Choke Point by Brad Thor — THAT CHARACTER IS BACK!? | Spoiler Book Review

[00:00:16] Hey guys, I'm Chris. And I'm Mike. And welcome back to this week's No Limits, The Thriller Podcast. How you doing today, Mike? I'm doing great because summer has begun. We got a Brad Thor book. A couple of good things about summer are on the horizon. We're recording, what, 20, 48 hours after the longest day of the year. So we still get these. It's beautiful. Anyway, speaking of summer, you know, it's always, always the start of the summer.

[00:00:46] Right around 4th of July, where we get a new Brad Thor novel. This is our second Brad Thor novel of the year. We already covered it on the feed. Cold Zero. Cold Zero. His book with Ward Larson. Love that book. You actually got the opportunity to talk with Brad. I unfortunately, things didn't align. You know, this, I haven't met with Brad a couple of times. We've been like sickness. This honestly is work related. So I was in a way, different time zone. We couldn't make it work.

[00:01:16] Sure. But you had a great conversation with him. I don't know when you're going to release that or if it has already been released. Oh, it's already out. And we missed you. Brad missed you. He was asking for you in the beginning before we recorded. He was bummed because he said, along with Hugh Hewitt, he said, hanging out with us is one of the most exciting things on a book release. So just that is just wild praise. And we got to clarify the comments from our Cold Zero recording. So that was hashed out a little bit.

[00:01:44] And then we kind of went on and on about politics. We had a basically a political discussion. We named the episode Thrillers Save America. We decided that thriller authors and readers just chit chat in politics might just help us get the answer to some of our political woes. So really, 45 minutes, he and I just really just spat politics.

[00:02:07] Nice. Well, go go enjoy that feed. I also saw recently you posted our interview that I did a little while back with Katie Brodsky. Yes. Brodsky. Is it Brodsky? Brodsky. Brodsky. Two great individuals, a married couple writing a thriller, a spy thriller. They seem to really want to go that route of old school espionage, Le Carré style. They mentioned David Morell a bunch.

[00:02:29] So I'm really, really excited to hear about to read their book. But even just hearing about the book from your interview, I was enjoying being a podcast fan of No Limits fan because I wasn't on that one. I listened to it. Holy cow, how they shot to the top. You have to listen to that episode. Yeah, it's crazy. Their story is insane. Husband and wife decided to write a book. He wrote a bunch of chapters, shared it with her and their son. They ended up writing it together. And then all of a sudden, it's on the desk of Emily Bessler.

[00:02:57] And she's signing them to, I think they said a three book deal or a two book deal. Two book deal. Maybe a third. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sat with her at Thriller Fest next to her, Jack Carr and Barbara Peters, the guest of honor. Like, wow, that is an amazing rise that I'm sure is going to make many, many authors jealous. But what a great story. Yeah, looking forward to covering that book on the pod. And we're going to have them on at least two more times, probably like right before pub day. And then obviously we want to have a spoiler-filled discussion with them about their first novel.

[00:03:25] So look out for that road to publication for that series. We'll also try to publish our reading list for the next few months. I think we have everything scoped out through September. So at least June, July, August, we'll get you everything we're reading. We have a jam-packed schedule. So we'll post that on the socials. Make sure you follow to stick along. Yeah. All right. Let's get into Choke Point, man. Let's do it. We've got a Choke Point here. We've got to get to it. This is a very Brad Thor book.

[00:03:55] This is a very Brad Thor book. Brad 25. So big deal. Now, what's interesting to me is, you know, obviously coming off of the last two books. Yep. And, you know, a coup plot involving more of Solvy. I was really intrigued to see, like, where are we going to go with this one. Yes. And I was shocked that we have zero Solvy.

[00:04:28] And to me, this one almost was more in, like, the territory of, like, Rising Tiger. Agreed. Or some of his, like, I don't want to call them one-off because they're all, like, they're all in the story. But, like, not, like, an overarching arc. And obviously, you know, he's super intrigued with this area, this territory. I think that's probably one of the best parts about this book is, like, going to a new area with our travel guide, Brad Thor.

[00:04:57] Or, like, really getting into it. We haven't really, like, spent much time in this area. So I thought, like, that really came out. You know, obviously, Choke Points, Straight of Hormuths, you know, it's a... He even, like, you know, talks about it at the very end of the chapter about, you know, like, sort of what the overarching plan was of this, you know, initial plot.

[00:05:19] And, you know, it's the cultural zeitgeist, being able to think two steps ahead about how I can bring my story in and make it prescient to the day, the current reader, right? A year ahead, right? So, like, I think, like, that in and of itself, like, the idea of... But I was intrigued that he would go this route and not, like... Although there is, like, one... Obviously, Brad's famous with this. The very end line of the book, you know...

[00:05:49] Giving us that cliffhanger. So is this... Is this the new start of, like, something, you know, like a three-book or a two-book trilogy or something like that? Or is it just... This is what it is? Wow. A lot to unpack there. To start from the end, that line at the very end... And guys, spoiler warning, if you don't know who we are here on the Thriller Podcast, we are spoiling the book. It's a full spoiler review. I'm going to give you the last line of the book because I had to write this down to bring up on the pod.

[00:06:18] But it might have been my favorite thing about the whole book was that I closed it with my jaw on the floor. And Brad has a knack for doing that. Yeah. Just about every time. Spymaster. Yeah. God, Spymaster. And this took me back to Tracy being shot at Bishop's Gate. I thought for sure she was going to come back because of the whole EOD thing. Anyways, we can get into that. I thought it was going to be her. Brad teased in the interview that he brought back a very early character. An oldie but goodie. A different one.

[00:06:47] I'm screaming in my mind like, wait, the bad guy's an EOD tech. We've got to defuse bombs. He's setting off bombs. I was like, we know an EOD tech. It wasn't Tracy. Yeah. You know, we've been talking get a guy to get a guy. I was really hoping it was get a girl to get a guy. If Scott had to, you know, get in bed with Tracy again or line up with her to operate or even just pick her brain, you know, granted the injury and the recovery process. How much of the EOD stuff is she able to?

[00:07:17] And the trauma of bringing her back into that life after she so cleanly had a break from that life on the road to recovery. So I think it would have been really hard to bring Tracy in. But man, my hopes were up. Hey, Rick the Prick Morel, though, I mean, that was a treat. He is just the same as usual. One of my other favorite things about the book was the way the guys were going back and forth. The two new tech operators, may they rest in peace, those guys were great.

[00:07:45] And the way they were giving it to Rick and he was giving it right back and Scott and him, this felt like old school. Yeah, yeah. Not to mention Haney, Stalin, Chase Palmer, Sloan Ashby. All within the first few chapters. That was such a smart, smart play by Brad Thor to bring us back to Scott's team, operating as a group like he did in the earlier books. Rick Morel having to come into the picture.

[00:08:13] And it's like nothing changed, you know, however many books later it felt right at home. So you open the book with the team. You have Rick the whole time operating in the middle, Scott's partner. And then at the end, you close with, they're drinking in the bar. So it's the Thai. Dollar oysters or dollar beers, 50 cent oysters. 50 cent oysters. And what's her name? Dobby? I didn't quite get the pronunciation. Dobby. I think that's what Armando said.

[00:08:42] It's Scott, Rick, and the Thai woman. He is Thai intelligence woman. And he closes. They're all laughing, drinking. Then both their phones went off at the same time. Yeah. Whose phone is it? Scott's? Scott's and Rick's? I think Scott and Rick. Or Dobby and Rick's? I mean, it could be any of the two, right? It could be any of the two. But it leads us so nicely into whatever's coming next. It leaves it completely open, but it really was such a great cliffhanger. I really enjoyed that.

[00:09:11] So the opening of the book with the team, the ending of the book with that line, and these three drinking together, having a good time, mission accomplished, I thought were some of the best parts of this book. Not to mention the setting, as you said. Yeah. And I think, you know, you guys jumping ahead a little bit to the scorecard, like, you know, bringing in Rick and having him, like, because we knew where we kind of had left off with him, where, like, and, you know, Brad does a good job of setting the scene very early with,

[00:09:39] you know, one or two chapters of, like, how they didn't get along. They grudgingly respect each other, and it's like a mild friendship. And you can see, like, through the entire novel that we're right where we left off with them before, where it is a grudging friendship. They do, you know, mildly respect each other for what they can do. But, you know, there's still times where Harvath, like, the first, I guess, was it Teens, or was it where he gets left behind? I guess it's Teens. And, like, he's like, oh, Rick left me.

[00:10:08] But he didn't. You know, he was there. Well, that was smart, because I was wondering, you set it up with Rick, you brought him back, but how will that play into this plot and this action? And the way Scott's operating, thinking, man, he's going to leave me again like he did, and then to have him pick him up at the last minute. I thought it was a great way to bring him back and show their relationship kind of progressing. Like, it still has the same old scars, same old wounds, but they have a strong enough bandage on top of it that, you know, the bandage is still working.

[00:10:35] And I think through the course of the novel, we even get, like, a little bit of a redemption arc for Rick in the sense that at the end, where we're having drinks and oysters, I think Scott and Rick are on a different level after this op. I agree. You know, one, at the very end, he takes, you know, at the very second, he's thinking that Rick just disappeared, but he didn't disappear. He was getting the drop on the guy, took him out, and then takes the fall for him, you know, like, gets in prison for, like, however, you know, a couple hours. That was big, too.

[00:11:05] I think that was a big move. Yeah, we knew he was going to get out, right, with his contacts, but that he took the shot in the moment, did what he had to do. So I think Scott would have failed, Rick would have failed, the Thai intelligence would have failed, the Chinese would have won if it wasn't for both of them working together. Right, right. No, I think you're 100% correct. I think it's the teamwork here, especially you mentioned the, you know,

[00:11:33] bringing in Scott's team, you know, we were so well-adjusted with these guys, and Brad has the quips. I feel like they're used the appropriate amount, not too heavy, not too light. The one thing I did question, though, and maybe it's just me, like, Monday morning quarterbacking or, you know, why did they leave the two tech guys

[00:11:58] so quickly and not immediately call Sloan and Chase to be there? Yeah. I guess, like, you're supposed to, like, take it as, like, everything's just happening, like, super fast, but, like, one minute we're there and the next minute we're cutting over to a boat, so I had to figure, like, and then that's when we decide to call them. I just, I don't know. There were a few moments where the team was spread thin. And I did feel that, like, having, his name's Kevin, right, the protagonist.

[00:12:28] Yeah, Kobler. You know, actually kill those guys. One, I think Brad did a good job of, and you mentioned it, like, getting us to buy in to like these two brand new characters. Yeah. Very quick. And you kind of had a feeling that, especially when they were left by themselves, that, like, the stakes were going to be raised and they were going to lose their life. Yeah. And, like, it was just the right amount of, like, we had bought into these guys. It was sad to see them go because I think they would have, maybe they could have been

[00:12:57] recruited to the entire team, but it was like a nice, it wasn't cheap in a sense. You know what I mean? Well, I think I also needed that to get me to hate Kobler a little more. More. I mean, I hated him for setting off a bomb, but you can give me numbers of dead, and if those numbers are hundreds, thousands, or millions, this is still fiction, right? You're basically just throwing that number out there. Make it whatever you want. It really doesn't change the emotional impact that the reader has.

[00:13:25] But once he has to take out those two guys who we came to love, the emotional stakes were so much higher, and I was so much more invested in getting him. Because, yes, I want to get the guy, right? Like, that's the whole plot of the story. He's a bomb maker. I don't want him running loose, killing people. Sure. But he hasn't killed any of my people yet. You know, he hasn't killed my teammates. He hasn't killed the good guys. He hasn't really affected Scott. He affected Scott in that he now has a job to do, and the U.S. intelligence apparatus is after him, and there's a mission. But he really didn't get to him on a personal level until that.

[00:13:55] And to me, it was the right time in the book where I needed to hate Kobler just a little bit more, and that did it. Because another thing I wasn't totally bought into with all that was his relationship with Matthias. I was initially interested in, like, who's his boss, who's hiring him, and recruiting him from the drug cartels. I thought that was a very strong introduction. But as we went along, I just didn't learn to fear him that badly.

[00:14:21] When he and Matthias had the calls, and at some points he needed him to extract him, Matthias needed him to give him another job, which ultimately they were going to, you know, tie loose ends by killing him at the end of the job. But Matthias in bed with the Chinese, I could have used a little more about how this guy is taking jobs for the Chinese. What kind of, like, sneaky things are they doing? I wanted to see more of, like, Chinese operatives, like, actually going and converting the Cambodians,

[00:14:50] like getting them to do their dirty work, going in and actually getting a Matthias to hire a guy. Like, I just thought the whole network hinged on this man Matthias, yet he didn't connect enough of the dots for me. He wasn't like this super impactful man in the chair that I think this story needed. And I think we needed a Chinese man in the chair who basically saw Matthias as just one of his puppets and a string that he was pulling, and Tevi, right, or whoever hired Tevi and the Cambodians to do what they were doing,

[00:15:17] or whoever was, like, interfering with Cambodian intelligence. So maybe not hiring them because they weren't trying to kill Cambodian intelligence. No, it was the opposite. It was like the Cambodian intelligence had a guy inside the Chinese intelligence. Okay. But why were they doing their spying for them on Thailand? They weren't. They were trying to kill the Chinese. Oh, they were going after that guy? Well, yes, but we only learned that once we captured Tevi. Like, before that, we're operating under the assumption that there's some Cambodian operators who are bad.

[00:15:47] It just got messy for me. Yeah, that's probably, like, where the story is, like, I don't want to say the weakest, but it just got a little muddled a little bit where, and I think you're hitting at, like, the point where I think I wanted a little bit more of everything. I wanted a little bit more dealing in the back rooms. Yes. Yes. I wanted a little bit, maybe even, like, a standalone chapter with Tevi where he's talking about what he's going on.

[00:16:15] We got a little bit of the, you know, interactions of the head Chinese guy who ends up getting captured in the helicopter at the very end. Yeah. But there could have been more of that, or more conversations between Matthias and, or even between Matthias and the Chinese. Yeah, I get what you're saying. And then to tie that all back into, you know, what's going on back in the United States. Right.

[00:16:38] I feel like that story also suffered from not having, like, we were getting one perspective, but oftentimes with Brad, we get, we tend to get both perspectives. Like, we didn't get anything with that, what was his name, Todd Shelton, or? Well, ultimately, there was Olsen. Olsen was the guy. Olsen, yeah. Yeah. Masterminding all this. And we got him too late. Like, by the time we figured out Olsen is a guy behind this, and we saw him meeting with another guy, and I really liked that kind of intrigue, it was too late.

[00:17:06] And then we end up having the house scene, which was a really good suspenseful scene where they ultimately off him, which was cool because Vaughn, the Secret Service agent, she comes in. But at the same time, fields, FBI fields, special agent fields was really awesome. So I kind of liked how that storyline played out.

[00:17:26] I would have liked it to be built up a little earlier in that the federal agents who kept coming after them, there were at least multiple federal agents who were coming after them and who get killed while they're escaping. I wanted to see them being recruited. Like, who is telling them to go do this illegal thing as part of their job? Why are they consenting to it? So, like, what motivates them to actually go after these guys? Like, it must have been Olsen, right? And Olsen and his friends and his money.

[00:17:54] So how exactly was Olsen pulling strings on the home front to set all this in motion? I feel like we didn't learn about that until too late, and then it just wrapped up all of a sudden. Yeah. And then maybe even the biggest mea culpa of that is, did it ever truly come together with the tie stuff? Like, yes, I see how it's related at a high level. But did it truly ever, like, give Scott and Rick intelligence that they needed to operate on to go chase somebody down?

[00:18:23] Did it ultimately come up with one of the characters? And I would expect Fields, right? To Fields to reach out to someone at the Carlton Group or Scott or another connection. Like, somehow, whatever they're pursuing and going after should get filtered into Scott and his mission, and one should affect the other. And it kind of never directly did. Each storyline just wrapped up on its own. Yeah. No, they were almost completely separate. Yeah.

[00:18:48] There's, like, one fleeting sentence at the end of, like, why he was, you know, the guy was right in the sense that Taiwan was a feint. Exactly. That there was something else. And that something else was everything that Scott was dealing with. Exactly. You know, over there. Well, let's talk about the geopolitical chessboard of it all because I loved the set. Oh, I think that's – it's one of the strongest things of this book for sure. And again, like you said before, there were some things we wanted more of. That I wanted more of.

[00:19:17] I feel like all the extracurriculars of this book and Brad being a phenomenal conversationalist, all the podcasts I listened to, all of his website posts, that got me so intrigued on the backdrop of Taiwan and China and the Belt and Road and why Thailand would be important and why the Thai government was against them and how the Cambodians are involved in all this. That was, like, my favorite part of the book, and I don't feel like I got a lot of it.

[00:19:41] The meat of me understanding that storyline was all from Brad's interviews and his posts, which was great because I went into the book being prepared for that. But if you had no idea about that and the book stands on its own for setting the geopolitical landscape, again, it left a little too late.

[00:20:00] Because finally when we find out, you know, the guy was right and it was a feint and Taiwan wasn't the real thing and their staging over there was just manipulation and everything's going on in Thai and there's a – they might want to build a straight and all this. All that didn't come about until very, very late and with very, very little explanation. It was almost, you know, show, don't tell. It was told and not shown enough. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:20:28] I mean, it was kind of the point, and I'll play devil's advocate here, it was kind of the point to, like, what is going on with these bombings? Like, why are these bombings happening? And, of course, like, this book is very much – maybe we're just not used to this. Like, we're not used to not being in the villain's head with Brad. I feel like we're often – who is the villain in this story? I guess it is the quote-unquote Chinese, but the, you know, the head Chinese guy, I forget his name. Was it Hong?

[00:20:59] Hong. Yeah, Hong. Yeah, I don't remember. Like, there wasn't enough given to him to, like, really manifest him as, like – I guess the villain is supposed to be Kevin. Like, but to me he was – he was a little bit flawed as a villain for me. Oh, I mean, certainly flawed. Flawed as a character or flawed as a villain? Flawed as a villain. Flawed as a villain. Yeah, because – I thought he did okay as a villain. I mean, he's this crazy, big, bad, you know, bomb maker.

[00:21:29] But I wanted him to be more, like, crazy. Like, unstable. Like, more like – I guess maybe because I've been reading – we just read Chaos Agent and there's that rogue – other rogue CIA agent who was kind of reminding me of him. Like, you know, imagine if you take that guy. That's right. Right. And in the Mid-Trap series who ultimately becomes his friend.

[00:21:58] Oh, the one Kyle made. Yeah. I got to remember his name. Anyways. But, like, I get the idea of trying to build up this – With an A, Z? Azaz? Not Azaz. Anyways. It's – you're trying to – there's a distinguished point of putting him in SEAL Team 2 and having him be in – Yeah. Like, you know, coming up the same background, you know, it's this cool idea of this EOD, like, exchange program, going to become a SEAL. Yes. He gets disillusioned.

[00:22:27] Like, that makes sense. But I guess I didn't believe that he truly was maniacal. Grisha. Grisha Azeroth. Grisha Azeroth, yes. Yep. Even though he was doing some heinous-ass work in the sense that he had no problem blowing up children, it just – we weren't, like, in his head enough to, like, really get that – you know, truly get that.

[00:22:55] Because in order to go from being a Navy SEAL to then being willing to kill innocent people, like, that's a huge change. Not only innocent people, he was willing to kill innocent children at schools. Like, put bombs – like, build bombs himself and put them at schools. That's insane. Yeah. I got enough of that unhinged part, though. Like, by the time we got there, I was like, oh, yeah, this guy would do that. Like, for sure he would do that. I don't know. Maybe it's also the white phosphorus stuff of him wanting to cover his tracks.

[00:23:24] I guess his only play is to now hook up with his client? Yeah. See, all of that taken as a whole was enough to tell me this guy's nuts. He's a pretty decent villain. It fell apart for me with, like, who he's working for and why he's working for them. That was just a little thin. But him going off the deep end, especially early on, was explaining, like, how he got into the cartels. And that wasn't doing it for him. Like, didn't get him off enough. You know, like, he was sick of it. He was just taking jobs for money.

[00:23:53] I feel like I got the unhinged part of it all that you didn't. I have other issues with the cast of villains and those above him, I would say. But him as a villain, I think, was relatively strong. Okay. Yeah. Interesting. Yeah. This is why we do this podcast. Difference of opinions on that one. Yeah. Yeah. I think we see eye to eye about a number of the other strengths and, you know, shortcomings of this book. But villains is definitely one of those.

[00:24:21] I guess you brought it up early. One other thing is the Salvi of it all. Yeah. One at Salvi. And I could understand that. And I could see that as a disappointment for a lot of folks. I almost looked back, though, and thought, wow, we were really lucky to have the last few. Like, Edge of Honor. That was a Salvi book.

[00:24:41] Like, I was really glad that we took the time to develop her, to have them get married, to have them operate together, to have them go their separate ways. Like, we knew she's still doing Norwegian intelligence and won't always be around. So I feel like he, like in the Ukraine book, right? Like, wasn't that part of it? So I feel like he's laid the groundwork to say, these two are going to be together and separate at different times. Yeah. And I was willing to go along with that. If I had not known, I'm coming off Edge of Honor.

[00:25:11] I'm like, oh, man, they just got married. Oh, they just did all this badass stuff together. Oh, they could work together forever. And there was never any hint of, like, no, she's going to go back and do the Norway stuff because that's very important to her. And then in Shadow of Doubt, right, we get the guy coming in from the cold, a defector who goes to her. But then Scott needs him. So their paths cross. The fact that that happened in the last, like, two or three books so well, I was fine with a Salvi break. Even a little bit of a Nicholas break. He's got the kid now. Yeah.

[00:25:40] No, we knew that coming. And I felt like he was appropriately brought in, used at the right moment. Exactly. The intelligence of it all. Brad has told us through that he's, I don't know if he's done with the character or he's just like the character has age and this is how the character has to go. And so that makes sense. Yep. And he's not the head of the Carlton group, so he doesn't have all that responsibility. We got Bob McGee.

[00:26:02] I think there was such a great progression to get to this book over the last few that I'm 100% okay with where we are right now. I will agree with you. It feels more like a rising tiger. Let's go to a cool part of the world. Something new. Okay. You know, flavor of the week storyline, bomb attacks, Bangkok, Thailand, geopolitical set piece. But I'm okay with that, right? I think Brad Thor has done the work to say that's who he is as a writer.

[00:26:29] But he's also a master of the long arc storytelling and the character development that we're going to get over the course of three, four, five books. And if you look at it long term, I'm okay with stepping away from kind of those main beloved characters and doing something really cool. I don't want to call it a side piece, but this book does feel like rising tiger where we can go off to a corner of the world, hunt down some people and make a great story out of it.

[00:26:54] But I don't think every book needs to be the shadow of doubt, edge of honor arc of let's get all these characters lives changing and advancing and relationship dynamics. We don't need that every single book. So I was happy with how this one ended up. Okay. He did the work. He put in the work. All right. Well, speaking of work, what do you think about the action, man? Sure. You know, we even missed some scenes. You mentioned the boat before.

[00:27:22] I remember Scott jumping off the docks or the guy jumps off the docks and Scott catches him on the other side. Early on, we got some really good action sequences, too. And just to put it with suspense as well, I thought every scene back in D.C. was very suspenseful. Oh, sure. Who's after who? Who's the knock at the door? Who's got a piece of evidence? I think if you put all that together, I was pretty happy with action and suspense of this book. It actually might be one of the better parts of this book.

[00:27:51] So I think I can go as high as eight, seven and a half or eight. I think I'm going to go eight because of suspense. Yeah, I was going to say eight, too. I think, you know, every time we get a bomb scene, you know, it's suspenseful. I think I think back to the the scene where, you know, they're in the periodontist's office where they string up the guy. Yes. And I looked at that watch. That's a crazy watch. It's two thousand twenty thousand dollars. That was wild. The tech in this is good.

[00:28:21] The watch, the drone, the drones. Yeah. Very good tech. Oh, the body. It's a mile. They put the body with the grenade face down in the elevator. Great stuff. And it's a mild touch, too, like where he he'll say the spec doesn't go too far deep in it. But, you know, just enough to pique people's interest of like, oh, I want to Google that. But not enough to like. You know, get people bogged down or or mad about like having way too much like. You don't have to jack car. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:28:51] But yeah, I thought, you know, and then to go to the scene where they think they have like the idea. Right. They they they figured out that the schools are no longer going to be. They need to find a new place and then they go to three new places. And of course, while they're there, none of those. It's not none of those places. It's the other place. And then the mad dash, like figure out. Oh, the hospital figures it out in the hospital. Like all that is like super suspenseful, super action filled.

[00:29:18] Even like, you know, the attack at where Scott's having to chase down those guys. And, you know, we have multiple gun battles over the rooftops. Yeah, over the rooftops. Yeah. Yeah. That was pretty good, too. All that was paced very well. I don't know if that takes us into plot because our plot score is also based on pacing to another strength of this book, I would say, is how it's paced out. There was never a down moment that felt like a true down moment. It was a down moment where we're doing reconnaissance. Right.

[00:29:47] Like scouting out the schools, splitting up the team, assigning jobs or letting the tech guys put some stuff together. We're getting a briefing from Nicholas. Right. So all those in between scenes between the action was really authentic. And I enjoyed spending time with those. So. Put that together with everything we said about the geopolitics. The only thing I'm going to give on the geopolitics of it is I love so much the backstory, the explanation, the research.

[00:30:16] I don't know if it intertwined enough with the plot. So I feel like the plot was really good on the pacing and progression and movement of things, how we get from one to the next without just getting a guy to get a guy. We kind of get to a guy, right? We get to a guy, which gives us some clue. It's not that we get the guy and interrogate him every single time. But we learn something from the guy. Yeah. Like Tevi. We keep him alive. We learn something from him. No interrogations. And now he's our ally. There's no crazy interrogations, right? They were about to interrogate a guy.

[00:30:46] He actually dies. Yeah. But then they find the watch. You know. So I feel like Brad didn't do get a guy to get a guy. He did do get to a guy to get information. But it felt very authentic in how one led to the next. Instead of us just interrogating a guy, he gives up a name. Interrogate a guy, he gives up a name. So I thought hats off finding creative ways to keep us moving on the plot. All that to say, plot's getting a good score. But I'm bringing it down because the geopolitics were so good. I wanted more of it.

[00:31:14] And it was so well thought out on a, you know, a world chessboard politics game. I wanted to have a little bit more page time enjoying that and learning about that throughout and seeing the power players like Olsen and the Chinese guy more present pulling those strings and getting this job done. So. Seven on plot. Yeah, I think that's where I'm going to.

[00:31:39] Because I, like you said, as a whole paced very well. The idea to set up, you know, this leads into buy-in, which I'm bought in at the very beginning of this and this idea of it. But I wanted the connection. I wanted more connections between. First of all, between the DC story and the story. And then I wanted a little bit more, like we mentioned before, just like that extra level that I feel like Brad has given us sometimes. Yeah. And here, it's a different approach.

[00:32:09] And I guess, I guess I don't like this approach, but you know, to each his own. But I feel like, you know, if we had gotten to see a little bit more of those backroom deals or a little more of the villainous underworld and, you know, more understanding there or even like how the connections are being made to bring these two stories together, that would have brought my score up there. But as a whole, still very good. I'll give it a seven. Seven, okay.

[00:32:39] You know what's funny is I'm thinking back to an earlier book where I feel like he did all that, but with such a different approach. There was a book that opened up with, I don't know, site 24601, whatever it was. It was that Chinese site in like inner Mongolia where they're training deep cover Chinese spies to live and talk like Americans. And the payout of that, I don't think came to the next book where we really saw those sleepers, you know, activated. And so I feel like this book just didn't have any of that long-term planting and plotting

[00:33:08] of like what's going on behind the scenes. So yeah. Unless it's connected to the next book. That's possible, especially the way this book ended with the phone calls. So it's definitely, definitely possible. I think buy-in though, I actually really breezed through this book. It was one I didn't want to put down for all the, for some of the flaws that we mentioned. I surprised myself with how engrossed I was in it. I think that's the suspense of it was, was very good.

[00:33:37] The suspense of it was great. And I think just Brad's raw talent as a writer and raw inspiration and passion for the storytelling really carried it and even made some of the flaws, like we talked about villains or geopolitics, it made you overlook that when you're actually reading, like it's a very enjoyable read. So I don't want to go too much lower than a four, but I feel like I was not four level buy-in, which, which usually is what I am to a story.

[00:34:05] So I got to go three and a half and that's not a bad three and a half at all. But I have to say I was bought in. It was just, there were a few glaring things that distracted me along the way. All right. I see. I see. Do you go higher? I'm curious if you go higher than three and a half. That's tough. I'm, I'm toying with it. Um, no, I think you're right. I think that's a, it's a good, it's not a three. It's not a three. It's not a three and it could be a four.

[00:34:34] It's like a three eight. Yeah. It's like a three seven. But we don't do that here. So no decimals here. Yeah. Only point. Only abs. Only abs. We could be in a super position. We can do some quantum mechanics. It's a three and a four at the same time.

[00:34:59] I feel like we might have a few points difference here because what you said about Kobler, but we're both on the same page about the man in the chair kind of big bad. So I think I can also go with a three five here. Yeah. I'm going, I'm going lower. I'm going, I'm going half core two and a half. Two and a half. Okay. Just cause I wasn't bought into Kobler at all. Yeah. I could have been bought into Olsen though. I feel like if, if I knew a little bit more about it, his one little cameo at the

[00:35:28] very end, like when they saw him at Tyson's corner and they were staking him out, but somebody secretly planted a tracker on their car. I was like, Oh yo, this is, that was good stuff. But that was such a like small percentage of overall the whole book. It's like one scene. It was one, one like tiny scene that got me interested in him and then no follow up until we're at the house. And then when it gets off to the house is nice. Yeah. Yeah. I could see you on that two and a half. I understand.

[00:35:59] Good guys. We're going to make up some ground here. We're hitting, there's a couple of fives coming up here. So don't, don't worry. Don't worry. If you were to ding this book for missing Salvi and having a limited Nicholas role, or maybe Bob McGee only mentioned once, you're going to make up that ground with Davi. Like what an awesome character she was the way she was right up against Rick the whole time. It was perfect. You're going to make a ground with Tevi, the Cambodian. Loved him.

[00:36:27] You're going to make up ground with the, the, the texts. And then I think a sneaky one is Fields. Her, her cameo Fields gets a little involved from the last, I guess, more shadow of doubt. Right. She was really involved in. But then also I don't mind the two DC, what were their names? Colin. Aaron and, and Colin, right? Aaron and Connor. Connor. Connor. Connor. I kind of like them as well. So yeah, I'm going to round it up to a five.

[00:36:57] I'm a five just because of Rick. Like, I think like bringing him back and having him sing and be such a great character in this novel. Um, just. Just. Immediate five for me. And then you add in like, you know, these new characters that we get and we always get, you know, a new, new characters that we're probably not going to, you know, interact with ever again, or, or who knows if we're going to interact with them, you know, four or five,

[00:37:23] 10 books down the road, but does a good job with the, with, with Davi, with, you know, Tevi, even though, you know, we get a little very minimal time with him at the very end. Um, but yeah. And I think, you know, we mentioned before, just bringing in the Sloan, Ashby, uh, Haney, Stalin, like those guys, we know that the writer dies and, um, he does a good job of using them properly. Their comedic element is, is on point. Like, so it's a five for me.

[00:37:53] Yeah, no, I think you're right. I think you're right. Setting. I feel like you're also going to go pretty high. And it was a big strength of this book. The, the food that's mentioned, right. All the locations they go to. I thought it was really, really good. I have to come down just a little off it. And I don't, I don't know why. And maybe, and maybe this is unfair. We just read a lot of books on Southeast Asia. We went from like zero to a hundred on Southeast Asia, right? We read the Jack Carr one. We just read a Mark Rainey one.

[00:38:21] And so this might be a little unfair, but it's been done a lot lately. And it's almost like that flash in the pan of this is new. This is different. Almost felt tired, which is weird. Cause I think most readers will be like, wow, this is new. This is different. Scott's never been over here, but I had a little fatigue on that. And, and Brad did it really well. So that's what I think is unfair. Like he was naming foods. I could smell them. The cooking oil. How many times he mentioned cooking oil, which I just wanted to get Thai, like take out Thai. You know, I'm going to, I'm going to Uber eats it after we're done here.

[00:38:51] Like the book brought me in that well to it. But overall, I wanted a little more of the, the zoomed out geography bonus point for this book. We opened with an awesome map. Whenever a book starts with a map, I am so giddy and so excited. I'm going into it over the moon. It started out with an awesome map of Southeast Asia somewhere in the text. I would have liked a little bit more about Thai's Thailand's geography.

[00:39:20] We got it with the border with Cambodia and some skirmishes. But again, how we are missing out on some of the Chinese stuff is like, talk about the, the peninsula and where it's really skinny. And the Chinese wanted to build a canal and very at the very, like the last chapter. Yeah. And then the Straits of Malacca are mentioned once. And it's like, that's intriguing, enticing, but I wanted to go all in and we just didn't, didn't go all in.

[00:39:49] Because you know that Brad's going to write like a, a, a couple pair, an essay, a blog post, banging paragraphs about that and, you know, or, you know, whatever we get on. I want a little more in the book though. Like I eat that stuff up. I love his research pages. I dig into that. It's even more fun when that's in the pages of the book. We learned a lot, right? This book taught us a lot about the region. I just wanted to nibble on the, you know, the meat on the bone a little bit, a little bit longer.

[00:40:17] So half a point, 4.5. Yeah. I, I'll agree with you there. I got you. Yeah. The cover? Dude, I love this cover. It's a good one. The, the recent Brad, the recover covers have been, whenever they made that changed, you know, to, I don't know. It's very good. The texture. Obviously you have the tiger or this, is it a dragon? Sea dragon. No.

[00:40:47] Sea dragon. I mean, but I was so, I was so excited just about the design of it all. The significance of it. Was there a lot in the book about this? Did any of the like Cambodian gangs or did, does this have to do with like mythology or zodiac symbols down there? Did I miss something? I mean, like. Was the seahorse dragon explained?

[00:41:16] Like in Phuket, like it's all over the place. I mean. Okay. Is it a water dragon? Yeah. A water snake? Sea dragon? Yeah. Gold sea dragon. It's a Phuket thing? Yeah. I, I don't remember. Like if we saw it on like, if some guy had a tattoo or we saw it on a wall or it was all over the place or a symbol that was explained and I missed it. I apologize.

[00:41:39] But I would like some of what I said about that map in the beginning of the book to be here. Like I really like a cover and Mitch Rapp has done this a few times where there's a map or an overlay and it's got like, you know, concentric circles for a bomb blast or something to bring in the EOD tech of it all. Like something about the streets of Bangkok to be on that black smoky background. I thought would have upped this to another level.

[00:42:05] So a little bit of the geography is missing here for me in the cover. Although the sea dragon might symbolize that. But I just, I just sent you a link to check, check out the link of like where this is. It's a sea dragon that protects the town of Phuket. I like that. Was that explained though? I do like that. I don't think it was explained. Maybe we're just supposed to. It's like Ukraine. We got the wing on the cover of the St. Michael, the archangel statue. And that was explained.

[00:42:32] There was a line about it, but it led me to think like that, that statue is going to be ever present, right? Like a, like a totem or a talism, a talisman throughout the thing. I would hope that the sea dragon could have been like that. Or if there was like a. Yeah, that's cool. I've seen statues of this. Or if there was like a, like one of the, the groups had this as a tattoo or something and that was like, you know, brought up anyways. A clue or something. Yeah. Yeah. It totally relates though. Yeah.

[00:43:01] It really does relate to this, to the city. Hmm. Didn't spend a lot of time in Phuket, did they? They were through it. Yeah. Not a lot of time. Not, not a lot of huge action there unless I'm wrong. No, most of the time it was in Bangkok. Right. Yeah. And then that other town that I mentioned. Yeah. I think I'm just on, on a, on a half run today. I think I have to go down to three and a half. The design would get me a five for sure.

[00:43:29] I need a little bit more of the geography streets of it all. But I really like the symbolism of the dragon. I do like that. Free space. What's your free space? I'll let you have Rick. I will let you take that. All right. Good. Is that, that was going to be my free space? Take it from me. Um, can't call him Rick the prick anymore. Yeah. I think you still can. Yeah. You can.

[00:43:58] Rick, limp, lip, Rick. I think I got to go with Davi and Tevi. I think just, uh, two, if you want to call them side characters, maybe they're definitely B characters, B tier characters, but, um, they made the book fun. I think between the group in the beginning, opening up with the group. So we know this is really familiar Scott Harvath territory, bringing in those two. I think that's another strength of Brad that would, that gets underplayed or overlooked.

[00:44:24] He can build a character who serves only the purpose of that book. Sure. Yet that person is really memorable. The two from rising tiger, the woman and the older man, that like a guy who escorted him around and, and showed him the ropes. BJ. BJ. Like they're so memorable, even if they are more of like those one-off books, if you will. But I'm fine with that. Like I'm absolutely fine with that. And there is a chance for Davi to play a role intelligence sharing.

[00:44:52] Like, I just think that's part of what Scott needs to do for the Carlton group is intelligence sharing, building human to human contacts. And I think people like them are just perfectly done, whether they play a role or not in the expanded universe later on. Couldn't care less. I love them in, in this role. So they get the free space for me. Yeah. You know, I think that that's, it's saying something that both of our free spaces, we decided to then highlight like two of our favorite good guys and characters.

[00:45:22] Like that's the best part of this book. And just getting Rick back. And I guess, you know, having this like redemption arc and him still being true to himself, but like, you know, we can like him a little bit more at the end of this novel. I think that that was just a good use of, of, of bringing back that character. It was fun. And definitely brought me back to old school, old school Brad, you know, like very beginning. Completely. Yeah. I agree with that.

[00:45:50] Unfortunately, neither of their names made their way into my limerick though. I had more time. If I had more time, they would have been in there. So Rick made it in. Rick made it in. Yes, he did. So here we go. Scott and Rick race into the fray after Bangkok was blown up that day with spies and deceit and a traitor's conceit. They chase the dark plot all away. Oh, okay.

[00:46:20] Not your best, but it's good. Kind of like number 25 in the Scott Harvath series. Great, great book, but I don't think it's going to make my top five Harvath books, but no, no. But one, one thing I, it was a little bit more of like a police procedural too. We forgot to mention that. And I think that definitely, you know, getting more of that instead of just get a guy, get it. Like we said, it wasn't that.

[00:46:50] It was like something different with the same kind of elements. And we like that. Yeah. You know? And Brad's done some police procedurals that are really good. Like as, as those like AB storylines, like the police procedurals, the, the B plot. But I would say more often in the other ones that he's done, that B plot becomes intertwined earlier with the A plot and actually has overlap. And that, that maybe was just a little, little missing here. But where do we end up on scores? You know, regardless of all that. Half point apart. I'm a little lower. I have 39 and a half and you're at 40.

[00:47:20] I was wondering if we were going to get to that 40 mark. I felt like this was a book that was pushing. It was pushing to get there, but I wasn't sure. So I'm glad I got there. Yeah, me too. Good. Yeah. But go out, go and check this book and tell us what you think. You know, are we two schmucks that don't know anything about Brad Thor or do you agree with us? But, you know, always a pleasure to get these books. Always great to talk to them. Unfortunately, I didn't get to talk to them this year.

[00:47:49] I have to wait till maybe he'll be putting out a new Cold Zero book in February. We'll see. Thriller Save America. Thriller Save America. Let's do it. All right, guys. Well, let's get out of here. Before we do, I need to thank our patrons, our deputy director, Sherry F., Brad E., Crowley C., and Michael M., our special agents, Adam, Mike, Ben, Daryl, George, Matt, Dawn, and Chris.

[00:48:16] Please subscribe, rate, and review to all three seasons of No Limits. You can find us at ThrillerPod.com or on Twitter and Instagram at Thriller Podcast. And as always, just let Rick be Rick. Just let the prick be the prick. Just let the prick be the prick. Yes.