:29:47
right? Like, so exactly.
00:29:48
They're engaged, so they have to come back.
00:29:50
But are we just going to keep doing this dance of oh, I got a
00:29:53
phone call I have to leave now and I thought, Gretch go
00:29:56
defecting could be the perfect way their universes collide and
00:29:59
there's going to be some operational missions that they
00:30:03
can do or at least plan together moving forward.
00:30:06
I hope we go that route. It doesn't have to be with
00:30:08
Gretchko. Could be another kind of mission
00:30:11
that the Norwegians and and our intelligence and the Carlton
00:30:14
Group need to work together on maybe a Finland story.
00:30:17
I don't know. But I just, I was really happy
00:30:21
the worlds were going to collide.
00:30:22
And I hope we don't have to read it as that's done and dusted.
00:30:26
You know it's over. Well, I think it could could go
00:30:29
either way. So, you know, it's open.
00:30:32
It's open. He's he's left himself the
00:30:35
ability to either build upon this or go a completely
00:30:40
different way. So true.
00:30:42
And like either way I think people are can be satisfied, you
00:30:45
know? Yeah, here's another amazing
00:30:48
opportunity and door that's open because this has been done in
00:30:53
all the great series at definitely.
00:30:55
I'm thinking Vince Flynn and Mitch Rapp, 234 books from now.
00:30:59
Plus Can you imagine if Asha or Vijay or Gretschko or Jacks or
00:31:07
Biscuit, any of these people from these last few books that
00:31:11
we really loved and felt we didn't get enough of?
00:31:13
If they come back in some way, I I I just think it'd be so cool
00:31:17
that the doors open on all these incredible characters.
00:31:20
Brad created the last few books down the line.
00:31:24
Who knows which one will come back into the universe and cross
00:31:27
paths again with Scott. I I think there's a real open
00:31:30
canvas to do that as well. All these Druzia, you might say,
00:31:35
all these friends, Druzia, I love that.
00:31:37
Oh, that. That is when you know an author
00:31:40
is a true artisan, you know, at the height of their craft.
00:31:44
The way he brought Druzia back, which the old lady says in the
00:31:48
village, and it's only one of the few words he could pick up
00:31:51
on or what she's saying. And then he goes and says it to
00:31:54
the girls to calm them down and he also hands them the picture.
00:31:58
The picture was what the old lady gave to him, pressed into
00:32:00
his hand before he left. He almost didn't get to say
00:32:03
goodbye to her. The old lady.
00:32:05
I loved how the picture and Druzia friends came back in the
00:32:09
end. I just think that's a perfect
00:32:10
little device to use. So you want to get in the
00:32:15
scorecard and talk a little bit more about these the action
00:32:18
scenes that's like the is there anything else you want to talk
00:32:20
with in terms of like the FBI agents or the side plots?
00:32:24
No, I I think we really gave a very general broad overview of
00:32:28
our feelings on a lot of things. So I think getting into the
00:32:30
numbers and rating things specifically will go a long way
00:32:34
because action. I actually want to get into a
00:32:37
few of the specifics. We didn't do too many too much
00:32:39
nitty gritty here. We get a lot of action, So what
00:32:42
are you going to give it as a score and what was your favorite
00:32:44
scene in the second-half? What do I go 10?
00:32:49
I'm wondering that too, I. Really go as high as a 10
00:32:53
because it's pretty damn good. I I fuck it.
00:32:56
I gotta, I gotta give it a 10 because yeah, so it's either got
00:33:03
to be. So if I'm going second, just
00:33:05
second-half alone because I really liked like the attack on.
00:33:12
The convoy from the from the previous one from the first half
00:33:16
of the book, but I'm probably going to go like the precursor
00:33:19
attack to like the final attack where they take the.
00:33:24
They take the hostages, you know, getting the like, just the
00:33:27
logistics of that, like driving in with that service road and
00:33:30
like the whole planning aspect of it and then like you know,
00:33:33
everything goes in it. They they have, you have a plan
00:33:34
but literally halfway through you know your best lane plans
00:33:37
are. Yeah, they're just that.
00:33:39
They're playing. They don't survive first contact
00:33:41
with the enemy. Exactly, exactly.
00:33:43
So that scene is freaking awesome.
00:33:47
You know, Obviously there's emotional stakes with Biscuit
00:33:50
going down. They're able to, you know, save
00:33:52
him, you know, just Biscuit go down in in the in the second.
00:33:56
That's the final attack. That's the final attack, yeah.
00:33:58
But you know, just the whole logistics around that was was
00:34:01
really cool. So I probably lean more towards
00:34:04
that, but the final takedown you know on this compound.
00:34:08
Drawing them out, you know, just the the various like it, it is
00:34:12
so propulsive, the reading of it, you know, like they're
00:34:14
moving from scene to scene and then like as soon as they reach
00:34:17
a precipice boom, they reach more people and they have to
00:34:19
pull back and then then they have to go up and then there's a
00:34:21
gunner. Then they have to figure out,
00:34:22
all right, we go go around to take out this machine gun.
00:34:24
But there's there's people coming around, there's frags
00:34:26
like even who's he with? He's with hookah, right.
00:34:29
Who gets who gets shot in the face, but his like his helmet
00:34:33
and his MVG's like save him? And then you get shot again in
00:34:38
the arm. Or maybe, maybe that was the
00:34:40
first shot. Anyway, they got the stretcher,
00:34:42
they're moving biscuit out on the stretcher and everything.
00:34:44
Or Anna Royco Anna. Royco out on the stretcher.
00:34:47
Yeah, yeah, yeah, good. Good stuff.
00:34:49
I agree with you 10 on action because of all this.
00:34:53
Although you're right, my favorite scene of the
00:34:56
second-half, I think the train scene in the first half was
00:34:59
going to take the best action overall.
00:35:02
But it's when he slings that RPG over his back after taking the
00:35:06
house hostages at the security checkpoint in the front of the
00:35:09
village or the back of the village, and he realizes they've
00:35:12
got Rpg's and heavy weapons, he goes fucking changing plan.
00:35:15
We're going to blow all these motherfuckers up and he runs
00:35:18
through the village with that RPG.
00:35:20
Oh my God, I absolutely love that.
00:35:22
I I was so into the story at that point.
00:35:26
Well, in the deception too. Like he they drive.
00:35:31
They leave like the the Jeep there after they've driven like
00:35:34
the the hostages out to bring it back, to then blow it up.
00:35:39
So it doesn't doesn't look like they actually took hostages
00:35:41
exactly. In case.
00:35:43
Yeah, I love that and and I liked leading up to that scene
00:35:46
when he's brainstorming ideas. I forget who he was driving
00:35:49
with, if it was Jacks or Kruger, whoever, It was hookah.
00:35:53
But they're driving together and they're both kind of coming up
00:35:56
with ideas of how we're going to hit the Ravens once we track
00:35:58
them down. And I thought it was really
00:36:01
cool. The everything about that
00:36:02
sequence was, was awesome. 11 Ding, which might be a plot Ding
00:36:09
here, it built some suspense when one of the guys is like, so
00:36:14
we take the hostages, what are you going to do?
00:36:16
Just interrogate them right there on the street and get your
00:36:18
answers. Scott's like, don't worry about
00:36:20
what I'm going to do. You know, I'll get the answers
00:36:22
from them, especially if we get more than one.
00:36:24
I'll definitely get the answers. So here I am thinking we're
00:36:28
going to get an awesome interrogation scene, right?
00:36:30
We're going to get some Mitch rap, you know, James Reese
00:36:33
interrogation stuff. But no, the guys just start
00:36:36
talking like these Ravens. I'm like I I was a little
00:36:40
underwhelmed. It helped with the
00:36:43
propulsiveness, I think, of the pacing.
00:36:45
It didn't. It didn't slow it down, yeah, it
00:36:47
didn't slow it down for sure. It helped us get to the final
00:36:49
scene at the Fortress, but I would have loved a good
00:36:53
interrogation scene. I I just don't know if I could
00:36:55
buy into the fact that these guys just spoke so easily and
00:37:00
gave up everything and and all the details.
00:37:03
Remember, they're they're just criminals, dude.
00:37:05
Like, they're not. It's not like they're they're
00:37:07
not, you know, converts to the cause.
00:37:11
They're not. It's true.
00:37:13
True terrorists. They're not.
00:37:14
They're not, you know, they're not, they're not a military
00:37:17
trained. You know, they're they're going
00:37:19
to sing like Canaries to say their ass, yeah.
00:37:24
You might get, you might get. You might get one that like
00:37:26
wouldn't talk. But like, you know, odds are
00:37:28
like the other ones. Yeah, But no, I I agree with
00:37:31
you. I was expecting that seemed to
00:37:33
be a little bit more than just like the troll on video links,
00:37:36
like confirming the Russian was OK.
00:37:38
But yeah, it was, it was like, all right, but I I think it's
00:37:41
like more So what you were saying the first half, like he
00:37:44
didn't want to slow himself down.
00:37:45
Like it's it at this point he's humming.
00:37:47
We gotta get to the the final fight, you know.
00:37:49
Yeah, I think you're right about that.
00:37:51
I would also say the communication with the troll and
00:37:53
I understand that, you know, being tracked and the Russians
00:37:56
had that device they had to blow up about tracking too many cell
00:37:59
phones in one spot somehow. If the trolls intelligence
00:38:03
gathering plus the Bush telegram could have been what helps Scott
00:38:09
out and maybe that's just not the case on the ground, is that
00:38:12
there's no central office where the intelligence is being fed to
00:38:15
the front lines in an efficient way.
00:38:17
So it's probably accurate the way it happened but I would have
00:38:20
liked the troll. One more thing that helps Scott
00:38:23
on his journey 11 more interaction or or nugget that he
00:38:26
was able to provide just felt a little slim.
00:38:30
The Scott and the trolls tag teaming the operation, which is
00:38:34
probably true, which is the situation on the ground, but I
00:38:37
wanted just a little bit more of him in on the action.
00:38:42
Yeah. I think that just goes to what
00:38:43
our earlier point was in the sense that you could tell that
00:38:46
Brad was just more interested in in honing in with with Scott and
00:38:50
just like let the other things sort of you wrap them up
00:38:54
quicker. Yeah, So what does all that mean
00:38:56
for plot and buy in for you? This is tougher.
00:38:59
I'm gonna Ding plot a little bit where I elevated action.
00:39:03
I'm gonna Ding plot a little bit in the sense that you know,
00:39:05
we're talking about it. Not to say like again, this is
00:39:08
just I have to give it a score. But not to say I didn't love the
00:39:11
plot, but some of the the secondary things that we were
00:39:15
were really built up well in the first half of the novel, didn't
00:39:19
didn't quite land as hard as the entire Scott story did.
00:39:24
And so I got a dig. I got, I got a Ding plot there.
00:39:27
And that's why I'll go with a nice like 8 1/2 solid score.
00:39:31
Yeah, I hear you. Because of those things, I'm
00:39:33
going to go to an 8. Just a couple little nitpicks I
00:39:37
brought up already. However, I'm going to say,
00:39:39
although I docked 2 points here for all these things, it's not
00:39:42
going to bring down my buy in all that much.
00:39:45
I'm going to go 4 1/2 I want to say.
00:39:48
I'm bought into everything like there's nothing, there's nothing
00:39:51
that I don't believe. There's something that I didn't
00:39:53
think which really happened other than like the only thing
00:39:56
you can nitpick is like, why the fuck is Scott even there, you
00:39:59
know, in the first place? No, I bought into that.
00:40:01
That's like the. But you know if you think about
00:40:04
it like I think Brad does a good job of explaining all right.
00:40:07
He's just being put on these missions and he I that that's
00:40:11
the one question I wish I'd asked Brad like what's what's
00:40:15
this deal with with the Carlton group and and and Scott you know
00:40:19
going on right now like Gary there's something in in Lawler
00:40:22
we didn't we didn't ask him about the absence of Gary Kerry
00:40:25
so but yeah no there's nothing really that.
00:40:29
It's so thin. I need, I feel like I need a
00:40:31
docket points. So yeah, I'm going.
00:40:32
I'm going five. A little more info about the
00:40:35
Carlton Group, where they've been this old time, Gary's
00:40:37
leadership of it. Yeah, Yeah, I hear you there.
00:40:39
No, I agree. My half to go to a 4.5 is not
00:40:44
necessarily all that. I was bought in the entire way.
00:40:49
I was even bought in so much more than I thought I would be
00:40:52
with the Ukraine stuff. I was a little nervous.
00:40:55
How are you going to do it? Is it going to be right?
00:40:56
It was. I was like, what's the side pot
00:40:59
going to be? This?
00:41:00
Carolyn Fields loved it most of the story.
00:41:03
Absolutely loved where they were going.
00:41:05
My half a point is the ending. I if there's one point I wasn't
00:41:10
bought into this book. It was the conversation with
00:41:14
essentially Zalenski on the train back to Poland.
00:41:18
It was the wrap up of the troll filling us in.
00:41:20
Oh, biscuit survived. Great.
00:41:21
I was happy about that. But just being told it Yulia's
00:41:26
the mole. OKI was really wondering was it
00:41:28
Cozar? Was it someone else?
00:41:29
OK, cool. It was hurt.
00:41:31
Didn't go anywhere. It all just kind Oh, and then
00:41:34
let's just go arrest Greg Wilson.
00:41:36
FBI shows up. OK, great.
00:41:37
You know, all of those storylines was really digging.
00:41:41
I'm not sure if they had the the pop at the very end or this this
00:41:45
massive. Like once we took down the
00:41:47
Ravens and and got the Colonel. And the fight with the Colonel
00:41:50
was really cool. Once we got that, the book was
00:41:52
over for me, so the remaining however many pages it was 30-40
00:41:58
that de Numa was just a little boring.
00:42:01
So another small nitpick there. Yeah, It's almost like, would
00:42:05
you rather just had the fight and then Scott Leaf, you know,
00:42:10
like he he goes back home, you know, I felt like that would
00:42:12
have just told the story better, you know, like, Yep, you wrap up
00:42:16
the Greg Wilson getting arrested before the chapter, before the
00:42:19
fortress hit. You wrap up Yulia being the mole
00:42:22
right before that or right in the middle of that, and then you
00:42:24
cut back to it, and then he fights the Colonel like, I think
00:42:28
a little. Tinkering didn't matter to me
00:42:31
after getting the Ravens, because that that that's what
00:42:34
this plot was about, you know? So I wanted the epilogue to
00:42:37
purely be maybe a conversation with with the boys, like, you
00:42:43
know, talking with hookah about. Oh, actually, Biscuit, you know,
00:42:48
he's it's good. He's gonna be OK.
00:42:49
You know, that's awesome. You know, that kind of thing.
00:42:51
Where you going back like, oh, I'm just, I'm going back to
00:42:54
Poland to meet my fiance. You know, like something like a
00:42:56
quick it could have been like, you know, but you know, we're
00:42:59
not authors. So no, we're not authors.
00:43:01
But just as the reader's perspective, I felt that exact
00:43:04
same way, another cool one. And this would have been a
00:43:06
little too Vince Flynn, a little too Vince Flynn.
00:43:08
But the Colonel slips away out of that village somehow, And
00:43:12
then the epilogue is the troll works.
00:43:16
Yulia gets some random piece of information, and the troll does
00:43:19
his wizardry, connecting the dots and whatever the
00:43:22
information she gives up is that little tiny piece of the puzzle.
00:43:26
He needed to connect it to the colonel's whereabouts.
00:43:29
And because of that, boom, Scott can move on the Colonel.
00:43:33
And that could be the final scene.
00:43:34
Or he moves on the Colonel, and then he's getting congratulated
00:43:37
by Zalenski on the train back to Poland, you know?
00:43:40
Yeah, So only half a point. Only half a point.
00:43:43
I'm not going big on it. But something about that ending
00:43:45
just wasn't as satisfying as as I had hoped.
00:43:50
Since we said the Colonel, though, we're talking bad guys.
00:43:53
Give me your bad guy score. This includes the Colonel, the
00:43:56
Ravens, Wilson, Paulson, everything.
00:43:59
What do you think? So this is, it's kind of the
00:44:04
hardest score to give for me because the Colonel was cool.
00:44:09
But I wasn't as bought in on him.
00:44:12
I felt like there could have been a little bit more back
00:44:14
story with him, and I just never really felt that Wilson was a
00:44:20
was a villain. You know, he's more of like a
00:44:22
pawn. I was more scared of, not Cozar,
00:44:24
more scared of Gretchko than anything.
00:44:26
And then he turns out to be this defector.
00:44:28
So, like, he's not a bad guy. Yeah, yeah, Nistal.
00:44:32
This other guy, Wilson Sandler. You know, all right.
00:44:36
Interesting, interesting side guy.
00:44:38
But you know. I'm probably just gonna go for
00:44:41
like, because mainly because the badass Colonel fight scene like
00:44:45
that elevates him. He doesn't have that.
00:44:48
Then I think the bad guys score is pretty low.
00:44:50
I I think I agree. You have to remember the way the
00:44:53
Ravens are set up in the prologue getting Anna Royco.
00:44:56
That's cool like that that stuff is is cool and that's that's
00:44:59
idea of this mental. You know, group of mental
00:45:04
institution, criminals, whatever, like that.
00:45:05
That is cool. And I realized that no, no, he
00:45:07
doesn't want to give anyone him like a true face, except for
00:45:11
this Colonel guy who's creepy watching people.
00:45:15
But I'm getting like my back. This black story wasn't the guy
00:45:18
who had a mom who was raped. That was, I thought, that was
00:45:22
the Colonel. Oh, that is this guy?
00:45:24
I think so, yeah. It's like dead center of the
00:45:26
book. We get the back story on him.
00:45:27
I think that was him. I've been reading too many
00:45:29
stories about Russians. I thought that was in the last.
00:45:33
James Reese novel where there was a bad guy whose mom was I I
00:45:37
think that I'm mixing the two stories now there I I do
00:45:41
remember there was a back story for the Colonel that I thought,
00:45:43
damn, that's that's pretty darn interesting.
00:45:45
But all the details escaped me. OK, anyways, either way, bad
00:45:51
guys are for Yeah, bad guys are for.
00:45:54
I'm gonna agree with you. I think the chapter, if I go
00:45:58
revisit it, that has the Colonel's background I think was
00:46:01
really good. So the fact that didn't stick
00:46:04
with me. And the other one that kind of
00:46:07
brought this up a little bit was when Gretch Go is meeting with
00:46:10
Peshkov and the oligarch who, you know basically is dating his
00:46:15
his girl. I kind of thought that was cool.
00:46:17
I like the inner workings of the Kremlin.
00:46:20
Again, it was a one off scene. There wasn't a lot of it.
00:46:22
So I think I'm going for on the bad guys could have been better.
00:46:26
Definitely wasn't bad and what's going to make up for that for is
00:46:30
the good guys. I would give it more than it is.
00:46:32
A5 Plus plus plus plus. It's it's a six, you know, it's
00:46:35
like it's if I can give bonus points, everybody, come on.
00:46:39
Yeah, we, we've done a lot of talking about them, but I think
00:46:43
just getting us to buy into that team of Foreign Legion people
00:46:48
that quickly, great buying into Anna Royco, great.
00:46:52
Buying into the villagers, great.
00:46:54
So 100% absolutely. Same with the setting.
00:46:58
Everything about the setting is just Knockout.
00:47:00
We talked about it before. SO5 on Good Guys, 5 on setting,
00:47:04
Absolute strengths of this book, which is going to make the free
00:47:07
space interesting because I think we're going to have a lot
00:47:09
of the same ideas. So I'm going to let you go first
00:47:11
on that one before maybe we wrap it up with the cover.
00:47:15
What do you think? For me, it's the old lady in the
00:47:19
vineyard. Yes, yes.
00:47:20
I really liked her, you know, and just drusy like.
00:47:25
One taking them in, feeding them.
00:47:27
I like the little note of like he he tries to show them how to
00:47:29
heat up the Mr. E's using like the the chem and they're like
00:47:33
no, no, no, we're we're going to heat this up on a pot.
00:47:35
Like come on we're we might be making an award but we're not
00:47:38
savages. You know like let's let's we can
00:47:40
we can we can make this a meal. I don't know.
00:47:43
I just it brought some more reality to it.
00:47:46
I felt like I connected. Out of all the Ukrainians, I
00:47:49
felt like detected with her and then then the truck driver.
00:47:52
The best. He would be like my second
00:47:53
option as as a as a free space. So yeah, it's gotta be the the
00:47:57
old lady. Yeah.
00:48:07
And it's probably all of them combined.
00:47:58
I think you putting all those people together is the free
00:48:01
space, so I'm gonna come up with a different one.
00:48:04
But you put together Ole and Heevie.
00:48:09
All of them combined. Just all the Ukrainian people
00:48:11
that he meets along the way are just gems, true gems in the
00:48:14
story. I think it's it's maybe a little
00:48:18
cheap but it deserves a shout. Brad's action writing.
00:48:23
You could say that about any thriller.
00:48:25
I honestly it's it has to be the best part of any thriller is the
00:48:28
action sequences. But to be this good is next
00:48:33
level like this is, this is once in a series or twice in an
00:48:38
entire series, where you're going to get action this good,
00:48:41
this thrilling, and this consistent.
00:48:44
From the opening action scenes, every few chapters there is
00:48:49
something thrilling that you can't put down.
00:48:52
And so while many thrillers are going to get it right, it's a
00:48:56
rare thing and something special to get it this right, this
00:48:59
perfect. So I got to give it to Brad's
00:49:01
action writing. Five out of five is my free
00:49:04
space. All right, so this is what we've
00:49:07
all been waiting for, the cover. The cover now, Brad gave us some
00:49:12
shtick. He did.
00:49:13
He didn't like that. We didn't like the cover.
00:49:15
I mean, I don't remember us saying we didn't like the cover.
00:49:18
I think it was more we were intrigued with the cover.
00:49:21
Yeah. And we did some sleuthing and we
00:49:23
actually got it right. We were completely right, Yeah.
00:49:26
I was a little surprised that he, he, he took our our reaction
00:49:30
to the cover that way because I would say it wasn't negative at
00:49:33
all. But it was a little we have to
00:49:37
wait and see. You know, like we both hit the
00:49:39
pause button and said we're going to reserve judgment here
00:49:41
until we read the book. And he was absolutely right.
00:49:45
I I'm making up for whatever he thought I might have thought
00:49:49
negatively about this cover because it deserves a four and a
00:49:52
half. Absolutely.
00:49:54
I I can't give it a perfect five.
00:49:56
It very nearly is. Yeah, I can't like, I I don't
00:50:00
know why I can't give it A5, because it's it's a pretty nice
00:50:04
cover like the color scheme, obviously.
00:50:06
Ukrainian flag giving us the Raven giving us, you know.
00:50:11
You know this Ukrainian which is like you know what he's going
00:50:15
for this Ukrainian art piece that exists in the Raven being
00:50:20
on top of it stealing it. I like that he was thinking
00:50:23
about he he wanted I even like the the title like the titles
00:50:26
like just all right he it like you kind of call it it has it
00:50:31
has nothing to do with the novel other than you know it's a cool
00:50:34
like you know Deadfall you know like rising tiger Deadfall like
00:50:39
you know exactly it it. And then he wanted to have a
00:50:42
four letters just like his name is is is is 4 by 4.
00:50:46
That's cool, it works. But for something for some
00:50:49
reason I just I can't give it A5.
00:50:50
I don't know why. Yeah.
00:50:52
I guess the way I would explain it is it's really well done.
00:50:56
But will I say it's one of my favorite covers of all time?
00:51:00
Yeah, no. And a five out of five I think
00:51:03
really has to come close to that list of this is one of my all
00:51:06
time favorite covers. But it's a very good cover.
00:51:08
But it's a very, really, really good.
00:51:10
Yeah, it's really good. And I will say I love the
00:51:14
gradient. It's not just a straight yellow
00:51:16
and blue. That yellow has a gradient
00:51:19
pattern where it's getting darker.
00:51:21
It almost looks textured towards the bottom.
00:51:24
I like that dark dark orange, yellowy orange.
00:51:28
And then the wing, the Archangel wing, also has its own texture
00:51:32
with the shadows on it and definitely that kind of bronzy
00:51:35
look. So you definitely know it's some
00:51:36
sort of art piece or statue. And the fact that it's the
00:51:41
guardian Angel, you know it's Michael and he is the key
00:51:44
protector of Ukrainian cities and that this is a real piece.
00:51:48
And a whole part of the book is about the attempted genocide, if
00:51:52
you will, of destroying Ukrainian artwork that has
00:51:55
cultural heritage and significance.
00:51:58
And so to put a Raven as a symbol on the wing of the
00:52:02
guardian Angel, the protector of the country, and it's a real,
00:52:06
culturally significant art piece, a monument, I think
00:52:10
that's a really, really cool play right there.
00:52:13
And for the Raven to be straight, jet black, it almost
00:52:16
is like this black hole on the cover, sucking you into what's
00:52:19
almost in the dead center of it that's sitting right inside the
00:52:22
O of Thor. I think it's a really great
00:52:25
composition. Love a lot of things about it.
00:52:28
The texture as you feel it is really nice on the on the wing
00:52:32
it actually has some texture to the pattern.
00:52:34
Yeah, on the on the on the hard cover.
00:52:36
On the hard cover. So that's definitely another
00:52:38
shout for this cover. So 4 1/2 absolutely knockout
00:52:42
cover. Love it.
00:52:45
The one thing I did appreciate where he was talking about, you
00:52:49
know he actually like sits down with with with the the person
00:52:52
instead of like. Someone else just generating a
00:52:56
bunch of things and like, he picks one.
00:52:57
Like, it seemed like he actually cared about this cover.
00:53:00
You know, whether or not he cares about all covers, I don't
00:53:01
know. But he actually cared about this
00:53:03
cover. And to put something that is
00:53:08
truly representative of the book, like we, we appreciate
00:53:11
that, you know stick like the Ukrainian flag on this something
00:53:16
or a wheat field and like. A man walking in a weak field
00:53:20
with a gun. A running man, would you say,
00:53:24
next to power lines? With a train in the winter.
00:53:28
In the winter, our OG Mitch rap pod listeners who have heard
00:53:32
every early episode of the Mitch Rap Podcast, you will get that
00:53:36
inside. You know, you know what cover
00:53:37
we're talking about. I do appreciate though, how Brad
00:53:40
said they went through a couple of rounds because it does make
00:53:43
sense to want to have your first reaction be like he said, the
00:53:46
DACA, you know, or the cabin or in the woods with these trees.
00:53:50
A lot of the book takes place with that.
00:53:52
So I like the idea of the scenery of the cover should be
00:53:56
what the book is about, which is the Ukrainian countryside with
00:53:58
these houses, these villages. But once you actually mock that
00:54:02
up, once you sketch that out, it kind is like a little too on the
00:54:05
nose. And so I like that, he said.
00:54:08
The art designer said, let me try something high concept.
00:54:11
So in this cover, you capture the Ukrainian identity through
00:54:16
art and through the color scheme you capture Ukrainian landscape.
00:54:20
Because this is an actual monument in a city, you get the
00:54:23
spiritual and you know significance of it because it is
00:54:26
the Archangel. You get the the dark heaviness,
00:54:29
the weightiness of that Raven, the uncertainty, the looming
00:54:33
danger, the dark black jet, black Raven.
00:54:37
It's a really, really brilliant cover.
00:54:40
Did I talk myself into a 5? Because like the cheesier
00:54:43
version of this is putting the cabin like.
00:54:46
Or the no, I I think the cheesier version is putting like
00:54:51
that the famous like pillar in the middle of a Kiev.
00:54:54
Right. Right.
00:54:54
That too. Yeah exactly.
00:54:56
Which could have worked. Yeah, but it would have been
00:54:59
fine. It would have been fine.
00:55:01
We're never in Kiev. Or does he go to Keys Goes Kiev
00:55:05
for like a night? The troll does, but yeah, he he
00:55:07
stays on the train and goes right through.
00:55:09
Yeah. How many, How many covers do we
00:55:10
see? Like, oh, he goes to Istanbul,
00:55:12
so boom, we're gonna put the Haji Sophia on there, you know,
00:55:15
like the Haji. Does he ever go to the Haji
00:55:17
Sophia? No, He's just an instable, you
00:55:19
know? It's like setting your story in
00:55:22
Rome and you only put St. Peter's Basilica on there, you
00:55:25
know, or the complete opposite. You know, you set your story in
00:55:28
Chicago and then you randomly, you know, put a picture of
00:55:31
Johannesburg, you know, cuz we've had that too.
00:55:35
Or you randomly put the Kremlin in it.
00:55:37
Even though the book has nothing to do with Russia, it's about
00:55:40
South American gang, gang Lords and all of a sudden the
00:55:42
Kremlin's on the cover. So that could go both ways.
00:55:47
Right, right. Yeah.
00:55:50
All right. So we have some pretty high
00:55:51
scores here people. I end up with a 46.
00:55:55
I I think that's a that's a pretty good score.
00:55:58
That's where I'm at with this book.
00:55:59
I'm curious how that compares to Rising Tiger, but you ended up
00:56:02
with a 47. Yeah.
00:56:05
What did we say? How does that rank compared to
00:56:08
our other ones? It's got to be one of the
00:56:10
highest breath or novels it. It definitely should be because
00:56:14
when when you are reading this book, you're the whole time
00:56:17
thinking this is one of his best ever.
00:56:19
I think because of the nitpicks we found and and how I felt
00:56:22
about the ending. I don't know if I could say it
00:56:25
was his best ever, but it's definitely going to be towards
00:56:28
the top of the list. Now I.
00:56:31
Again, I'll give this little service announcement.
00:56:32
Just because I gave it, it might be my highest score I've ever
00:56:36
given. Doesn't mean that it's my
00:56:38
favorite Brad Thorn novel. You are half a point higher than
00:56:44
Takedown, which was 46 1/2. Are you feeling That's correct?
00:56:50
You're about half a point higher than takedown with this one.
00:56:53
No, but you know, I laid out all the, you know why I said it so?
00:56:59
It's up there with Takedown. I would say it's up there with
00:57:02
Takedown, it's up there. So of the ones we've covered so
00:57:04
far, this is definitely in. Very similar, very similar story
00:57:08
to Takedown. This would be a nice two book
00:57:10
read. That would be an interesting
00:57:12
one. The team up, very centralized
00:57:14
location, all in New York pretty much.
00:57:17
This is interesting because I have it at a 46.
00:57:21
Takedown was a 47, so I think that accurate is accurate for
00:57:25
me. This is maybe a notch below
00:57:27
takedown, but it's also half a point higher than the Apostle.
00:57:32
I gave a 45 1/2, this is a 46. I think that's correct.
00:57:36
I think this book is very close to the Apostle, but just a tad
00:57:41
better. And I like the apostle a lot,
00:57:44
and I think this is a tad higher, But Rising Tiger, you
00:57:48
were a 44 1/2. I was a 45 1/2.
00:57:51
We loved Rising Tiger. This book is, I would say,
00:57:54
clearly a cut above. Yeah.
00:57:57
So I think at least, yeah, it's. Kind of hard.
00:57:59
It's kind of hard to compare this one to some of Brad's older
00:58:03
ones, you know? Yeah, it's true.
00:58:05
I I feel, I feel better the comparison between this and
00:58:08
Rising Tiger and like full black, not full black.
00:58:11
You know, if we do. You know, I would honestly like,
00:58:14
I think my favorite is probably Spy Master, which we haven't
00:58:17
gotten to. You know, I like Spy Master.
00:58:18
And then the one right after Spy Master was that one backlash.
00:58:22
Yeah, I think I'm just gonna get straight tense.
00:58:25
I think you're right. You have to compare books like
00:58:28
Rising Tiger or Black Ice and Deadfall to to each other, Spy
00:58:32
Master and Backlash because it's so different.
00:58:35
You know, the last, the last 7 or 8 Brad Thor books are way
00:58:40
different than the 1st, 7 or 8 Brad Thor books.
00:58:42
Like they're almost two different complete series, just
00:58:45
in the way they're composed, not in the storylines.
00:58:48
The universe checks out, you know, everything's consistent in
00:58:51
universe is consistent. But an actual the style of
00:58:54
writing and the type of storytelling, I feel like very,
00:58:57
very different. Yeah, what I think our squirt
00:59:00
will allow us to do. And now that we're truly halfway
00:59:03
through, we can. Sort of rank pre rank them and
00:59:06
then we can go in and move them up and down as we as we see fit.
00:59:09
So I will say this to conclude very clearly, top five of all of
00:59:16
Brad Brooks dead falls clearly in the top five.
00:59:20
I feel confident saying that, yes.
00:59:21
I feel real confident. And if it gets knocked out, it's
00:59:24
like it's right there. It can't be lower than six,
00:59:27
right? Exactly.
00:59:28
It's that 5-6 spot for sure, possibly pushing a little
00:59:31
higher. It reminds me of like when I
00:59:34
read Lethal Agent, you know, like a more recent Mid Trap
00:59:39
novel that I just, I loved, I vibed with.
00:59:42
You know, I think you're right. I think that's a good comparison
00:59:45
cuz you read Lethal Agent and you're like to me it's obviously
00:59:49
Kyle Mills is best or tied for best and it's clearly one of the
00:59:54
best recent books in the entire series.
00:59:56
So yeah, I think I feel the same way about this one.
01:00:00
Yep, Yep. Good stuff.
01:00:04
Alright guys, the next time you hear from us on this feed,
01:00:07
probably a little bit cuz we got some other books to read.
01:00:10
So go check out our other two feeds, the MIT Trap Pod Thriller
01:00:13
Podcast or the MIT Trap Pod MIT Trap Podcast.
01:00:16
Our OG feed where we'll be covering soon We had to decide
01:00:20
we're gonna put fade, we're gonna put fade on the MIT Trap
01:00:22
pod. I guess that makes sense, right?
01:00:23
Yeah, it's gonna. It's got to be on the MIT Rap
01:00:25
pod. The question is, time is getting
01:00:27
away from us, so we might not have it before Code Red.
01:00:30
I'm not sure. We'll have to see how that
01:00:31
works, yeah? Cuz when does code red come out?
01:00:34
Code red comes out mid-september, so we have less
01:00:37
than a month, about a month to go.
01:00:40
So I guess while on vacation you need to read fade and when we
01:00:43
get back when I'm in Beloit, we should do a pod on fade.
01:00:46
You wanna do Fade? Is the next book we read.
01:00:48
Yeah, sure. So all.
01:00:50
Right before Code Red. Yeah.
01:00:52
And then we do code red. We go right into code Red.
01:00:54
Got you. Okay.
01:00:55
Cool. I'm down, all right.
01:00:57
When you think our patrons, our special operator Sharif, our
01:00:59
special agents Darrell, Kevin, George, Ben, Matt, Dawn, Peggy,
01:01:02
Ray, Bridget and Mark, please subscribe, rate and review to
01:01:05
all three seasons, As I said to No Limits using Apple Podcast or
01:01:09
Spotify. You can find
01:01:10
us.online@thrillerpod.com or on Twitter and Instagram at
01:01:13
Thriller Podcast. And as always, Slava Ukrani.
01:01:18
Hello, I am Slava. The Zolensky thing was was a
01:01:27
little cheap at the end. Yeah, like I was saying, that
01:01:30
ending, just, I don't know how it landed.
01:01:32
Didn't did it need that? I need those Lensky things.
01:01:35
You know what else I was thinking about?
01:01:36
Your closing there was a really good line.
01:01:38
I don't remember the context, but I wrote it down.
01:01:41
I'm just a guy here to do a job, something.
01:01:45
Oh yeah, yeah, somebody. Asked him.
01:01:46
Who does he say it to? It's either one of the, I think
01:01:51
it's one of the guys asking about like, what are you one of
01:01:53
the alphabets like year over year, CIA.
01:01:55
He's like, I'm just, I'm just the guy here to do a job.
01:01:57
Yeah. I'm just the guy here to do a
01:01:59
job. That would have been a good one.
01:02:00
I forgot the other, so I didn't have a lot of quotes as people
01:02:03
might have caught. If I don't have any quotes,
01:02:05
that's just because I'm enjoying the book so much.
01:02:07
I don't even want to take notes. But another quote I did write
01:02:10
down was the bar in Moscow. Where all the bras are hanging
01:02:14
up and Gretchko says about his cocktail.
01:02:17
No pyrotechnics. Shake it, serve it and fuck off.
01:02:20
No lighting. Orange peel and fire.
01:02:23
No pyrotechnics shake it. Serve it.
01:02:26
Fuck off, I thought. We can end the pod with that
01:02:29
and, as always, shake it, serve it, and fuck off.