Chris & Mike review Full Black, the 10th book in the Scot Harvath series by Brad Thor!
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00:00:21
I guess turning to the second-half of the novel, you
00:00:24
know, post Absalla Scott coming back.
00:00:29
Really hitting the ground running, Trying to, you know,
00:00:33
figure out this plot. You know, we we finally get a
00:00:38
bigger taste of the Carlton Group, read Carlton himself.
00:00:43
You know, we get more of Moon Racer, more of the Trouble.
00:00:46
One thing I liked is that you can kind of tell by some of
00:00:50
Brad's writing that Scott's the new guy.
00:00:54
And he's not immediately, even though you know he was.
00:00:57
He's he's a badass. He's not immediately fully
00:01:01
accepted, you know in the sense that one read wow.
00:01:07
Obviously wanting to play the father role, wanting to be the
00:01:10
mentor, still has some apprehension for some of the
00:01:14
things that that Scott wants to do.
00:01:16
Keeps him out of the loop on a couple things.
00:01:18
The 24th floor. Yes.
00:01:21
And then also the sense that. You know, we see Scott standing
00:01:26
up for the Nicholas and like there's there's a brief line
00:01:29
about like some tension between the guy who tried to make fun of
00:01:34
Nicholas and and Scott. And I feel like, you know, that
00:01:36
would never been the case in the Seals in the Secret Service.
00:01:42
But Scott's been a loner, right, for the past once he went into
00:01:46
the OIA. And so it's it's interesting
00:01:47
seeing him in this new element. So what did you think about that
00:01:51
introduction? I thought it was amazing and it
00:01:53
was right when it was needed because you and I were talking
00:01:57
about where part one would end in Part 2 would pick up.
00:02:00
We ended up doing this as one full recording.
00:02:03
But initially if we cut this podcast into part one and Part 2
00:02:07
based on chapters, it was clear as day.
00:02:09
Chapter 34, like Scott just flew back, landed at Dulles and he
00:02:14
gets taken to Reston to the headquarters of the Carlton
00:02:17
Group and. It's funny because you know how
00:02:19
I asked earlier? Is this even a Scott Harvath
00:02:21
book? I literally read chapter 33.
00:02:25
I was like, hmm, Luke's cool. I like the chases undercover.
00:02:32
Scott's not been around much. Where's the troll?
00:02:34
Where's he been? And then boom, we get a really
00:02:36
lengthy chapter on a tour of the Carlton Group.
00:02:39
We're getting all the background you just discussed about how he
00:02:42
personally vouched for Nicholas to be brought into the fold.
00:02:47
And. And it seems to be paying off.
00:02:49
And we even get a toast, You know, all three of them are
00:02:52
together. I forget what bottle they
00:02:53
opened, but they have a nice toast and a drink together.
00:02:57
I just thought it was the perfect time in the book to
00:03:00
realize, yeah, let's let the fun begin now, You know, let's get
00:03:04
the three amigos, Let's get them going and let's take this op,
00:03:07
which was just really far away. And we didn't do much
00:03:10
globetrotting. It was all in Sweden.
00:03:12
So far, Sweden and California. And now Brad's like, let's go,
00:03:16
let's rock'n'roll. So yeah, I loved it.
00:03:19
Yeah. Although it almost fell apart
00:03:22
right before that with the economics lesson.
00:03:26
So as good as that was, it was. Kind of like the the standing
00:03:30
with the random Fox News journalist, Yeah, Yeah.
00:03:34
When they're at, I think they go on two dates and they're going
00:03:38
back and forth about. You're a socialist.
00:03:41
If you call it a socialist, well then that's good because it's my
00:03:44
plan to make the world a better place and she's basically having
00:03:48
free market principles. I was just like, it's so proud,
00:03:53
just wanting to get the point across that the free market
00:03:57
works better than a command planned economy.
00:04:00
I'm like, I get it. Yeah, you know, he's there's
00:04:04
times when he just can't let something sort of like be
00:04:09
unsaid. He's gotta go.
00:04:11
Ham in a chapter, Yes. Yeah, just fully Ham in a
00:04:16
chapter on a given topic. Yeah.
00:04:19
And sometime it's like, that's cool.
00:04:21
When it's like historically historical context, like, I
00:04:24
enjoy those. In the past two novels, we've
00:04:27
gotten some interesting. No, I guess that was Jackar.
00:04:30
But when we got learning about futures and stuff, but here we
00:04:33
also like like got a whole economics lesson so and we got
00:04:37
socialism you know world governance lesson.
00:04:42
And I was just like all right, I, I, I understand what this guy
00:04:45
was saying, what he wanted you you could have let like some
00:04:49
things unsaid but you know just go, go for it, bro.
00:04:52
Go for. It you do you, You do you.
00:04:54
Brad. You You do you Brad.
00:04:55
Although general rule of thumb. Let's shy away from economics
00:05:00
lessons in our thriller books. I'm just we.
00:05:04
This is 2 now we've had in the past three months.
00:05:06
Exactly. We're over 2 in recent reads.
00:05:09
So I mean, if it's like an economic thriller, imagine you
00:05:13
take something like The Big Short or, you know, all these
00:05:17
bank collapses and you make that your plot line.
00:05:20
Sure, you'd have a little exposition behind it, but.
00:05:25
That wasn't the plot line of either of these books, so it you
00:05:28
little Ding right there, but. Yeah, What's next?
00:05:33
So we, he comes back, we're sort of on the race to figure out,
00:05:41
you know what, what's going on with with the plot.
00:05:45
We get one of the, we get the movie theaters going off and
00:05:48
then I guess there's some information about.
00:05:53
How does he figure? Oh, this is like the troll.
00:05:54
Like, we also get a whole Internet dump with like, that
00:06:00
one was kind of cool because kind of talking about like the
00:06:03
early stages of what like Pegasus is in terms of what.
00:06:07
Alice it's like an early. Alice and then also Alice, yeah,
00:06:10
I was going to say that like also essentially what what Jack
00:06:14
has brought into his novels. So, you know, it like that was
00:06:18
kind of cool and how they're able to piece some things
00:06:20
together with. I guess what some someone blew
00:06:25
himself up too early and so they think that maybe he was involved
00:06:28
with a plot and then learning that he had contact with another
00:06:31
guy. The plane that he came in on on
00:06:33
the manifest right were other. People with another guy.
00:06:36
Who used the same company to advocate.
00:06:39
For their visas. And their green cards, Yeah.
00:06:42
And and so that was one cool thing.
00:06:44
This AI based system can go through databases to connect the
00:06:47
dots. But then there's another name.
00:06:49
Who was on that on that? Roster and who was using the
00:06:54
same company seems to have the same contacts and they actually
00:06:57
track his house. Right.
00:06:59
That that was crazy. The fact that they could track
00:07:02
the utility utility to determine that, like, oh, his water's up.
00:07:06
Let's say it's like a single family household and only like
00:07:08
one person or one taxpayer, whatever it may be, is
00:07:11
registered there. Yet the utility bill increases
00:07:14
like sixfold and it's like, whoa, what's going on there?
00:07:18
And so that will flag it. It's not even like the bill,
00:07:20
it's like it's like daily meter readings I guess.
00:07:24
I guess cuz nowadays I can actually go and look at my bill
00:07:27
like daily and see how much energy I used yesterday and how
00:07:30
much water I used yesterday. It's it's crazy.
00:07:33
But the fact that an AI system is matching that with manifests
00:07:37
of, you know, like a plane that was related to somebody who used
00:07:40
the same like. 40 years ago. Exactly right.
00:07:42
I think it was 15 years ago a guy.
00:07:44
Yeah, it was large amount of time.
00:07:47
Yeah, yeah. That was called the tip system
00:07:49
and the. Thomas System and there's even.
00:07:51
So I guess back to economics for a second.
00:07:54
Scott even says if you knew about the movie theater bombings
00:07:57
he mentions Netflix, he goes, would have taken stock out
00:08:01
Netflix cuz no one's going to the movie theaters anymore.
00:08:04
I'm like oh shit. What year did this novel come
00:08:08
out in again? 2011.
00:08:11
Yeah, this is 2011. I'm like, wow.
00:08:13
Like, if you had actually listened to this novel and read.
00:08:16
And bought Netflix. Stock and bought Netflix like
00:08:19
Brad predicted that movie theaters were going to collapse.
00:08:23
Not for the right reasons, but he predicted that movie theaters
00:08:26
were going to collapse. So.
00:08:27
Well, I mean, when was the Aurora shooting?
00:08:30
Remember that one at the movie theater with?
00:08:32
Was it Batman? Yeah, Dark Knight.
00:08:36
I think that was just after this.
00:08:39
Dark Knight came out in 2008, so I would have this.
00:08:42
Might have been before. OK.
00:08:43
Unless it was The Dark Knight Rises, which?
00:08:45
I think it, I think it was was that with Bain.
00:08:48
That was with Bain. I think it was the one with
00:08:49
Bain, which would have been like at least a couple years later.
00:08:53
I think they weren't. That was in 2012.
00:08:56
You're right. You're right.
00:08:57
It was a midnight screening of the film Dark Knight Rises.
00:09:01
And this book was 2011, right? This book was 2011.
00:09:04
Damn. And people were scared after
00:09:06
that of going to movie theaters. There were a couple of movies
00:09:08
that. The box office slumped because
00:09:10
of that and people, I think the studios were actually
00:09:13
reconsidering their release dates to give some time after
00:09:16
that. There was four years between
00:09:19
Dark Knight and Dark Knight Rises.
00:09:20
Yeah, yeah, no like, but then we also had seen the slow obviously
00:09:25
Co exacerbated that. So yeah, no, but if you would
00:09:28
listen to Brad, you would have made a lot of money.
00:09:31
He even says Google when Nicholas is talking about these
00:09:34
database systems and sifting through information.
00:09:38
I mean, Google was in full swing then, but I don't think Alphabet
00:09:41
and all that was anywhere near the company.
00:09:44
It was still a search engine, you know, sorting and filtering
00:09:46
results based on keywords and, you know, advertisement.
00:09:50
But I don't think it was the data kind of processing machine
00:09:53
that it is now and machine learning that it is now.
00:09:57
Right. So, yeah.
00:09:59
Listened. I just said no economics in our
00:10:02
books, but. Let's see if you know Deadfall
00:10:06
has any, you know stock options that we should look into, you
00:10:08
know, mentioned maybe we can get some breath or insider trading.
00:10:15
Ultimately, you know he's able to track these guys in the
00:10:19
house. Literally.
00:10:20
He's like is watching the attack unfold.
00:10:24
There's some like cool, like high stakes like interplay and
00:10:28
and Brad even like mentions it like.
00:10:30
Do I intercept them now and run the risk that they're actually
00:10:36
going off to lead their attack in another location or do I or
00:10:44
is like this is the actual attack and I stopped them and he
00:10:47
has to make that that like quick decision and multiple times Brad
00:10:50
writes that Scott didn't want to be the one to decide and like
00:10:55
that again. Gives gives mistakes to this.
00:10:59
Like there there's gonna there's consequences for either picking
00:11:02
either choice. So I I like that.
00:11:04
Yeah, and there was a chance where he was hoping Reed Carlton
00:11:08
would make the call. But Reed says at one point,
00:11:12
you're the guy on the ground. You're watching it unfold.
00:11:14
You give me your. Take what do you Yeah, what do
00:11:16
you think can we? Call in LAPD and have him shut
00:11:18
this down. Or what's the airport security
00:11:22
people? TSA.
00:11:23
And. Just have them intercept them
00:11:25
now. Fun and cool.
00:11:26
Like do a shift change. Like do you think that that
00:11:29
that's real like this fact that. Has to be.
00:11:32
They can pull out some of the sorry but fat and overweight TSA
00:11:37
agents with some more fit. And I just imagine like all of a
00:11:41
sudden all your TSA agents are just like ripped and fucking
00:11:45
jacked like. Yeah, and then all special
00:11:49
forces dudes come in and they're wearing the same uniforms, You
00:11:52
know, same weapon. Yeah, and then there's even like
00:11:54
a bunch of like, plain clothes people.
00:11:56
Like all of a sudden there's a bunch of CrossFit people at the
00:11:59
at the airport. You know something's going down.
00:12:01
Now dude, it has to be real. I think that was one of those
00:12:05
details. Yeah.
00:12:05
No, definitely that's one of Brad wouldn't put that in there.
00:12:08
He wouldn't put it in there and it just made so much sense.
00:12:10
When you read it, you're like, oh duh, that that's a great
00:12:14
strategy, you know? It just wouldn't make sense.
00:12:18
A little gripe and this one hadn't come to me.
00:12:20
So man, for somebody who opened up with this might be my
00:12:25
favorite book, I'm finding a lot.
00:12:27
I wanted to, as we read, kind of bring the score up, hoping you
00:12:30
would join me. But now I'm like, I'm just
00:12:32
putting holes in my own tires, which was cool.
00:12:34
That little device, that inch prick that you pop into a tire
00:12:37
and it can deflate it in seconds.
00:12:39
Yeah, it's like hollow. So let the air go out faster.
00:12:42
Yeah, that's cool. But HM.
00:12:46
Scott was watching these cars pull out of the Sarhan house.
00:12:50
He was the guy in the house with all the terrorists they were
00:12:52
hiding. He watched the cars pull out.
00:12:56
He even saw a bunch of them coming into LAX.
00:12:59
He did say he had a view, good viewpoint, where he intercepted
00:13:02
the dude in his little perch, but it took somebody over the
00:13:07
radio to call in. Hey, these cars are sitting low
00:13:11
on their suspension. I think they're rigged with
00:13:13
explosives. Scott would have seen that in
00:13:18
the first second he looked at these cars, unless they rigged
00:13:21
them after leaving the house, then went and picked up the bomb
00:13:25
kit which. I think the cars, the talk, the
00:13:29
the talk people were tracking at least two of the cars the entire
00:13:33
time, so. Somebody would have seen it
00:13:35
earlier and they would have intercepted it.
00:13:39
You could remember he even mentions that the none of the
00:13:42
drivers got out to help with the bags, right?
00:13:45
So like they cuz the drivers know actually know these people.
00:13:50
Yeah like know these people don't know so that you know so.
00:13:53
But the cars would have been laden down with the explosives
00:13:55
already. He just got woken up, dude.
00:13:58
And then like, everything's happening and then.
00:14:00
Like he asked, that's not an excuse.
00:14:01
No, not for someone with his training, Not for, not for who's
00:14:04
got it. That's I don't buy.
00:14:05
It that's that's a small nitpick.
00:14:08
I hate to say it, as small as it seems, it's kind of bothering me
00:14:12
right now. I wish I didn't think of it.
00:14:16
That's funny. That's funny.
00:14:19
Although it leads to some very exciting action, is the LAX
00:14:23
chain the the best action in the book or the most?
00:14:26
I think so. I was going to save it to talk
00:14:28
about during the scorecard. But yeah, I think it's got to be
00:14:31
the best action, you know, the the run up to capturing him, you
00:14:37
know, driving the car the wrong way, popping the curb.
00:14:41
Because other than that, I guess it's the takedown.
00:14:45
In Upsala, yeah, that's pretty much it in terms of action, like
00:14:50
real action that we get. You're right, you're right.
00:14:53
Other than like if you want to consider the attacks to be
00:14:55
action which I don't so. Good point.
00:14:58
Good point. Good point.
00:14:59
Well, like I I guess the LALAX attack when Scott's there, like
00:15:02
that's action, but like just being in a movie theater like
00:15:05
and and. When the box, Yeah, yeah, I do
00:15:08
think those are two really big action set pieces that satisfy
00:15:12
for me though. Sure.
00:15:14
Yeah. Yeah.
00:15:14
Opening one and then this kind of almost ending one.
00:15:18
Yeah, so while this is happening, we're getting a
00:15:22
little more progression with Solomon Ralston, his
00:15:27
fatherinlaw, or no, not his. I guess his girlfriend's father
00:15:31
is all culminates with him capturing this KGB operative who
00:15:35
was charged essentially by Robert Ashford to kill Solomon.
00:15:43
There's some cool like interrogation scenes in this in
00:15:45
this book, both from Scott and from Ralston's.
00:15:49
One like lighting. It threatens to light a gas
00:15:52
gasoline coated tire on fire, and it called necklacing that I
00:15:57
hadn't heard that before. That was interesting.
00:15:59
I thought Jack hard put tires around somebody and burnt them
00:16:03
at some point. Could be wrong about that.
00:16:05
I think he did, though. Maybe I missed it.
00:16:09
Was it was it internal list? No, I don't think it was book
00:16:12
one, and I could be wrong about that.
00:16:14
It's not coming back to me for some reason.
00:16:16
There was a book where this happened.
00:16:19
I don't remember being called necklacing, but something very
00:16:21
similar happened. It was cool, though.
00:16:23
It was cool a little bit. And so we also find out that
00:16:27
this kid you be operative is a long time friend and ally.
00:16:31
Not ally, but like informant for both the US government and for
00:16:34
Rie Carlton, so. Interesting.
00:16:37
Recall there, that's the one connection.
00:16:39
But the second connection is we already mentioned the fact that
00:16:42
this Hank McBride friend of Scott's father, cues him in cuz
00:16:47
they found out from this KGB guy that Ashford is actually a bad
00:16:52
tie in the whole plot. And we kind of we kind of
00:16:53
already touched on that before, but yeah, so now we're finally
00:16:56
full circle with everything. Yeah, and I loved how as the lax
00:17:00
plot wrapped up. Which to be honest, and Brad
00:17:02
does this a lot. That scene wrapped up and I'm
00:17:05
thinking, cool, we just had the big action set piece and it kind
00:17:08
of diffused. I think one bomb went off in the
00:17:10
terminal and then we hear the cops were able to get the rest
00:17:13
of the bombers and other airports right.
00:17:15
Denver and all the other ones, same thing, they were able to
00:17:18
intercept all the bombers. I I think very few actually went
00:17:21
off. So I'm wondering if we're going
00:17:24
to get like that scene where Brad wants to wrap everything
00:17:28
up, explain what happened, recap it, and and pretty much it's
00:17:31
done. But there's a whole another
00:17:33
little plot line which while it felt a little extra, it was
00:17:37
really, really cool. It was unfortunately rushed and
00:17:40
I think it was in the shadow of the LAX scene.
00:17:43
But the fact that the troll has the color-coded map and silver.
00:17:48
Was. For the silver screens.
00:17:50
And then one color was for the airport attacks, and there's
00:17:53
still all these other attacks. So we're not in the clear yet.
00:17:55
And everyone knew that you could have teed up the next book right
00:17:58
there, but instead. The troll, and I thought it was
00:18:01
an awesome revelation, realizes what else would standing be at
00:18:07
Yes, he's kind of a megalomaniac about domination in his view of
00:18:13
the world, but he's also a billionaire, so there's got to
00:18:16
be a financial aspect. And he puts together that all
00:18:21
the dots on the map. One of the colors is in the
00:18:25
cities with the headquarters of all 30 companies on the Dow
00:18:30
Jones. And when the troll dropped that
00:18:34
basically this billionaire would have a financial interest in
00:18:37
screwing up the world, you know, creating a new world order where
00:18:40
he, he can be the, the architect of it all.
00:18:42
He would want to take down all the other competing firms, you
00:18:45
know, the the the other multibillion dollar companies.
00:18:48
And when the troll figured out, I thought was so cool.
00:18:50
And Scott's like, nearest one would be, what Wilmington.
00:18:53
Let's go to the headquarters of DuPont, which I know you have a
00:18:56
lot of familiarity with. Was it cool seeing, you know,
00:18:59
whoa, what if our building had all these support columns rigged
00:19:02
with explosives? And these?
00:19:03
Guys, show them in on. Apaches and helicopters and
00:19:07
surround and drown it and start pulling apart drywall looking
00:19:09
for bombs. It was crazy.
00:19:12
Yeah, no. So I I I used to work at DuPont
00:19:14
and I currently work for a DuPont spinoff.
00:19:17
So, you know, I've been in, they didn't mention the green room,
00:19:21
which is like the famous restaurant, but they mentioned
00:19:23
that there was a restaurant in the headquarters as well as I
00:19:25
I've stayed. I my first interview there was
00:19:27
in the DuPont Hotel, so I actually stayed in that building
00:19:30
where the explosives were. So that was cool.
00:19:34
And I remember like when I read this novel in grad school, I
00:19:37
think it back like, oh, I just worked there.
00:19:38
Like that was cool. But yeah, this.
00:19:41
I wanted to bring it back to the point that you said that you
00:19:43
felt this was kind of rushed. I also felt like this end
00:19:46
segment was kind of rushed. You could have played out
00:19:49
because he mentions right that. Could have been a book.
00:19:52
There's purple, you know, all these different colors and that
00:19:57
some cities have like 5 different colors on together.
00:20:01
You know, it was cool him figuring out that like oh, if
00:20:05
someone was stupid enough to try to like profit from attack.
00:20:10
So he's like oh all these shell companies are shorting every
00:20:12
single company in the Dell industrial like obviously we
00:20:15
have you know that was interesting and you know then
00:20:18
going up, finding that figuring out all right this is it, they
00:20:20
stop it and then but I guess it it's kind of slows down with the
00:20:25
whole, I knew we were going to have to wrap up with Ashford.
00:20:27
But in terms of like going from the LAX plot to like jumping
00:20:31
ahead to like everything is saves the day type thing, you
00:20:36
know. I felt that it could have kept
00:20:38
going and I wouldn't have mind, right?
00:20:40
It could have been a whole book. I mean imagine a book where that
00:20:45
was an action scene of the dog sniffing around and and they
00:20:49
kind of like they case the whole first floor.
00:20:51
And they're like this took way too long cuz we need to be able
00:20:54
to see behind walls to know, you know, where the support columns
00:20:57
are. We have to get architecture
00:20:58
plans and someone's like let's bring in the dogs and they
00:21:00
realize it's on the 4th floor, which I guess would have been
00:21:03
enough to blow the support columns.
00:21:06
Then have the weight of the building crash down and implode
00:21:08
the whole thing. And I think that those bombs are
00:21:11
across the country in like all these different buildings.
00:21:14
It could have almost had like a takedown kind of feel where.
00:21:17
Right, you know, let's imagine you're in New York, which must,
00:21:20
must have a bunch of these companies, right?
00:21:22
Or or another city that has multiple ones.
00:21:25
And we're racing through it to try to discover these bombs.
00:21:27
They're on different floors, are hidden in different ways.
00:21:30
I would have taken a whole book on that you know, and another
00:21:34
one was. They found one of the bombs and
00:21:37
thought it was targeting a train station.
00:21:39
But the train station seemed a small target.
00:21:42
Turns out the headquarters was above that train station.
00:21:45
They originally thought it maybe was, you know, purple color,
00:21:48
whatever was transportation hubs.
00:21:50
And he's like, but that wouldn't make sense because you should
00:21:53
hit that big like main terminal over there.
00:21:56
Why hit this small little subway station here?
00:21:59
And it's like boom. The troll realized it was it was
00:22:01
under one of the headquarters of these companies.
00:22:04
So I I think you could have. Played it out.
00:22:06
Damn. Another nitpick.
00:22:08
Stop, Chris. Let's end the episode right now
00:22:10
before my score goes down a little more.
00:22:14
All right, let's, let's finish up.
00:22:16
I think the last thing we have to talk about is before we get
00:22:19
to the scorecard is, you know, closure, capturing, capturing
00:22:22
and closure of of Robert Ashford.
00:22:25
What did you think of the final interrogation scene of him?
00:22:30
Before you even get to that, I thought it.
00:22:32
Was and letting him go, like, I understand that.
00:22:36
You know what he's given is like, but the fact that they
00:22:38
they didn't kill him, I I was, I was kind of shocked.
00:22:40
I was a little shocked. Yeah.
00:22:42
Hmm. Damn it, Chris, I said stop it.
00:22:47
Sorry. Mitch would have kneecapped him
00:22:49
right then and there, although it it's pretty funny that they
00:22:52
got him, you know, like a deckhand on a fishing trawler
00:22:55
living in. Alaska and the Deadliest Catch,
00:22:57
essentially. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:22:59
And they told him he has to take the job.
00:23:00
That's part of the deal. Yeah, maybe it's not justice
00:23:04
enough. But even before we get there
00:23:08
though, what I did like about this was how Reed Carlton played
00:23:12
him and he told him like, hey, we have Mansour, you're helping
00:23:18
us. We're information, information
00:23:20
sharing. If you come on over here, you
00:23:23
can help us interrogate him, knowing Ashford would want to
00:23:27
come on over to whack the dude so he can't speak, you know, to
00:23:29
poison him or whatever. So Ashford has an incentive to
00:23:32
get there as quick as he can to make sure Monsoor doesn't talk
00:23:35
and sing like a bird. So I thought that was a really
00:23:38
neat subterfuge by by Reed Carlton, You know, Reed being
00:23:42
Reed. And then also really cool from
00:23:44
Scott when he picks him up at the airport and he's asking him
00:23:47
questions in the car. He's leading him on to see how
00:23:50
he acts. And he was just telling him the
00:23:53
truth. He was like.
00:23:54
Oh, yeah, we know this. We know that.
00:23:55
We know like. Yeah, we and then.
00:23:57
He trying to get those micro expressions.
00:23:59
And see how Ashford responds? Yep.
00:24:01
And then it was perfect. He gets him into the
00:24:02
headquarters. Boom.
00:24:03
Turns around. Was he punch him in the gut, I
00:24:05
think. Yeah.
00:24:07
Did you see this coming? Like that was a good line?
00:24:10
Yeah. So I really liked the closure
00:24:12
there and we also get standing too.
00:24:13
So we actually do get an assassination here where Scott
00:24:18
gases under the door, I think it was like a fentanyl laced gas or
00:24:22
something or. Something to knock out one of
00:24:24
the guards. Oh yeah, that was interesting.
00:24:27
That's on a gas man Reminded. Have you seen the movie Tenant?
00:24:30
No, I want to. That's a Christopher Nolan,
00:24:32
right? Yeah.
00:24:33
And the first scene, like they knock out an entire movie opera
00:24:39
theater with like some nerve gas, like Brad telling this, you
00:24:44
know, obviously a real story about how these Russians used it
00:24:47
and they used it too powerful, so they ended up killing.
00:24:50
The Russians are Germans. I forget what he said, but.
00:24:53
Not only did they kill the hostages, but they also, but not
00:24:55
only did they kill the hostage diggers, but they also killed
00:24:57
the hostages. So yeah, that that nerve guess
00:25:00
was interesting to take. Outstanding.
00:25:01
And the the fact that they put a copy of the well endowed.
00:25:05
Oh dude, what a great name. What a great name.
00:25:09
What a great name and what a good touch.
00:25:11
I I love when he was like, well, the movie was called Well
00:25:14
Endowed. I think it's a it's what's Hank
00:25:18
who's like I You were making porn.
00:25:22
They go back and forth. That's another Thorism, those
00:25:24
little humor bits between. People Exactly.
00:25:28
One character just kind of, you know, pulling on the other ones,
00:25:31
really ribbing them. Yeah, I love that.
00:25:34
That was well done there. So I I liked the sort of slow
00:25:41
play interrogation of of Ashford, getting him to, you
00:25:45
know, give everything over, taking out James standing.
00:25:49
He was the true bad guy. And then we get this like mini
00:25:52
coda, you know, Scott goes to this Israeli spy guy in Paris.
00:25:57
So one of my things, you know, I have a couple questions that we
00:26:00
can sort of end our conversation with.
00:26:04
But this kind of ties back in with the Larry Solomon.
00:26:08
So he mentions that his daughter died from a terrorist attack in
00:26:12
Israel. And I was trying to think like.
00:26:16
And you kind of mentioned it too that we we don't really talk
00:26:19
about a theme project at all. You know and some of the things
00:26:23
that are brought up in a theme project, which I was assuming
00:26:26
we're going to be a continuation in here because it's even
00:26:28
mentioned that right this the Amalgam is involved with the
00:26:36
what's the name of the Italian guy who they capture Bianki, you
00:26:41
said I'm a Yankee. Like he and Bianchi was involved
00:26:44
with the attacks of Rome. We know the attacks of Rome were
00:26:46
involved with our part of this Chinese this cell it's this this
00:26:50
plot that that standing is is coming out so when he decided
00:26:55
like I'm I'm just obviously he never continued he never wrote
00:26:58
another Athena novel project again.
00:27:02
So I don't know it's just a case of.
00:27:06
That was one book. It's not even part of like the
00:27:08
the Scott Harvard continuation in in between writing this, he
00:27:12
decided to go a completely different route.
00:27:14
Is James Dan in the Amalgam? And so I guess bringing it back
00:27:18
to Israeli, I was like, oh, did was it.
00:27:21
Did we see an attack in Israel? No.
00:27:23
That we stopped an attack from happening in Israel in.
00:27:28
I'm getting my book confused. We stopped an attack from
00:27:30
happening in Israel in the last only the dead.
00:27:34
Oops, right. Yeah, Yeah.
00:27:36
What was there anything in Israel in at the Enterprise?
00:27:39
I think that's why I'm so intrigued, because I don't.
00:27:43
I didn't know what was going on. Where Scott meets this Israeli
00:27:45
spy. He gives them the note.
00:27:48
I don't. I can't think of an Israel
00:27:50
connection. Besides, like you said,
00:27:52
Solomon's daughter. I don't know, has Brad Thor, has
00:27:58
Brad Ganda Israel or has Scott done any Israeli anything?
00:28:02
Yeah, with Ari shown. Right, right, right.
00:28:06
Right. That's in Jerusalem, you know,
00:28:07
like. True.
00:28:10
And is there another time? No, There's another time.
00:28:14
No, You're right. That's Jackar.
00:28:16
I'm thinking of that Mossad guy. That.
00:28:18
That. Was I'm getting, I'm getting my
00:28:20
stories like confused now you know.
00:28:22
So we have to like fundamentalize he.
00:28:24
Washes up on the shore of Tel Aviv.
00:28:26
That's right. Yeah, that's, that's Jackar.
00:28:28
Yeah. Yeah, I can't think.
00:28:29
Is there a Mossad kind of connection that we've seen yet
00:28:32
in the series? I don't know.
00:28:34
All that makes this scene really meaningful because I was bought
00:28:38
in, I felt exactly like I did When Tracy gets shot by the
00:28:44
sniper at Bishop's Gate, Scott's house at the ending of, I think
00:28:49
take down. That was right.
00:28:52
But I felt the exact same way because there was another
00:28:54
misdirect there where the troll had left the basket of of goods
00:29:00
or even the dog. He left the dog there as a gift
00:29:02
to Scott as a peace offering. But then Scott's going to see
00:29:05
that piece offering with his. Girlfriend.
00:29:08
With a bullet. So I'm like, shit, is this
00:29:12
really Reid? Carlton cuz the Israeli guy gave
00:29:14
him a note from Reid that said go to this address and when he
00:29:19
got there Riley was actually there so.
00:29:22
Is Riley the one who did the shooting?
00:29:24
Did Riley. Or is this?
00:29:26
Or is it someone else who shot the two of them?
00:29:29
I don't know. We have to figure that.
00:29:31
Out the shooting. It sounded like from behind hit
00:29:35
the door frame, it sounded like and so he rolled with Riley into
00:29:40
the room to get away from a shooter behind them.
00:29:43
He even says he heard somebody coming up the stairs.
00:29:46
He heard move inside. It's not Riley.
00:29:48
I assume that's the apartment. Stairs, no.
00:29:51
But why was Riley in this apartment?
00:29:53
And why did Reed, if Reed, even sent him?
00:29:56
There. Yeah, it was.
00:29:58
I was reading this. I'm like, what?
00:29:59
Why would Reed sanction? All right.
00:30:00
Here, Scott, you can go. I don't think he did.
00:30:03
I have sex with with with Riley like.
00:30:05
Yeah. With your your coworker like I
00:30:08
sanction it now, whereas earlier he had had such a problem with
00:30:11
it like that just doesn't seem like the old man's kind of way
00:30:13
so. Do you think it's actually Do
00:30:15
you think it's really a note from him sending him to this
00:30:17
address, or is that a ruse? I have no idea.
00:30:22
I guess we got to read the next book, which is.
00:30:24
Yeah, I don't remember. I think it it works as a
00:30:26
cliffhanger. Blacklist the blacklist.
00:30:30
I'm hooked. Yeah, no, I'm, I'm very much so.
00:30:33
Can't wait. It's time, man.
00:30:38
It's time for the scorecard. Let's do it.
00:30:40
Let's do the scorecard. Give me your action, your plot
00:30:44
score. What do you think?
00:30:47
You know we. We talked it through and we kind
00:30:52
of just said it. There's there's not a lot of
00:30:55
action, but there's a lot of like suspense.
00:30:59
So like, is that count? And I think because of that, I'm
00:31:04
going to go, I'm going to go 8 solid 8 in terms of like the
00:31:10
action we did get, I loved and then like, you know, I guess
00:31:14
team down action in the terms of like suspense, the propulsion of
00:31:18
the story as we move along. And giving an assolidate, what
00:31:21
about you, Mike? Yeah, I think that's a justified
00:31:25
score. I think that makes sense.
00:31:26
I'm gonna go a tad bit higher because it almost felt as if
00:31:32
there was action through and through nonstop.
00:31:35
You know? Just that's how gripping.
00:31:36
I found the suspenseful scenes, even if it wasn't a huge set
00:31:40
piece and we weren't really traveling heavy in
00:31:42
globetrotting, which we'll get to in the setting.
00:31:46
Even though that wasn't there, the scenes that were
00:31:48
action-packed were so good. I'm going up to a nine.
00:31:52
I really think between LAX and Upsala, perfectly crafted.
00:31:57
So I'm going 9. Okay okay.
00:32:00
All right, what about the plot? The plot maybe just a little
00:32:07
lower cuz I love everything of Chase Undercover, the troll
00:32:11
trying to figure out where the next attacks will come from.
00:32:14
But the one thing I have to Ding it on, and I love Ralston and
00:32:19
Solomon early on, but the whole girlfriend, Ralston's girlfriend
00:32:23
and the father who knew the Russian, the K GB dragged a
00:32:26
little there. So I'm going to go, I'm going to
00:32:28
go 8 1/2. Well, I'm doing the opposite.
00:32:31
I'm I'm only digging them like 1/2 a point for that like little
00:32:34
subpar section. I think that the rest is clean,
00:32:37
crisp, solid. I love the plot of this novel,
00:32:41
so going 9 1/2. All right, you make me want to
00:32:45
round that up to 9, but I'm going to give it back on buy in.
00:32:47
So I'm, I'm going to go 4 1/2 here because I'm going to give
00:32:52
it back. Everything we came up with
00:32:55
tonight is because we are complete radicals, You know, we
00:33:00
we want to go into this book and talk about it for a few hours on
00:33:03
a Thursday night and summer. If we weren't doing that, this
00:33:06
is a 5 on buy in when I'm reading it.
00:33:10
None of these little quibbles even came up at all to me just
00:33:14
because I was so bought in. So I'm giving it a four and a
00:33:16
half. It could very easily be A5.
00:33:19
I'm go 4 1/2 just because there were a few things that took me
00:33:23
out of my element when I reflect and look back on it.
00:33:27
Yeah, pretty much for you know what you said I'm.
00:33:29
I'm giving it also 4 1/2 I think.
00:33:32
You know, even though this whole book sounds like a right wing
00:33:35
conspiracy theory, for just a general conspiracy theory, it's.
00:33:40
Doesn't mean that it couldn't, couldn't happen.
00:33:42
Like it's it's it's pretty crazy how realistic some of the things
00:33:47
are and how, you know, kind of have to think about safety and
00:33:52
learning about how we act going forward as opposed to the idea
00:33:58
of, you know, some of the more fantastical stuff that Brad's
00:34:01
done like it. I'm fully bought into to this
00:34:03
stuff. So 4, 1/2.
00:34:05
Yep. All right.
00:34:07
The villains. The bad guys.
00:34:10
I like standing a lot. I like Ashford.
00:34:15
The the the score is gonna ride on how much you like that
00:34:17
because I feel like the the Muslim terrorists, we don't see
00:34:21
them that much other than like the first couple chapters in
00:34:24
absalla like. They're.
00:34:26
Interesting. Yeah.
00:34:28
Like they're they're interesting to A to a point.
00:34:30
But it's really like how much you buy in to and like the
00:34:34
character of Standing and Robert Ashford, so.
00:34:37
Yeah, but I I think even though they're not around a lot, we can
00:34:40
factoring the other ones because when we're in the terrorist
00:34:44
house in Uppsala and chases kind of got to defy the rules to put
00:34:48
the signal in the window. He's got to move the blinds so
00:34:51
that Scott can see it on the street.
00:34:53
But then they pick up on that and so they recreate the blinds
00:34:56
across the street to misdirect Scott.
00:34:58
We might not be with them long, but the the terrorist
00:35:01
masterminds there were. We're pretty good and they got
00:35:04
away, so they are. Right, they did.
00:35:07
You're right. They're out there.
00:35:09
They were smooth. I think the fact that they got
00:35:11
away from that OP and misdirected Scott and and and
00:35:13
crew, I think I'd like them a lot.
00:35:16
I I think I'm going to go, boy, it's a lot of halves.
00:35:21
Let me go 4 1/2. I'm I'm going to a lot of halves
00:35:24
here. But I got to go 4 1/2 because I
00:35:26
did like them and I love that Ashford, you know, was found out
00:35:29
here. He he got what was coming to
00:35:31
him. OKOK, so good guys, so.
00:35:37
You were a four on bad guys. I'm a four on bad guys, yes,
00:35:40
yeah. Good guys.
00:35:41
Gotta be a 5. Yeah, I mean, Ralston, we
00:35:44
mentioned Ralston, Sean Chase, Riley Turner, you know, Hank
00:35:50
McBride, even like that, that cool Pat Murphy character who
00:35:56
helps out Scott in an absalla, like those little characters
00:35:59
that have nuance. They're intriguing there.
00:36:04
It's a 5 for these. I agree.
00:36:06
Yeah, I forgot about Murphy too, who when when his team is lost
00:36:11
like that, that hit hard and Scott was flying home thinking
00:36:15
about it the whole time. Yeah, I love those guys.
00:36:17
I love the B level characters and the C level characters with
00:36:21
a few exceptions with with Ralston's girlfriend and all
00:36:23
that. But I think Ralston's good
00:36:25
enough to give it that five, so. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:36:27
I liked him a lot. So not to mention kind of read
00:36:29
and Nicholas, but yeah. Right, exactly.
00:36:32
Are traveling heavy the setting? We didn't really get into it.
00:36:34
What were our our main locations here that we were really at?
00:36:37
He was traveling a little less heavy, wouldn't you say?
00:36:40
Little light this time. We have Sweden.
00:36:45
I guess he goes to LA eventually.
00:36:47
We're in LA for a period of time.
00:36:51
He's in Reston. One of the terrorists goes to
00:36:56
Iceland. So like we see a scene in
00:36:58
Iceland, we see the bombing in Iowa.
00:37:01
Oh, the movie theater. In Southern California, not
00:37:06
Solomon, but Ralston goes to the Maui desert.
00:37:09
Scott flies back to Reston, goes up to Wilmington.
00:37:14
Wilmington. Back to Reston, you know it's
00:37:18
we're in Wilmington, We're in Reston Upsala or Wilmington for
00:37:21
Scott, he goes to LA. Poor locations and then like
00:37:25
it's like tracking kind of where Solomon is as well as like some
00:37:28
of the other side characters. But yeah it's like not not what
00:37:32
we're you normally used to for for Scott Harvard novel and also
00:37:35
I just didn't feel that the lack of description of where the
00:37:39
different places were I'm I'm I'm digging it here so I'm going
00:37:42
to. I'm gonna go three.
00:37:44
I'm glad we're not traveling as heavy.
00:37:47
We're traveling a little lighter, but the ones we did
00:37:50
stay in. Didn't have that immersiveness.
00:37:54
You know, I maybe LAX and on the freeways and the highways doing
00:37:59
the SDR and and all these different bombers trying to
00:38:01
throw people off their tail. But I wasn't really tracking it.
00:38:05
Like Vince Flynn used to tell us, made a left turn at off
00:38:09
Wisconsin Ave. on to 34th St. went past the blue house on the
00:38:13
corner, Victorian house on the corner.
00:38:15
You know, drove around the school that's been there since
00:38:17
1920. I don't need that level of
00:38:20
detail, but I didn't get much of anything here, so I got to yeah,
00:38:24
I'm with you. I'm not going to go to a tube.
00:38:25
I'm going to go three out of five, cuz at the LA house, the
00:38:29
Solomon house or wherever. Wherever his mansion was in
00:38:32
Hollywood was pretty cool. There was a beach scene, which
00:38:35
was kind of neat when Ralston was talking to the girlfriend's
00:38:37
sister. Again, not fully taken there,
00:38:40
but just a taste of it. Three out of five.
00:38:46
You want to do cover or your winner, Your free space.
00:38:50
Let's give it the the free space.
00:38:51
Let's go with that five. I said it before, I'll just
00:38:54
repeat it's the B and the C level characters.
00:38:56
I think the universe was really expanded here.
00:39:00
It felt really wide, oh, Hank McBride being bought in and then
00:39:04
having the connection to Scott's father.
00:39:06
The universe felt very interconnected, very expansive,
00:39:09
very deep in terms of characters.
00:39:12
And yet each one was still very independent.
00:39:15
So they're all connected, but they each have their own
00:39:17
stories, histories, and back story.
00:39:19
I thought the character profiling was just even the
00:39:22
vignettes, the the cop with his family in the movie theater, the
00:39:25
woman in the airport. Everything about characters and
00:39:28
backgrounds was so perfectly done. 5 out of five characters.
00:39:33
Yeah, I said it kind of at the top.
00:39:36
It's mine. Is giving things, giving the
00:39:39
story stakes by. You know, really executing the
00:39:42
plot and not being afraid to go over it in in certain areas.
00:39:46
The fact that Scott doesn't doesn't say everything in in the
00:39:51
end he, you know, sort of scrapes by the IT barely to
00:39:55
salvage whatever's left over because this and we'll see.
00:40:00
You know, we know how much these others like to move on quickly
00:40:04
from a major traumatic event. But this should be like a.
00:40:07
On par with referencing 9/11 going forward in his novels,
00:40:12
right? So.
00:40:13
The stakes? Yeah, giving something stakes,
00:40:17
giving it meaning. That's kind of my free space.
00:40:19
Yeah, I agree. I agree.
00:40:21
I like when that happens. The attack happened and we got
00:40:24
to deal with the fallout of it. Yeah.
00:40:27
Cover time. Let's judge this cover by the
00:40:30
book. Now Chris, why don't you take us
00:40:33
through this pantheon of covers here, cuz there are some highest
00:40:36
of highs and there's a couple of lows as well.
00:40:40
I was gonna say, is the cover the worst part about this novel?
00:40:45
Dude, which cover? You better qualify that.
00:40:49
So, all right, we have two B&C which both have London as a
00:40:57
representation. Yeah, okay.
00:41:01
Robert Ashford is in London technically, so one of our major
00:41:09
villains like is from London. But to me that doesn't scream
00:41:16
novel like like the the heart of this novel.
00:41:18
What does though, and I think is my favorite novel, favorite
00:41:22
cover is Cover D. D The airport.
00:41:25
The airport, like getting that right there, you know?
00:41:29
If you would put I don't know what up saw looks like, but if
00:41:31
you had like picked even like a a Swedish landmark and put it on
00:41:36
C. Yeah.
00:41:37
Or put the Dulles airport. You know like that.
00:41:40
That could have covered like two things, like the idea of like
00:41:42
airports as well as like where where Scott is or put LAX or I
00:41:46
don't I don't put it in airplane.
00:41:48
That has more to do than than London.
00:41:52
The og the A cover is interesting.
00:41:55
You know a full full face on. Spec OPS.
00:41:59
I guess that's supposed to, like, get this idea of going
00:42:04
full black. You're you're fully immersed, so
00:42:08
it's interesting. Not my favorite, but not the
00:42:11
worst. Dude, I gotta say, I'm a little
00:42:14
disappointed here. Because no, no.
00:42:16
No, no, your analysis was spot on.
00:42:19
Cover A from a design perspective is one of my all
00:42:25
time favorite book covers. Oh, it's cool.
00:42:28
It's really cool. I absolutely love it.
00:42:31
It's just so unfortunate that we have to judge the cover by the
00:42:34
book because I can't give it full props.
00:42:40
It makes me think of something on fire, you know, burning.
00:42:45
It makes me think of like a team fully kitted out, you know,
00:42:49
carrying heavy weapons, going through either a countryside or
00:42:52
maybe a a field of some sort. Has Scott ever like fully suited
00:42:58
up? He like at one point he just
00:42:59
grabs his his breastplate and gun like that's it.
00:43:02
So he's never like fully, like dressed to the hill.
00:43:06
I I think it's so disappointed. And the type of the cover with
00:43:09
black at the bottom in black. I think everything about it is a
00:43:14
perfect color, except it misses the mark of describing this
00:43:18
book. And I'm just, I'm disappointed
00:43:21
by that, the same way I'm disappointed with London being
00:43:23
on B&C, you know, the two main paperback versions that we have,
00:43:28
especially C because it's newer. You know, these are the new
00:43:31
releases like this book has been out what, a decade by the time
00:43:35
they probably came up with this cover.
00:43:37
Nothing in it has the London Eye and this compass rose, if that's
00:43:41
what that is, the symbol. I get this.
00:43:45
I don't know. I don't get it.
00:43:46
This book had nothing to do with wayfinding or navigating or
00:43:49
being on the seas or GPS. We came up or the marketing team
00:43:54
came up with Cover C, these paperback new releases and a
00:43:58
symbol like it. They had to have a symbol for
00:44:01
every book. For Athena, it worked.
00:44:03
It was that a for a few other books, like a biohazard thing,
00:44:07
it worked. If that's the novel, what do
00:44:10
these symbols have to do with anything?
00:44:12
Yeah, for a lot of them. They, I've, I've seen them now
00:44:14
and they just, they don't, they don't do it for me.
00:44:17
Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know what?
00:44:18
I'm thinking back to one of my favorite Vince Flynn novels in
00:44:22
terms of covers and it's lethal agent and we see the map and we
00:44:29
see like the you know sort of plague ink you know population
00:44:32
of of infection sites. What?
00:44:34
Wouldn't it be cool if we had like a map of the United States
00:44:37
and then we actually got to see that map of, like, the color
00:44:39
coding? Dude, if there was a cover with
00:44:42
Nicholas's map, perfect. Yeah, like, wouldn't that been
00:44:46
cool? Like, what you you see that?
00:44:48
You're like, what are? What are these dots?
00:44:50
What are the color codes? What are these dots?
00:44:51
Wait, what does the color mean? Yeah, wouldn't cuz that that
00:44:54
doesn't give away anything. Perfect.
00:44:56
Opportunity. It's a perfect opportunity.
00:44:59
And and for the symbol, even if the symbol were some sort of
00:45:02
legend or key with with the dots like some sort of symbol that
00:45:07
hints at that instead of this random whatever it is, Is it a
00:45:12
star? Is it a compass?
00:45:15
It doesn't make any sense. Yeah.
00:45:18
I don't. That one's lost on me because I
00:45:22
wanted to say I was pretty close to saying these are some of my
00:45:25
favorite or this is one of my favorite covers.
00:45:28
In A and the composition of B and they just make no sense for
00:45:32
this book. It's like you didn't even read
00:45:34
the damn book Designing. Exactly and how?
00:45:37
Many times have we said that it's so frustrating.
00:45:40
Cover D does elevate a little bit, so.
00:45:44
Cover D and Although. Kind of like E, even though
00:45:50
there's no team wet work action, I do like E.
00:45:53
E would be cool if it applied but.
00:45:56
I think F is is just super cool in in the sense of that is so
00:46:01
clearly Southern Asia. I don't know what language is
00:46:03
that. Is it Bengali maybe or Sri
00:46:06
Lankan? Where do you find these?
00:46:09
It's crazy. Dude, Goodreads, man.
00:46:11
You click Goodreads and it has a little tab saying book editions
00:46:14
or book details and editions and it will show you all the the
00:46:19
different covers that have been published.
00:46:22
OK, this one's. Mehta Mehta Publishing house.
00:46:27
It's definitely gonna be South Asia somewhere.
00:46:29
Let's see what language that is. Mehta Publishing House, It's
00:46:34
India, so it must be Hindi. But like, it's just such like,
00:46:38
that's a movie poster. That's a Bollywood movie poster
00:46:40
right there. It's pretty cool.
00:46:42
It is pretty. Cool.
00:46:43
It's really cool in the cultural context.
00:46:45
It works for the book. It's got the airplane.
00:46:47
It has a pretty cool figure on it.
00:46:49
Again, I don't know where there were machine guns and all this
00:46:52
or. Looking RPG or like Harpoon or
00:46:56
something, I can't tell, but I think the the composition of it
00:47:01
is just cool for the culture in which they're.
00:47:04
Trying to No, it's it's just a gun and and you're seeing like
00:47:07
one of the parts of the letter. Oh, that's a letter from that
00:47:10
character. Gotcha, gotcha.
00:47:12
Yeah, I just think that's super cool.
00:47:14
So because DNF really, really matched the story, because BNC
00:47:19
absolutely don't match the story.
00:47:21
And A just looks really hella cool.
00:47:24
I gotta settle on a 3 1/2. I'm gonna dig it more.
00:47:29
I'm giving it 2 1/2 so. Okay.
00:47:32
I was trying to find the positives, but 2 1/2 is fair,
00:47:36
I'll agree with you. Damn.
00:47:37
I had high hopes man, because I'm looking at my scores here
00:47:42
and for the reaction when I finished this book and closed it
00:47:45
over. I was ready to say this is going
00:47:48
to be a 45 plus, maybe 40-6, maybe 47.
00:47:51
We're going to be dabbling with the.
00:47:53
See my. Your should be.
00:47:55
You should give plot because you actually talked about you should
00:47:58
give plot. Your plot should be higher than
00:47:59
that. You're going lower.
00:48:00
You should be up near me because we both agreed on the.
00:48:03
Plot. You know what?
00:48:03
I got to give a point back to plot.
00:48:05
I think you're right. So you're at 44, which is one of
00:48:08
the higher ones. I don't think we've gone above a
00:48:10
45 on Brad Thor yet, so. This perfectly says that you
00:48:16
really enjoyed this. I thought it was a decent novel,
00:48:19
and I think a 4041 score has been a pretty solid anything
00:48:23
below 40, like 38, yeah. And below is a no go for us,
00:48:28
yeah. I think you're right.
00:48:30
I had to give it back to plot I You know what, When we were
00:48:32
doing that, I was a little stuck on.
00:48:34
Man, you and I just found all these little nitpicky things.
00:48:37
No, but like it's just because we were having a conversation
00:48:40
about I think like exactly in the moment you were fully bought
00:48:43
in, you fully locked in, so. You're 100% right.
00:48:46
And if I look at that score, you're right.
00:48:49
You I can't give it a better score on plot than you.
00:48:52
No, you're right, cuz I liked it a lot more than you.
00:48:54
Yeah and? And I think a 44 makes sense
00:48:57
just behind Rising Tiger, just beyond the apostle for me about
00:49:01
where first commandment is. Just below Takedown I yeah, I
00:49:06
gotta say, on par with books like The Apostle, First
00:49:10
Commandment, Rising Tiger, just behind Takedown.
00:49:16
I think that's fair. The Athena project, you know.
00:49:20
And Athena was a 40. That's another one I look back
00:49:25
on fondly, though it very easily could have been with minor
00:49:28
changes of 42 or 43. Yeah, yeah.
00:49:33
I think I really liked it. Just a couple of couple of
00:49:35
things on that plot. So you know, this is important.
00:49:40
Maybe an important time to bring this up.
00:49:42
I was listening to a Ted Lasso podcast and I was a little
00:49:47
disappointed in the hosts. And I think this is for podcasts
00:49:52
that do these deep dives into a series that the the host just
00:49:56
absolutely adore. I was really bummed out
00:49:59
listening to their coverage of the finale.
00:50:02
The final episode, like when I started listening to their
00:50:06
podcast and watching Ted Lasso, I thought was the best thing
00:50:09
ever. Loved it.
00:50:10
These guys loved it. I loved listening to them.
00:50:13
It felt like what you and I do for thriller books, their
00:50:16
podcast was doing for Ted Lasso and its fans, bringing people
00:50:19
together, riding the highs, enjoying the moment.
00:50:23
And this season, while it hasn't been very good and they've been
00:50:26
negative the whole time, I bared with that because a lot of their
00:50:30
critiques were. Were OK and and correct.
00:50:33
Like us, when we when we critique a book like very often
00:50:36
we're trying to be aware of that.
00:50:39
But then the finale came and I don't want to say anything.
00:50:42
The finale was fucking awesome. It was everything I wanted.
00:50:47
It was I was living my life watching that episode.
00:50:50
It it was actually just at the time in my life I need it.
00:50:53
It was just so enjoyful. It was one of the like most fun
00:50:57
TV watching experiences I've ever had.
00:50:59
I go listen to the podcast. And they just shit all over it.
00:51:03
They like the same negativity they had all season, which was
00:51:06
not great, And I and I have my gripes about it.
00:51:09
They weren't able to move past that and like, celebrate the
00:51:12
good. They were just dwelling on the
00:51:14
negativity, even into the finale.
00:51:16
Wrapping up their podcast, wrapping up the show.
00:51:19
No more episodes. Three seasons are done.
00:51:22
It's over. And they just went out with a
00:51:24
whimper because they were just so negative.
00:51:26
And I feel like I don't want to do that with the thriller books.
00:51:29
I don't. I don't want to do that with
00:51:31
Brad Thor. And you know, when new Mitch
00:51:33
raps come out because we nitpick so much, I feel myself slipping
00:51:38
into this negativity of, you know, I'm dinging points here,
00:51:42
I'm knocking this down there. And I think it's another reason
00:51:45
I told myself I love full black because I wanted to come into
00:51:48
this with that joy, with that passion we had.
00:51:50
You know, when we start a new series, when you read Lions of
00:51:53
Lucerne, right? Or when you read American
00:51:56
Assassin or Transfer Power. And I just don't want us to
00:51:59
become a podcast of negativity seeing how a series falls apart
00:52:03
over time. And I'm happy to say I think
00:52:05
Full Black is is taking us out of that.
00:52:08
If I would felt negative about the last few books, I think Full
00:52:11
Black is this like upshoot and this trajectory for the series
00:52:14
is now going to be launched forward.
00:52:17
And so I was kind of disappointed as we started
00:52:19
finding all the negative stuff throughout the pod.
00:52:21
I I want to get back to the the glory days, if you will.
00:52:25
Well, I think two things. One.
00:52:28
The scorecard, yeah, we we give it a scorecard, but we reserve
00:52:31
the right to move it up and down when we do our our, our
00:52:36
rankings, you know, there's also there's like, yeah, our our
00:52:41
feelings are in the scores, but also there's just like a general
00:52:44
like vibe. Maybe we should add that in.
00:52:47
The vibe? Check.
00:52:49
The vibe? Check.
00:52:49
You know what? What's your what's your vibes?
00:52:52
And I think second, yeah, I've noticed this too.
00:52:54
Actually, I listened to some podcasts.
00:52:57
About movies, TV, you know, Marvel movies, you know, or like
00:53:03
nerd culture type stuff. And in the beginning when
00:53:06
everything was coming out, like, Oh my God, this is great, so
00:53:08
exciting. And then, you know, we've got an
00:53:11
Iran of like, not the greatest things.
00:53:15
But I thought the last couple things were entertaining, you
00:53:19
know, I guess the alternative was like I could watch nothing
00:53:23
and they just, they waste their time like.
00:53:25
Just crap. And I've kind of just been.
00:53:27
I'm done with it. I can't listen to it.
00:53:29
Actually, I didn't listen to any.
00:53:31
I had in the past listening to some podcast about Ted lasso as
00:53:34
it was coming out and this one, I had read some of the things
00:53:37
and I was like, you know, I just, I enjoy this show.
00:53:41
It makes me laugh. You know, they got a little
00:53:43
extra sappy this season, but I still, I still had some laughs
00:53:47
and it was just a fun time to be with Ted and my my wife because
00:53:50
we we watched it together, right?
00:53:52
So I didn't want to have anyone shit on that experience because
00:53:55
I enjoyed that experience. I think I've been trying to do
00:53:59
better. I know at times we can be, we
00:54:02
can be bitches in terms of reading a novel, but I think
00:54:06
there's a difference between heartbeal and negativity.
00:54:10
And then. Pointing out criticism when
00:54:13
criticism critic when critiquing is needed because I feel like a
00:54:17
lot of times there is just a lot of fluff in in in this industry
00:54:21
and like, oh, that was great, can't wait for the next one,
00:54:24
right? No, I think like people come to
00:54:26
us because like I said, we would never cover a book on here that
00:54:31
we wouldn't recommend, right. So you can kind of tell which
00:54:34
novels we don't like by which ones we're not covering which
00:54:37
ones we're not talking about, you know, so.
00:54:42
Yeah, we may give a Vince Flynn like executive power.
00:54:47
It's the worst novel in the series.
00:54:49
But I still like it then better than some of the other crap that
00:54:53
people have tried to got me to read over the past couple years.
00:54:55
You know, we've in this podcast, we've been asked to read, you
00:55:00
know, I've been asked to read more than I ever have and like
00:55:02
there's some stuff out there that's just like, I can't, I
00:55:06
can't waste my time, you know, so.
00:55:08
I think yeah, I think the the I guess converse is it or whatever
00:55:12
it will be is also true in that we need to be honest because.
00:55:16
Sure. If you're not honest, then
00:55:17
you're just like you're you're essentially marketing.
00:55:20
Right. And and I think I felt almost.
00:55:23
Doesn't pay me, doesn't pay me so.
00:55:26
They could if they wanted to, but apparently they don't.
00:55:28
We do get free books, though. We've gotten a few free books.
00:55:30
So as the the media. I'll take I'll take being on
00:55:34
them. I recently like I just David's
00:55:36
been sending me like I got 4 novels.
00:55:38
I was in one week. I was like, this is awesome.
00:55:40
Yeah, three books. I'll take it.
00:55:42
I'll take it. I'll take it.
00:55:43
But I I've also wanted to toe the line of we're not just
00:55:46
cheerleaders for whatever, you know, Simon and Schuster or a
00:55:50
publisher or whoever wants us to be.
00:55:54
And and I've seen that as well, especially on social media,
00:55:57
people who are just typing a book.
00:55:59
And I think it's to get recognized, right.
00:56:02
I think they either want to be in an ambassador program or they
00:56:04
want to get an arc or. They want their social media
00:56:08
presence to get something. So they'll just post, you know
00:56:10
best book ever type of reviews or you know all this one is
00:56:14
amazing and it's the best in the series.
00:56:17
And you know, we, we don't say that very often.
00:56:19
We we don't do that lightly. So the same way we won't be
00:56:22
super cheerleaders of something, we also won't be completely
00:56:25
negative on something. But are we being mediocre then
00:56:30
Always trying to find this middle ground of some things
00:56:32
were great, something sucked because obviously.
00:56:36
Every book that we like and are willing to cover are going to
00:56:38
have high moments, and it's also going to have things we can
00:56:40
nitpick. Are we just always going to be
00:56:43
stuck in this like mediocrity of like every book is going to be a
00:56:46
41 to a 43, you know, on the scorecard, or are we going to
00:56:50
start hitting again 40 eights and 40 nines?
00:56:53
But. But then if that happens, we
00:56:55
also have to hit like 20 eights and 20 nines and 30 ones.
00:56:59
Again, it's just a. Balance.
00:57:01
Would you rather have just have? A medium book or have a highs
00:57:05
and lows. I don't know.
00:57:11
I think what I want is just like every once in a while, we just
00:57:15
need that banger of like a book that's a 49 or 48.
00:57:18
Yeah. We've been honest when they
00:57:20
come. I'm just trying to think back.
00:57:22
I mean, we loved only the Dead. We even ranked that top two or
00:57:27
three. I think you said two and I said
00:57:29
three in the whole Jack Car series.
00:57:32
We loved Rising Tiger when it came out.
00:57:33
I don't think that was we found its its flaws, but it was great.
00:57:37
I'm just hoping with Code Red from A Trap and Deadfall for
00:57:42
Scott Harveth. I need any code red to be good
00:57:45
I. Need code red to be good for a
00:57:47
lot of reasons that's going to be have to be a monumental one
00:57:50
with the the shift to dawn. But I also just wanted don't
00:57:53
want to see this whole fake like it's the best one ever.
00:57:56
Just cuz you know you you kind of want to send Kyle away with
00:57:58
some good vibes and. So I think he's earned the
00:58:02
criticism, right? He's earned the right to be
00:58:04
critiqued because you know, look at look at how much we honestly
00:58:09
loved the Survivor. His first book, right.
00:58:11
So And then a whole bunch of his other ones we absolutely loved.
00:58:16
I I'm just stuck in this. Weird, All right.
00:58:18
I'll be honest. I'm nervous for Deadfall.
00:58:21
Really, I think it's going to be good.
00:58:23
I think it's going to be good. We love the opening passages
00:58:26
we've got. I just think, you know, you got
00:58:29
the Wagner group in the news, you got the Russian opposition.
00:58:32
Yeah, so did you, did you hear that that Kyle has to had to
00:58:35
rewrite some of Kyle's code Red? Rewriting scenes from Code Red
00:58:40
and it's too late for Brad, This thing is.
00:58:42
Yeah, Deadfall is too late, so it's.
00:58:44
Less than a month away. So I'm just like, it's not the
00:58:47
book making me nervous. It's not the excerpts we've
00:58:50
seen. It's not what Brad has said
00:58:52
about it making me nervous. It's just the context in the
00:58:56
world that. Was it the right time to jump
00:58:59
into Ukraine? I hope so.
00:59:00
Probably. I'm just nervous, man.
00:59:03
I'm like, I'm really nervous. Are we going to have to say, oh,
00:59:06
this book is great, you know, what if it isn't?
00:59:09
And what if it's better than we thought?
00:59:12
I just don't know. It's like an anxiety in me about
00:59:15
all these new releases coming the next couple of months.
00:59:18
I. Think we take them, we read
00:59:20
them, we assess them and we'll be honest.
00:59:22
I think that's all we can do. We got to be honest for the
00:59:24
people, right? Exactly.
00:59:25
That's all we can do. Yeah.
00:59:28
Was there any other questions? You.
00:59:29
I had one I wanna, I wanna bring up.
00:59:31
But uh, anything you had? No, no, no.
00:59:33
But thank you for, uh, letting me get that off my chest here.
00:59:36
Sure, Yeah, of course. Did you find the Riley Scott
00:59:42
love triangle thing? Just like, I don't know.
00:59:47
I found it like just annoying. I don't know why.
00:59:50
Like that. Mainly because I probably, I'd
00:59:52
rather see Scott with Tracy Gretchen.
00:59:55
Ohh, Gretchen. Ohh man, I forgot about that.
00:59:58
Or or Tracy. Or Tracy.
00:59:59
But yeah, yeah, I know that he's moved on from Tracy.
01:00:02
But and also maybe because I know where Scott's heading in
01:00:05
his love life to a real relationship.
01:00:08
Yeah. So it was just it was just like
01:00:11
maybe just. I didn't didn't mind the fact
01:00:13
that Brad had chose to go. I just that there was a lot of
01:00:17
exposition about like. Thinking about her like, just
01:00:22
like, all right, I guess. I guess that would is real life.
01:00:25
But yeah, I don't know. Yeah.
01:00:26
No, I don't. I don't think I'm so into her
01:00:28
yet. I don't know if I want to be
01:00:30
either. Yeah, Gretchen, I liked her a
01:00:34
lot more in terms of fitting with Scott.
01:00:36
I'm still kind of not over the. Let's just cut Tracy out of the
01:00:39
picture, cuz Scott wants a family, but yet he has no
01:00:42
perspective or plan and he's already in his early 40s.
01:00:46
Of how that's going to come to fruition.
01:00:47
So why give up what you got with Tracy?
01:00:50
But we know where he's going to go.
01:00:51
You know, We know what's to come.
01:00:53
So it's just weird. Like limbo, right?
01:00:55
It's like he's on the rebound, but is he really on the rebound?
01:00:59
And yeah, I don't know. It's very, very strange.
01:01:02
So see what happens. Yeah.
01:01:06
No, definitely. Definitely.
01:01:08
All right. Well, that's that's full black.
01:01:11
So next time we get together, what are we covering, Mike?
01:01:16
Well, feels like the next book in order is a ways off because
01:01:23
we're going to cover Deadfall. We are indeed hoping to have
01:01:27
Brad Thor on the podcast sometime in July or shortly
01:01:30
thereafter. So with all that, it's going to
01:01:34
be hard to get to another Brad Thor book.
01:01:37
We'd have to go back to what comes after Full Black.
01:01:40
You said it before. Blacklist.
01:01:42
Blacklist, but I don't know when we're going to get there because
01:01:45
we got Deadfall. We want to go back and cover
01:01:47
Kyle Mills's Fade Code. Red will be coming out and we've
01:01:51
got a couple of different other authors that that we want to
01:01:53
look into. So I think look forward to our
01:01:57
coverage of Deadfall on this podcast and look forward to a
01:02:01
few different things rebooting the Mitch Rapp podcast over the
01:02:04
next few months. And other than that we'll be
01:02:07
posting our reading schedule for the next few months shortly.
01:02:11
Yeah, I also want to try to see if we can talk to Jack Carr
01:02:14
again if he has time, so. That'd be great.
01:02:18
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