Jack Carr's explosive new thriller Cry Havoc takes us deep into Vietnam's shadow wars—where a young Tom Reece faces ruthless spycraft, betrayal, and carnage that shapes the Terminal List universe. In this full spoiler breakdown, Tyler joins Chris and Mike to dissect every twist, character arc, and tactical masterstroke, revealing why this might be Carr's best espionage thriller entry yet.
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CHAPTERS
00:00 Introduction and Engagement News
02:00 Setting and Action Sequences in the Novel
12:03 Pacing and Character Development
15:54 Evolution of Jack Carr's Writing Style
17:22 Building Trust in Espionage
18:54 Pacing and Structure in Storytelling
21:37 Upcoming Collaborations and New Releases
25:33 The Trend of Co-Authored Books
32:05 Future Directions for James Reese's Story
40:29 Exploring Character Development and Future Plotlines
42:05 The Role of Villains in the Narrative
48:04 Political Dynamics and Leadership in the Story
52:02 Character Relationships and Emotional Stakes
53:58 Anticipating Future Installments and Themes
01:04:40 Anticipating Upcoming Releases
01:05:47 Community Connections and Friendships
01:07:50 Family Stories Inspired by Literature
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KEYWORDS:
Cry Havoc, Jack Carr, thriller novels, character development, pacing, espionage, action sequences, co-authorship, future projects, storytelling, character development, villains, political dynamics, book ranking, storytelling, military history, Jack Carr, Cry Havoc, literary analysis, book discussion
#NoLimitsPodcast #ThrillerPodcast #SpyThrillers
00:00:15
Hey, guys, I'm Chris. And I'm Mike.
00:00:18
And welcome back to this week's No Limits the Thriller podcast.
00:00:21
How you doing today, Mike? I'm great.
00:00:23
Before we introduce a special guest who's got some news for us
00:00:26
today, just want to let you know this episode and all our
00:00:29
episodes are brought to you by the Thriller Pod Book Club.
00:00:33
So if you want to help support the podcast, be the reason we
00:00:35
can make more podcasts, head on over to thrillerpod.com, click
00:00:39
the book club tab and join the crew.
00:00:41
We got a group chat going on all the time with Chris and I and
00:00:44
we're always talking books year round, so check that out.
00:00:47
If you like what's coming to you on the pod, you can also have it
00:00:49
24/7 in the group chat, Someone we'd love to have in that group
00:00:53
chat because we're always talking to him.
00:00:55
He's always involved with the Thriller Podcast is Tyler Booer.
00:00:58
Ty, welcome back to Talk Cry Havoc.
00:01:00
But first, you've got some big news for us.
00:01:03
Yeah, we got a couple of good things in September, went to
00:01:08
Montana for a little vacation with the girlfriend and got
00:01:11
engaged. But some other bigger news we
00:01:15
can get to later on on business front and then some some future
00:01:19
novel stuff that you guys might find exciting, so.
00:01:22
Quick pivot. You were going to say the Jack
00:01:25
Carr book coming out later in 2026 is the big news?
00:01:28
I meant the engagement. Yeah.
00:01:30
No, no, the engagement is the big news.
00:01:32
So yeah, we went to went to Bozeman area and did some hiking
00:01:35
and and had a had a good week together.
00:01:37
So it was a good time. A James Reese proposal.
00:01:41
There you go. Yeah, exactly.
00:01:43
Now that would have been Kalispell probably.
00:01:46
Up towards glacier. Yeah, next.
00:01:49
Year beautiful area. Love that 2 summers ago.
00:01:52
Great area. Yeah, fantastic.
00:01:55
Well, this book does not take place in Montana.
00:01:57
No, very far away from Montana. Yeah, I think what did you guys
00:02:02
think of the setting? I think for the listeners, I
00:02:04
think we're probably going to riff a bit.
00:02:06
I know the last big review you guys did in depth with Terminal
00:02:10
Vengeance, you know you guys whenever the typical topics and
00:02:13
stuff. So we can kind of bounce around
00:02:14
if you want or stay in order. But I listened and I know what
00:02:17
you guys liked and disliked and I am on the same page with you
00:02:20
guys for for a bit of it. I think none of the books in the
00:02:25
series are duds, but there's definitely some high points and
00:02:27
lower points. Even the even the ones that we
00:02:30
think like, hey, he's done, but Jack Jack's done better.
00:02:33
They're still fantastic books. Like this is still probably in
00:02:37
my top three reads of the year. My top read of the year is
00:02:41
probably Hail, Hail Mary, which I finished Sunday, so I know we
00:02:45
can we can chat about that, maybe feather some of that in as
00:02:48
well. But what did you guys think
00:02:50
since since this isn't set in Montana, what did you guys think
00:02:53
of this setting maybe a little more detailed than than the
00:02:56
previous thoughts on it, now that you've had some time to
00:02:58
think about it? Yeah.
00:03:02
I mean you can't do it better it it's setting both physically but
00:03:06
also in time with 1968 just you felt transported.
00:03:11
I think we said that on the pod with Terminal Vengeance was we
00:03:14
must have given it 5 out of five.
00:03:16
I mean, I can't see how how I wouldn't have.
00:03:18
That was the shining part about the book to me was I felt like I
00:03:23
was in the jungles. I could taste it.
00:03:25
And I still say now that we've done the year in review and the
00:03:28
wrap up, best action sequence I've read this year and even in
00:03:32
a long time is the escape out of the camp.
00:03:36
Yeah, the POW camp escape is awesome.
00:03:38
That's actually, I think my highlight of the book.
00:03:42
I think it, it has so much riding on it and you it's, it's
00:03:46
like the, the moment I have a couple of notes and one of the
00:03:49
things is like it you, you talked about British, British
00:03:52
espionage books. And it does have a lot of those
00:03:55
elements in the slower parts where there's some character and
00:03:58
background building, I guess for future events.
00:04:02
And I know you guys had called it some callbacks, but actually
00:04:05
they're technically call forwards.
00:04:07
But but the other thing, the other vibes I got from this was
00:04:10
noir, like the bad guys. The bad guys win a lot in this
00:04:15
novel, which is, which is I think a good thing.
00:04:19
We don't have any bad guys here that think that they're the good
00:04:22
guys, which sometimes makes for a better novel.
00:04:24
We had a couple of those in the past.
00:04:27
I think that makes the bad guys a little more interesting where
00:04:30
they're just a a bit misguided on their on their route to how
00:04:34
they're trying to get to their end result.
00:04:36
But yeah, I thought the I thought the setting was
00:04:39
fantastic, but the camp escape is definitely a highlight for
00:04:43
me. Especially when he gets back and
00:04:44
everybody can't believe how he got back where he came from and
00:04:48
everything and they're kind of dumbfounded over it.
00:04:50
And another topic real quick. And now that you've had some
00:04:55
time to think about it, what do you think of Jack including some
00:04:57
actual real Mac Be SOG guys listed in the in like the big
00:05:02
montage prep scene where they're all getting on on the helos and
00:05:07
stuff. And I was curious because in
00:05:10
Savage Son, the closest he's come to this in Savage Son, the
00:05:13
team that drops onto the island with them are fictional people,
00:05:17
but they're based on real guys that are Some are in the public
00:05:21
eye, some aren't. Like they talk about the one
00:05:23
character who has a dog and he makes the half face blades.
00:05:26
Skinner. Well, in real life, that's
00:05:28
Andrea Arbedo. But I don't think that
00:05:30
character's name is Andrea Arbedo in the in the book.
00:05:33
I think I have to go back and double check, but he drops in
00:05:36
some some real, I guess features of his friends as some
00:05:42
characters. But this is the first time where
00:05:44
like you hear people who were actually there listed as like
00:05:47
attending a mission, which was I thought was neat.
00:05:50
I, I think when you go, when you go historical like this, it's
00:05:54
much easier to do that versus a lot of times when people are
00:06:01
writing for like the, the near past and they're basing it on a
00:06:04
character. You know, they maybe not want to
00:06:07
say someone's name, you know, just for security reasons,
00:06:10
personal reasons that, that kind of stuff instead of just basing
00:06:13
on an, an essence of a character.
00:06:15
But you know, when you have someone who's, you know, either
00:06:18
gone or, you know, it's, it's so far in the past and it, it makes
00:06:21
it much easier to, to be able to pull that trigger for me.
00:06:24
Like this book, you know, what I wanted out of this book?
00:06:27
I think I got mostly, you know, I, we we have been building up
00:06:33
to this moment, right, of wanting to know more and more
00:06:37
about his father, more and more about his past.
00:06:40
And it'd be taken back and have it, you know, executed like he
00:06:45
did. I think as a whole, I'd say,
00:06:48
yeah. It, it did good.
00:06:49
Like, it, it it did what it was supposed to do.
00:06:51
Like, were there parts that I, you know, thought could have
00:06:56
been polished? Sure.
00:06:57
Did it have some of the best action sequences that I've read
00:07:00
this year? If not, like in the Jack car
00:07:02
universe? Yeah.
00:07:04
You know, so to me, I think like what we, you know, not to rehash
00:07:07
what we said before, but this is a pretty, you know, middle of
00:07:10
the road Jack card book. But it has like its highlights
00:07:13
and it's for me ultimately I think it it's set up to do what
00:07:18
it needed to do. But would you guys agree with
00:07:20
that? I, I, I agree with you.
00:07:22
I feel like when it comes to like, did you get what you
00:07:24
wanted out of it? There's some things I still like
00:07:27
want to see. And so I, where I was going with
00:07:30
this is I, I think after seeing Dark Wolf and this book, you can
00:07:34
kind of tell that Jack kind of knows what he has and he's
00:07:37
starting to write stuff in a way where he's leaving the door
00:07:40
very, very wide open for future exploration.
00:07:44
So if this was the only Thomas Tom Reese novel we were we would
00:07:48
ever get, I'd be disappointed. But he leaves the door so open,
00:07:51
like he's just getting into the CIA.
00:07:54
Like there's a couple things that are retconned, which I'm
00:07:56
typically not a huge fan of, but they don't bother me because
00:07:59
they were it was done for a reason to make it kind of more
00:08:02
entertaining getting the watch was retconned.
00:08:06
And even though we don't see it, I mean, Tom hands down a shotgun
00:08:12
that he supposedly used in Macphee Soggin.
00:08:14
I don't really think he ever uses that in in the novel at
00:08:16
all. But the the how he gets the
00:08:18
watch is definitely retconned. I mean, Mike, you Jack and I
00:08:21
were talking about that a little bit.
00:08:22
He brought that up that he wanted to make it more exciting,
00:08:25
which I thought was was interesting because it's really
00:08:28
not the biggest deal, but it creates such a cool thing in
00:08:31
like like chapter 10. And so I was going to see what
00:08:36
you guys thought of the pacing. I know there was something I
00:08:39
noticed that in this book that I didn't notice in any other book,
00:08:42
which is about every 10th chapter there's something really
00:08:46
exciting or pivoting that that changes the direction of the
00:08:49
story. So in chapter 10 he gets the
00:08:51
watch. So that's like super exciting,
00:08:53
especially for past readers. Then like in chapter 20 or 21
00:08:56
something else happens. Then 3029 thirty or 31 something
00:08:59
else happens where like I think like in the 30s or number
00:09:02
chapter 40 maybe he gets shot in the head and it's like always
00:09:06
like you think you're on this path for like 9 chapters and
00:09:09
bam, it's like a right turn. Then bam, a left turn and it's
00:09:12
just, it was just something I noticed because I usually keep
00:09:15
track and take notes when I'm reading on like something I'm
00:09:19
interested in so I can go back and refer to it if I need to
00:09:21
because that was something I learned in the first couple
00:09:23
books. I want to go back and read a
00:09:25
couple specific parts and I'm like, where the hell are these
00:09:28
damn parts? I can't find them.
00:09:29
So now I take some notes on stuff I think is cool.
00:09:32
So I noticed that like every 10th chapter was like a bigger
00:09:37
exciting moment in my opinion. Did you guys happen to notice
00:09:40
that or or feel that like, OK, we kind of need a little bit of
00:09:44
action and bam, you get it. And then OK, 9 chapters and we
00:09:48
need a little bit of something, bam you get it.
00:09:49
And anything like that on your end.
00:09:51
I, I think I would say I was where you were.
00:09:54
I I knew there were bangers of scenes that I wanted to reread,
00:09:57
but the book was just too long. I didn't want to reread the
00:10:01
whole thing right away, so I would have liked to read the
00:10:03
Delta scene, but I skipped through a bunch of chapters and
00:10:05
I couldn't find that exact part. And then I really wanted to see
00:10:08
Eldridge. I was like, was he acting like a
00:10:11
wuss on that mission where they had that kind of shoot out in
00:10:13
the street where they were in the truck in the in the convoy?
00:10:16
I want to go back and see how he acted during that, looking back,
00:10:19
knowing who he was. And then there were a few others
00:10:22
and and I just couldn't find them exactly because it got kind
00:10:24
of lost in the muck. If I knew that little trick that
00:10:28
you found and that could have helped.
00:10:30
But it does indicate a problem that I think some readers had.
00:10:33
I know for some of our patrons, particularly in the group chat,
00:10:36
were like, man, the first third is just tough to get through all
00:10:40
the introductions, all the different people in all the
00:10:43
different places. But I appreciate it more because
00:10:46
having reread most of the book, skipping around, even those
00:10:50
scenes which seemed slower when I was first reading them, and I
00:10:53
was like, can we just go back to the jungles?
00:10:55
Can we get back on the ground with Tom and Quinn?
00:10:57
What happened to Quinn? I want to know.
00:10:59
When I went back and spent some time with OK Devornikov, we're
00:11:03
learning who he is and what kind of Playboy he is and who he's
00:11:06
involved with. And we have the conversations
00:11:08
with the the two Russian guys, Lavrenenko and his underling,
00:11:13
who turned out to be the the the trade of the spy.
00:11:16
You know, I appreciate a little more of that slow burn build up
00:11:19
of all these characters, but that wasn't enough to make up
00:11:24
for my initial reread being a little difficult to get into and
00:11:27
a little hard to get into now. You're right.
00:11:29
The action, it hits you right when you need it.
00:11:31
You know, something blows up, there's an explosion.
00:11:33
He's would be cut back to him dangling from the chopper,
00:11:36
right. Cutting himself loose is like, I
00:11:38
wanted to get back to that right away after the the first opening
00:11:41
couple chapters were so awesome. So I think I appreciate the
00:11:45
moves being made. Laying out the chess board.
00:11:48
I appreciate that a lot more in light of the ending and then the
00:11:52
final third. But getting through it on
00:11:54
initial reread was a little tough.
00:11:56
So I still can't say the pacing is perfect, but I appreciate a
00:12:00
lot more of the moves that were being made haven't gone.
00:12:03
Back I think more than some other novel series, I think
00:12:06
these novels really feel like a film.
00:12:09
Every chapter change is like a scene change where I I feel like
00:12:14
this has a first second and third act quite a bit more than
00:12:17
some other novels too. So like the third act is all
00:12:20
like the the redemption arc and and trying to basically avenge
00:12:25
Quinn and everything. And you know the the he has like
00:12:29
that almost like that call to adventure with the CIA, which is
00:12:33
towards the beginning in the first act.
00:12:35
Then the second act is like him kind of getting the shit kicked
00:12:38
out of him and losing and Quinn getting killed and and going
00:12:40
from there. But I was just curious if you
00:12:43
guys notice those things in these more than other other
00:12:47
novels, because you guys read way more thrillers than I do.
00:12:51
So I was curious, do you notice that in the in the same way in
00:12:54
other in some other series? I mean I've read some series but
00:12:56
not not into it like these ones. You know, I have seen a
00:13:01
progression and sort of change in tone or change in like style
00:13:07
a little bit with Jack, right it where he was in terminal list
00:13:12
and and you know, true believer, true believer, there we go to
00:13:19
where he is now is you know it the essence is still there, but
00:13:23
I would say it's it's very different.
00:13:27
I don't know if it's like any sort of influence coming from,
00:13:32
you know, being a producer, producer and then, you know, Co
00:13:36
running Co show, running this second series and, you know,
00:13:39
getting more involved and all that to, you know, we always we
00:13:43
know about like the the arc of, you know, the first three books
00:13:46
and then, you know, having to follow that up with the next
00:13:48
three. And so I think ultimately, like
00:13:51
authors, we've seen it with Brad, we've seen it with Vince,
00:13:53
like their styles do suddenly change, you know, whether or not
00:13:57
it's emphasizing one or more topics, whether or not it's
00:14:01
changing with the pacing. You know, we've seen authors
00:14:03
that go from writing 600 page, 700 page epics to now, you know,
00:14:09
they're, they're barely cracking like the 300 page mark of having
00:14:13
it be like a, you know, a fast pace.
00:14:15
This one. I feel like, you know, I, I
00:14:16
didn't quite notice what you were saying in terms of, but now
00:14:19
that you're saying it, I, I, I definitely realize that and
00:14:24
having like, all right, go plod along and then boom, you know,
00:14:28
like the sort of like heartbeat of, of a spike.
00:14:32
I feel like maybe that's almost why for me the pacing didn't
00:14:36
didn't quite work because, you know, I like it to be a little
00:14:39
bit more elevated like throughout, you know, like,
00:14:42
yeah, or, or at least hit hit me like every, you know, more often
00:14:46
than than 10 chapters, I guess. I felt like the 10 chapter, like
00:14:51
big event pace was a little bit unique and different.
00:14:53
I didn't really notice that anywhere else, but I can't have
00:14:55
the pedal to the metal all the time.
00:14:57
There needs to be some slowness and the the hard to get through
00:15:01
first, third. The first act of this, I think
00:15:05
reminded me of how much I thought the first half of True
00:15:08
Believer was hard to get through.
00:15:09
And now after rereading and listening and, and really diving
00:15:14
deeper into the, into this story over all of these books, I, I
00:15:19
really hold like that slow bit of true believer like above,
00:15:23
even some of the action scenes, because there's nothing else
00:15:25
quite like it that's like peaceful and him like finding
00:15:29
purpose and things like that. And so I'm curious if like a
00:15:32
year from now we'll look back on the slow bits of this and be
00:15:34
like, you know what, That wasn't that bad.
00:15:36
And, you know, you kind of enjoy him, like being a bodyguard and
00:15:39
getting to like, fall in love with this, you know, person he's
00:15:43
trying to protect and and she ends up betraying him.
00:15:45
You know, I think some of that stuff maybe a year from now
00:15:47
might sit better with us. But I agree that like it's just
00:15:50
like something it doesn't feel off, but it didn't feel natural.
00:15:54
I think though that is also a progression almost the opposite
00:15:58
Chris of what you said where we've seen some other series be
00:16:01
under the publishing gun book a year.
00:16:04
Make it shorter attention spans, what sells non-stop action, keep
00:16:08
it gripping throughout. I but I think with Jack Hart
00:16:11
it's been a progression kind of in the opposite way of yeah, The
00:16:15
Terminalist I think of as a very tight action-packed book,
00:16:18
non-stop adrenaline rush. And then over time, I mean, you
00:16:21
definitely saw with the 4th book, the 5th book you saw, I'm
00:16:24
almost willing to slow down, willing to dig into the
00:16:26
psychology a bit more of the characters, draw bigger
00:16:30
connections between their network of people.
00:16:33
And that takes time to develop on page.
00:16:35
And I feel like book after book he's just leaned into, I'm OK if
00:16:39
it's longer, I'm OK if it slows down a bit because he wants to
00:16:42
world build. Combine that with this book
00:16:45
specifically being an espionage novel.
00:16:48
One, one of the reasons I ended up appreciating the pacing so
00:16:51
much more is I could look back and see this as a, a spy, spy,
00:16:56
spy versus spy. I wasn't quite getting that.
00:16:59
Let's say like with the opera talk, right, Lavrenenko and
00:17:02
these guys operas coming up a bunch, Pankowski and then the
00:17:05
exchange, right. I was like, OK, this is like an
00:17:07
actual they're they're trading secrets and spycraft in the the
00:17:13
theater. So I'm like, OK, the opera is
00:17:15
making sense now. And then that's how he gets
00:17:17
caught and burned in the end. If you want that pay off of that
00:17:21
reveal, when his boss tells him, you know, I no longer have a
00:17:24
deputy, he's going to take it over after me.
00:17:26
So what are you talking about? It's 'cause I caught you
00:17:29
right-handed. If you want that reveal, you
00:17:31
needed to put in the time. You needed the slow burn of who
00:17:35
the characters were and what they were doing.
00:17:36
Same thing with like, LAN Tree Funk and all the other spies,
00:17:39
right? The women and the meats and the
00:17:42
brick, right? She has to turn the brick upside
00:17:44
down and there's a dead drop here and there.
00:17:46
You can't cheapen that. You can't shorten that and have
00:17:49
a dead drop out of the blue by a character you didn't establish
00:17:52
them taking all these other precautions.
00:17:54
You can't just have him go to a meet.
00:17:56
You can't have a guy just come over, you know, for whatever.
00:17:58
You have to slowly work and build that trust.
00:18:01
A dead drop, you have to be on top of it.
00:18:03
You have to watch. It has to be monitored.
00:18:05
So when I went back in and and I could realize how the game was
00:18:09
being played, the stakes felt so much higher as it was developing
00:18:13
though I just don't know why I didn't get into it the first
00:18:15
time. But it also the reason, though I
00:18:18
think the pacing works better for me, is it was a decision to
00:18:22
to make this an espionage novel and I thought that was a smart
00:18:25
play. Yeah, I I agree.
00:18:27
I think some of the dead drop stuff, you know, it it doesn't.
00:18:30
I I didn't think it felt like it dragged or anything like that.
00:18:33
It's like, OK, let's get back to the jungle side of things, but I
00:18:37
couldn't place it. Yeah, I agree.
00:18:39
It, it, it, it, like I said, it didn't feel out of place or like
00:18:43
wrong. It just didn't feel smooth in my
00:18:45
opinion. Some of the some of the stuff
00:18:47
like there's a smoothness to a couple of his novels that like
00:18:50
you could just glide right through that thing and eat it up
00:18:52
in a weekend. But.
00:18:54
Yeah, I don't think that's this book.
00:18:56
I agree. I agree.
00:18:57
This is this is choppy and hard to digest occasionally so.
00:19:00
And maybe that's what it was like in 1968, right?
00:19:03
Like maybe that was the confusion of the times.
00:19:06
But to me, right, he he had to have been thinking about this
00:19:11
novel for a long time and to I don't know, like I just feel
00:19:17
like it could have been a little more tight, like with the amount
00:19:21
of time that he had to actually produce this novel and and and
00:19:24
like. Yeah, plus extending the
00:19:26
deadline and everything. We do, and I, But I like this
00:19:29
idea of switching back and forth between the two if we get that.
00:19:33
Because then, yeah, you know, that allows some breathing room
00:19:36
for each of the stories, you know, to develop.
00:19:38
And I'll have to, like, constantly come up with this,
00:19:40
you know, I have to come up with a new idea for my main
00:19:42
character. I have a feeling he's going to
00:19:44
have some more Co writers on some stuff like he did with
00:19:46
Targeted. I know that series he's supposed
00:19:49
to do all the time with that other author that he did that
00:19:51
with. And so I don't know what the
00:19:53
next topic is for Targeted, but you know, we see what we're
00:19:58
going to talk about later on as a co-author and everything.
00:20:00
So I think being able to spit out more.
00:20:03
Content that is in his world is being more appealing to him, so
00:20:08
I'm hoping that that doesn't dilute the quality.
00:20:11
The non fiction though takes a while.
00:20:13
Like I cannot accept the targeted book every year or two,
00:20:16
no. No, that's every that's.
00:20:17
What it wanted? Yeah, he said.
00:20:19
Every two years, I think, for that series.
00:20:21
Even Mad next year. I mean, just look at like a
00:20:23
David McCullough book or any of these like big like Ron Chernow,
00:20:26
like anyone doing these like big historical books, you're not
00:20:29
cranking those out every two years.
00:20:30
Like to write an Alexander Hamilton or a John Adams,
00:20:34
whatever one of these like big historical books are.
00:20:36
And that takes some time. And the, and they laid the
00:20:39
groundwork in targeted Beirut that they are up to that
00:20:42
standard, right? That academic.
00:20:44
Yeah. Standard of research.
00:20:46
They are, they are passing that that benchmark.
00:20:50
So I I don't think I could put the demands on an author to do
00:20:54
more than he's doing. So.
00:20:55
Yeah, I mean, just look at Dan Brown.
00:20:57
We just read Dan Brown's most recent.
00:20:59
It was eight years in the making.
00:21:00
So with what Jack Cars doing, I don't know if it's sustainable
00:21:04
to get a Tom Reese book, get a James Reese book, get a targeted
00:21:09
book, get ATV show. It's like, I know he's got an
00:21:11
empire. Plus novellas.
00:21:12
Plus novellas that he was talking to us about.
00:21:14
He wanted to do that and he said he's got it up his sleeve.
00:21:17
Yeah. So while we're on it, though, he
00:21:19
does have a book coming out in 2026 that is already we have the
00:21:24
synopsis of it. There's a publication date in
00:21:26
May. The fourth option.
00:21:28
You brought this up Tyler, and and you thought it might be
00:21:30
important to read out the description.
00:21:33
But the but the important thing to know about this book is it's
00:21:35
Co written with MP Woodward. I'm not familiar with MP word
00:21:38
word but I know he's done some Clancy verse stuff.
00:21:42
He's a New York Times bestselling author.
00:21:44
He's a legacy author, bestselling author, and if Jack
00:21:48
Carr and the Jack Carr Machine and Empire is is welcoming
00:21:51
somebody in to put their name on a cover with him, you got to
00:21:54
imagine that they're going to be up to par.
00:21:57
Yeah, you want me to read the synopsis?
00:21:59
Guys, Yeah, go ahead, let's hear it.
00:22:02
All right, when law enforcement and the courts and the prison
00:22:04
system fails, there's a fourth and final option.
00:22:09
Disillusioned by the government and institutions he dedicated
00:22:12
his life to serving, former Navy SEAL and CIA Grand Branch
00:22:15
operative Chris Walker is about to end his life when he receives
00:22:19
a call that saves it. The wife of the teammate he lost
00:22:22
in Afghanistan has now lost her son to the opioid crisis and
00:22:25
needs Walker's help. Thrust into a conspiracy that
00:22:28
goes deeper than he ever imagined, Walker must go up
00:22:31
against the system in the very Constitution he once swore an
00:22:34
oath to support and defend in order to find justice for his
00:22:37
friend's widow. With ambitious FBI agent Jarrett
00:22:40
Stanton on his tail, Walker accompanied by his loyal Belgian
00:22:44
Malinois canine and using his off the grid WV pop up camper
00:22:50
filled with a hidden cachet of weapons, takes justice into his
00:22:54
own hands, exposing corruption and issuing a long forgotten
00:22:57
brand of lethal outlaw justice. In the tradition of the great
00:23:02
stranger comes to town westerns of the past comes a modern
00:23:06
interpretation of a the mysterious vigilante gunslinger
00:23:10
legend from the hottest author on the thriller scene today.
00:23:14
That's that's a quote from the real books by get ready for a
00:23:17
new kind of hero. Justice is coming.
00:23:20
That sounds interesting, guys. A vigilante seal?
00:23:23
Wow. Never read a story about one of
00:23:26
those. Yeah, yeah.
00:23:28
Yeah. Totally different setting
00:23:31
though, right? Like.
00:23:32
Yeah, this opioid cross, the crisis that was, you know,
00:23:36
secret government testing and. Yeah, we'll see.
00:23:40
I'm I'm curious. I I think it's interesting that
00:23:42
it comes out in May and we haven't really officially heard
00:23:44
anything. We just me and some other nerds
00:23:47
that search it's stuff on Amazon a lot found this so.
00:23:51
It's like you have a a e-mail to what what is the I I have it for
00:23:56
like different scientific articles where I have Google
00:23:59
like send me once a week, like an everything that gets
00:24:02
published with. Certain words, like a
00:24:03
newsletter. Yeah, well, that's the group
00:24:05
chat for us, the thriller about group chat.
00:24:06
I feel like it's Adam. He's always like scouring
00:24:09
Amazon's website. And sometimes it's you don't
00:24:12
even have like a cover. It's just like a question mark
00:24:14
with an empty outline of a book. And they may not even have the
00:24:17
description, but he'll find an Amazon page created, usually the
00:24:21
the UK version, and he'll shoot that out to us and be like,
00:24:24
look, they're announcing a book. I'm like, is that, is that an
00:24:27
announcement? Like I I can't wait till Jack
00:24:30
actually posts about this starts talking about it.
00:24:32
Yeah, this has a cover, guys. Yeah, it does have a cover.
00:24:35
And the cover which is. Interesting, super interesting.
00:24:38
I think it looks cool. It's it's your typical font and
00:24:41
everything that we're used to with.
00:24:42
It's like a Jack Carr book. Yeah, it does look like a Jack
00:24:44
Carr book for sure. But what was interesting I was
00:24:46
going to bring up is this was this was posted on Amazon during
00:24:50
the book, the Cry Havoc book tour, which I think was the week
00:24:53
before and through the week of release of the novel, so
00:24:55
October. And I have a a, a really good
00:24:59
friend that's a listener and we became friends because of this
00:25:03
show basically. And he lives in another state,
00:25:07
so he's a long distance buddy. But he went to the Indianapolis
00:25:09
stop on the book tour. And somebody at that event is
00:25:13
the one that brought this up because all that was on there
00:25:15
was a synopsis, no cover or anything at the time.
00:25:18
And he based, Jack basically said, well, I, I, I can't really
00:25:21
talk about that. Next question, please?
00:25:23
So that's how that's how that went at the time.
00:25:27
But yeah, nothing official from Simon Schuster or anything like
00:25:29
that except for this this synopsis which is which is
00:25:33
interesting, so. Question for you guys.
00:25:34
I read that from the Simon and Schuster website, so it's up on
00:25:37
the on Simon and Schuster. Books.
00:25:39
Yeah, it's posted now for sure. Yeah.
00:25:41
And to put a cover out there some, some other series were
00:25:43
clamoring for a cover. We would never get one this
00:25:45
early so. Interesting.
00:25:47
Things are in the works. Things are happening.
00:25:49
Yeah. I wonder the logistics about
00:25:51
this because this is a trend. Actually, I feel like 2026 is
00:25:55
going to be the year of kicking off the, these co-authored
00:25:57
books. We have one with Brad Thor
00:25:59
coming out in January. Brad Thor and friend of the pod
00:26:02
Ward Larson are Co authoring a book.
00:26:05
And there's so many others that I, I'm, I'm hearing jump into
00:26:09
this. So if Brad Thor and Jack Carr
00:26:11
are doing it and they're like the top of the game, they're
00:26:14
like Simon and Schuster's, you know, golden children.
00:26:17
I feel like this is a movement and I, I can't put my finger on
00:26:21
it. I'm trying to figure out if
00:26:22
it's, if it's a, a, a business proposal that has like prompted
00:26:26
them to go in this direction. Like we know your name sells.
00:26:30
So how can we at the same time as propping up another less well
00:26:34
known author, maybe you're giving them a little cred
00:26:37
getting getting the ball rolling for them a little bit.
00:26:39
But but at the same time, what you're really doing is selling
00:26:42
two times the amount of books with the big name on it.
00:26:44
So it's like instead of one book a year with Jack Carr on it or
00:26:47
one book a year with Brad Thor on it, I'm torn between it's
00:26:51
like. It's a James Patterson, like the
00:26:54
the book companies have been doing this for years with like,
00:26:56
you know, the biggest writers, Like.
00:26:57
Yeah. No ghost writers, Sure, I
00:27:00
understand that. Yeah.
00:27:01
But it seems like if you like thrillers.
00:27:02
Saying yeah. You look at like, there's so
00:27:04
many books like every year that come out with the main thing is
00:27:07
James Patterson. And then like in tiny print
00:27:09
below, it is like a little author and like, I don't know
00:27:12
how much James Patterson is that.
00:27:14
I mean, maybe he's just like a beast and like is is, you know,
00:27:17
like but you know that names sell like if you look at this
00:27:21
novel, you hell, you look at the do I have my?
00:27:25
What do you what do you need Cold 0.
00:27:27
Cold 0 cover like. No, I don't have it.
00:27:29
Do you? If you look at that, you didn't
00:27:31
tell me it wasn't a Scott Harvath book.
00:27:33
I wouldn't have known. You know, it looks like.
00:27:36
That could screw people up thinking they're going to pick
00:27:38
up that character or something. And so many of these big name
00:27:41
authors don't have other standalones, and now their name
00:27:44
is going to be on a standalone book.
00:27:46
I can't understand why it would happen unless it's something
00:27:50
about business and something about numbers.
00:27:53
Yeah. Because what, what percentage of
00:27:55
the book is physically written by Jack or the Brad Thor one or
00:27:59
any of the James Patterson ones you mentioned or any of these?
00:28:01
I I can only imagine them as like an advisory role.
00:28:04
Hey, bounce ideas. We need to ask them.
00:28:07
I don't know. Or is it 5050?
00:28:09
Is it a 5050 split of the writing?
00:28:11
We should ask him. We should well, next time we get
00:28:13
Brad on, Brad's pretty honest with us.
00:28:15
So I, I feel like I feel comfortable asking him that
00:28:17
question. I don't know how I feel about
00:28:18
Jack asking Jack that question, but no, I, I want to ask that.
00:28:22
That's that's a you know it. And whether or not he's honest,
00:28:26
I don't know. Hopefully, but.
00:28:27
Yeah, but yeah, what are what are two authors you guys think
00:28:32
should work together on something?
00:28:34
I think Brad and and Jack should work together.
00:28:37
Something man, that'd be sick. I if, if we see Don Bentley come
00:28:41
out with a second book and then he has like a, a little author
00:28:45
below it, like then we know it's like Simon and Seuster's trend,
00:28:49
like they're going to, they're going to start doing this.
00:28:52
There's, there's two, there's two potential authors that
00:28:55
should definitely write something that's U2.
00:28:57
So I've been bothering Mike about it for about a year.
00:29:00
I'll talk about it. I can't write about it.
00:29:04
Oh come on, you could do it. Another one I.
00:29:06
Love to see like essay Cosby and Chris Howdy write a novel.
00:29:08
Together, dude, it would be wild.
00:29:13
That's like just clash of two different worlds and to watch
00:29:16
them come together would be awesome.
00:29:17
That's a great call. That's a great poll.
00:29:20
Another thing though was like Andrews and Wilson, it's funny
00:29:23
because I'm not saying the two author dynamic can't work, but I
00:29:27
think it has to be set up in a way.
00:29:28
There it works great. It, it worked.
00:29:30
They've naturally always done that.
00:29:31
They got together 2 veterans tie that we talked to on the pod and
00:29:35
read most of their books and they just met at a conference.
00:29:38
And 1 was like, oh, that, who's the other Navy guy here?
00:29:40
Let me talk to him. And they both realized they
00:29:44
wanted to do this together. And so the partnership was like
00:29:46
natural. It wasn't like a pure business
00:29:49
decision. It wasn't like a corporate call
00:29:51
you into the office and like, you know, however, hash out a
00:29:54
deal or whatever and talk percentages.
00:29:55
It was like these two dudes just want to do a creative project
00:29:59
together. And the fruits of that are
00:30:01
incredible. And now they have their own
00:30:03
publishing house and they're like helping other.
00:30:05
Authors. That's pretty awesome.
00:30:06
Yeah. And one thing that came out in a
00:30:09
newsletter just this week and said is in 2026, once a month
00:30:12
they're going to have a short story.
00:30:14
And so kind of cool, they can just make up little stories, let
00:30:18
the creative juices flow. Everything they do is about
00:30:21
their creativity and harnessing it to do what they want to do.
00:30:25
If they're going to self publish A standalone, go ahead.
00:30:27
If they're going to do one series, do it.
00:30:29
If they have another idea for a different series, do it at the
00:30:32
same time. There's there.
00:30:33
It seems like they're not beholden to anybody.
00:30:35
And yeah, that is authentic. I'm wondering if all these other
00:30:39
partnerships that are coming about are truly that based on
00:30:42
the creative genius behind it or?
00:30:45
About numbers, they're they're seeing something that is making
00:30:49
it work well, whether it could be a combination of both of
00:30:51
numbers and OK, we're we're getting this guy a little bit of
00:30:54
a break. And instead of him like
00:30:56
hammering something 100% throughout the year and then him
00:30:59
getting a month or two-month break during like the book torn
00:31:02
release schedule, then he has to pick right back up and start
00:31:04
again. Maybe it's more like 50% gas
00:31:07
pedal throughout the year. And maybe the writer likes that.
00:31:09
It could also be less driven by the the publisher and more
00:31:13
driven by the by the authors as well.
00:31:16
Yeah, but I guess I'm a cynic, but yeah.
00:31:20
I mean, but you know, just to like we're getting choke point
00:31:23
the next Scott Harvath book in June.
00:31:26
So to to me, like, I don't know, maybe I'm just I have a more
00:31:32
affinity for Brad just because he we've talked to him a lot, a
00:31:35
lot more. But to me, I feel like his is
00:31:38
more of a situation where he's had this obviously relationship
00:31:41
with Ward and is wanting to prop him up a little bit.
00:31:44
You know, that they found a story that they could come
00:31:46
together and write this. I don't know.
00:31:48
I haven't heard any Jack mention.
00:31:49
Obviously, he's not even like referencing this yet.
00:31:51
So it'd be very interesting to see what he has to say about
00:31:54
this. Why now, why he wants to do
00:31:57
this. We don't know when the next
00:32:00
James Reese novel is going to come out.
00:32:02
Like, you know, assuming we get it in October like next year.
00:32:05
Something else that came up at that stop on the on the book
00:32:08
tour was that that you know, this, this Tom Reese book took
00:32:11
so long to research and everything.
00:32:12
And I completely understand why those other books feel so
00:32:15
authentic because he operated in the time period of which the
00:32:19
first book, you know, kind of supposed to take place.
00:32:21
And he's familiar with a lot of that action and everything.
00:32:23
And he went into this and he told us that he felt like he
00:32:27
knew about Vietnam until he started really to dive in it.
00:32:30
And then once he kind of jumped in the once he kind of jumped in
00:32:33
the hole, he was in it and he kind of had to keep keep
00:32:35
digging. So I think maybe I think at the
00:32:38
at the Indianapolis stop, he had mentioned that like, you know,
00:32:41
we're not going to do another Tom one right away, which was
00:32:44
interesting comment. So I being that this new book
00:32:47
comes out in May, I got to think, you know, this October
00:32:50
time slot released for Cry Havoc did well since they had to push
00:32:53
it and he said it was because of him having having to push it to
00:32:58
be able to finish it. I'm curious if like we get a May
00:33:00
release and an October release from him from from now on or
00:33:03
something. But we'll see.
00:33:06
Do you think the James Reece book will pick up where we left
00:33:09
in the story or it will be another plug somewhere else in
00:33:13
the timeline? I.
00:33:15
Think it might be one of those novellas.
00:33:17
And Chris, I was going to ask you about this if you had time,
00:33:19
because I know you were you were on on a little vacay whenever we
00:33:23
got the interview. Jack, I was curious if you if
00:33:27
you caught that he had talked about some novellas and some
00:33:31
specifics of those. I wanted that that we had asked
00:33:34
him about. Yeah, it's interesting, you
00:33:37
know, and I, I think authors, you know where we finished Red
00:33:42
Sky Morning, right? You could obviously tell that
00:33:45
it's this transitionary period, right?
00:33:48
So it it made sense to like take a pause and to go on and move
00:33:52
this. So super intrigued to see where
00:33:54
he goes next. I think there's a million
00:33:56
different ways he can go. If we want to just jump right
00:33:58
back on the story, sure. If we want to go, hell, I'd love
00:34:02
to see him go back. Kind of like what we saw a
00:34:04
little bit in the show, you know, like get a little more,
00:34:09
you know, maybe the in between, like fill in the gaps a little
00:34:11
bit more there. I typically, I typically think
00:34:15
that whenever people, folks go back and fill the gaps,
00:34:18
sometimes it can be bad. Like your imagination sometimes
00:34:20
is better than what ends up coming out.
00:34:22
But I think this is an instance where like we really want the
00:34:25
Siberia specifically me. I know me and Mike do.
00:34:27
I'm sure Chris does too. But yeah, I, I know that that
00:34:32
that's still like my favorite novel of all time.
00:34:34
There still has yet to be anything to top that.
00:34:36
So, but yeah, I think that that that point specifically is, is a
00:34:41
good spot to to hit on for something coming up.
00:34:44
And he actually specifically talked about that time period in
00:34:47
that spot to us. And he he talked about how he he
00:34:51
left bread crumbs for Tom Reese. He's starting to leave some
00:34:53
bread crumbs for Thomas Reese. And so perhaps maybe a World War
00:34:57
Two book in the future. Yeah.
00:34:58
You know, everybody wants a Rafe book.
00:35:00
Everybody wants a, a Hastings book about the Rhodesian
00:35:02
conflict. You know, there, there's a,
00:35:04
there's a you could do that. Yeah.
00:35:06
Stuff that that he could head towards.
00:35:09
But on that note, and it kind of ties back to Cry Havoc, well,
00:35:13
one, if he does pick up with Red Sky Morning, I thought what this
00:35:17
book Cry Havoc did with the POPOW stuff and being such a
00:35:22
main storyline of what Tom was after, how he wanted justice.
00:35:26
He wanted to find the guys like that would become his mission.
00:35:29
That ties into Red Sky Morning just great because we've been
00:35:32
learning about the PO Ranch and him working on uncovering these
00:35:37
documents and tracking these PO WS throughout Tom's life, not
00:35:41
being able to complete it and getting stonewalled by traders
00:35:45
again, even later in life after he's fully CIA and out, you
00:35:48
know, out of the seals and he's still getting he's still getting
00:35:53
leads cut off and not able to track him down.
00:35:55
So the fact that there's a chance that James almost like
00:35:58
wants to go into the history books and try to finish the
00:36:01
mission of these PO WS and who knows?
00:36:03
I mean, maybe you find some remnants of them or you can at
00:36:07
least close the loop or you can get answers right for the
00:36:09
families. You can correct the record.
00:36:11
I feel like that's a Side Story quest that James in the current
00:36:14
timeline where we are at the end of Red Sky Morning could still
00:36:17
go on and it would not feel like a side quest anymore.
00:36:20
Because when it was introduced, I was like, I get these PO WS in
00:36:23
Vietnam are important to him and he wants to track it down and
00:36:26
his father's history, but I was like, we don't really see the
00:36:28
full picture of why that matters.
00:36:30
Like I I get that could be an important thing, but in James
00:36:33
Reese's life at the time, it didn't seem like the mission.
00:36:36
And now after reading this book, I'm like, Oh no, this is the
00:36:39
mission. Like I want that to be James's
00:36:40
mission. Yeah, yeah, I I agree.
00:36:45
I think that would be a a good place to start where he picked
00:36:49
tries to finish what his dad started.
00:36:51
You know, he kind of got introduced to that world a good
00:36:55
bit in Only the Dead, which I love.
00:36:58
That book is awesome. I love that one so much.
00:37:01
You know, I think that I think that that's a good place to
00:37:06
start and maybe unravel some other like conspiratorial stuff
00:37:09
and then and then lead into some new story based stuff.
00:37:11
I think the POW stuff is going to be more in Tom's wheelhouse
00:37:15
with the Cry Havoc sequel. True, but I think this book
00:37:18
makes only the dead better when we're learning about that, when
00:37:21
we're seeing the ranch and him as a boy and he grew up there.
00:37:25
And I I just think all those things to me felt a little.
00:37:29
I could see why we're doing it, but maybe a little out of place.
00:37:32
And this book makes it just fall right into place.
00:37:34
Like it just seems so natural. Like I know about this from the
00:37:37
last few James Reese books. Yeah.
00:37:39
What was your buy in? Go ahead.
00:37:41
I was just. Do we know much about James's
00:37:43
mother? Not really.
00:37:45
I think in the novel she has dementia and so in Terminalist
00:37:51
is the only time she's really mentioned.
00:37:52
He goes to visit her and that's when she tells him about the
00:37:57
judges, quote where Gideon and then, you know, they, they.
00:38:02
Yeah. So that's she tell.
00:38:04
Yeah. So she tells him that when he
00:38:06
goes to visit her. And then later on, I think in
00:38:10
Savage Son, he returns to the United States for the first time
00:38:13
in Savage Son and his things or his his, his dad and his
00:38:18
mother's things were sent to Katie because she, she was
00:38:24
labeled as next of kin for some reason.
00:38:26
And so she has boxes of his stuff.
00:38:28
And that's where he finds like I think the storage locker key
00:38:30
that gets him to the command that that gets him to the Jeep.
00:38:33
And was it? TV on our interview, who floated
00:38:36
the idea of the nurse? Or was that something we just
00:38:38
said in passing? No, I felt.
00:38:39
The same way I it TV talked about a little bit and him and I
00:38:43
talked about that briefly. So before you and I interviewed
00:38:46
Jack, I talked to TV on the phone briefly because he had
00:38:49
read this and I didn't get a chance to like finish it up.
00:38:51
So him and I BS for for a bit on the on the telephone for a
00:38:54
little bit, but is there a chance?
00:38:56
I think there's a chance. I think I think I actually was
00:38:59
going to ask you this. What was your buy in on the
00:39:01
romance between his the the lady he was protecting that ends up
00:39:05
betraying him and the nurse? I actually bought into the
00:39:07
reliance with the nurse way more.
00:39:10
They were both good and and the one serves the story way more
00:39:13
than the other. But I think the buy in and like,
00:39:15
I don't know, just like grounded realism of like falling for
00:39:19
somebody felt more genuine with the nurse.
00:39:21
I wouldn't call it romance. I think I fell for the fact that
00:39:25
they had a bond, which ultimately could be a bond that
00:39:28
results in more of a like a marriage kind of relationship
00:39:32
and a fling. Because the Ella Dubois thing I
00:39:34
bought in as a fling, an international fling.
00:39:37
I'm dabbling with the CIA. Nick Serrano, maybe he set up
00:39:40
this whole thing. I still don't know if I trust
00:39:42
him. He he set up this whole thing.
00:39:44
It was whole his idea to incorporate the Dubois.
00:39:47
He's trying to turn the father knowing he was an agent for the
00:39:50
Soviets. So I, I, I feel like the Dubois
00:39:54
storyline as a whole I really liked and I actually bought
00:39:57
their little romance and then because of that I bought the
00:40:01
cell or about the reveal that she was playing them.
00:40:04
So I bought that. But I definitely bought the
00:40:07
nurse and how she helped him recover much more on a familial
00:40:10
like deep connection bond that will last.
00:40:14
And so he's even thinking about her at one point.
00:40:16
He's going through his mind like I'm you, the Dubois, all these
00:40:19
different people I met along the way.
00:40:21
And he specifically calls out. I wonder where she is the nurse
00:40:24
so. Yeah, she felt like somebody who
00:40:26
could put him in his place, which is exactly your needs, but
00:40:28
I was getting. I'm commenced.
00:40:29
The nurse is is his mom. Yeah, I think so.
00:40:32
That's my head cannon right now. We'll.
00:40:33
See, I think we're going to get a sequel to this for sure,
00:40:35
because he wrote it to have a sequel.
00:40:37
I think it's going to happen. We just don't.
00:40:39
Just not next year. But if if whenever we get a
00:40:42
sequel, let's just say we get one more or we get we get a
00:40:45
series. What what are like top three
00:40:47
things from each of you that you need to still see before we get
00:40:50
to the events of the terminal list?
00:40:54
Like let's say we get one more. What does that book have to have
00:40:56
in it? And like what it it can span a
00:40:58
decent time frame. Like do you want to see him ex
00:41:01
Phil Katie's family? Do you want to see him, you
00:41:06
know, guarding? The, the mope, the, the, the
00:41:09
post story, you know, with the, with the assassin and
00:41:13
everything. I think I would like to see a
00:41:15
little bit more of that develop. And you do that in the context
00:41:18
of his transition to the CIA. Clearly that's the T And I, I do
00:41:23
wonder the role of Serrano because he came in so heavy as
00:41:27
Serrano's the guy he recruited Tom Reese.
00:41:30
He's so heavy-handed on how he's basically, you know, deploying
00:41:35
Tom this early. So I feel like I want to see how
00:41:39
that connects to Poe and what are some of his missions,
00:41:45
whether it's just a Side Story of getting out Katie's family
00:41:48
and father. I would like to see all that.
00:41:51
But basically just summarize that as I have to see him lean
00:41:54
into the CIA spy side of things very heavily because he was much
00:41:58
more of a SEAL in this book, dabbling with the spy missions.
00:42:01
Yeah. And I just want to see that 180
00:42:04
happen in the next one. Chris, what do you got?
00:42:07
I want to see a little bit more connection with like the
00:42:10
ultimate Russians that we get, you know, in the, you know, the,
00:42:16
the James race novels. I, I want to see that build a
00:42:19
little bit more because I think we're getting like, we got a
00:42:22
little bit of it here, but I, I just want to see more of that.
00:42:25
I think you got the inner workings of it here quite a bit.
00:42:28
You got to see how the organization works, but go
00:42:29
ahead. But you brought up a great
00:42:32
thing, like seeing how he gets Katie's family out.
00:42:36
You know, that's like a big, that would be a big like fan
00:42:38
fiction thing. Yeah, for sure.
00:42:41
I think one of mine is what happens to him in the CIA when
00:42:45
he's working on this POW personal mission with Poe.
00:42:49
You know, he thinks Poe's on his side.
00:42:51
What happens to him where it becomes to the point where he
00:42:56
has to keep it such a secret that only a written password
00:43:00
that James will eventually find can can reveal the contents of
00:43:05
the of like the investigation. I think that the Russians, you
00:43:10
know, they're starting to remind me of especially in this book
00:43:13
and especially if you can, I have to go back and like you
00:43:15
guys said in the last part, I'd have to read the names and see
00:43:17
if they are either the same people, same organization.
00:43:21
Maybe these guys are young in this book and they're old in the
00:43:24
James novels, but something that they're starting to remind me of
00:43:26
is Spectre from James Bond, where they're like the big organ
00:43:29
head organization and they have all these bad guys and hench men
00:43:32
under their umbrella. And it's like the bad guy from
00:43:35
each book is turning out to have always been working for Spectre.
00:43:38
Almost. Spectre is a great one.
00:43:40
I was thinking Carla from like Hooray.
00:43:43
And like Carla was always this, like the mastermind was playing
00:43:47
you every step of the way and so.
00:43:51
I was wondering if one of these Russians was supposed to be
00:43:54
that, but I was like, the names don't connect.
00:43:55
I don't remember any of these people.
00:43:57
Yeah. My problem is I think we need
00:43:58
somebody like that for this franchise.
00:44:00
But nobody, no bad guy has the personality like that that is
00:44:04
still alive, that they could be like the ringleader that they
00:44:08
can like outsmart and be always the step ahead.
00:44:11
And we kind of, I feel like we're getting to the point in
00:44:13
like this thriller verse that we kind of need something like
00:44:16
that. But he needs to keep it
00:44:17
grounded. But it's almost, it would almost
00:44:19
be cheap at this point to make that up out of thin air.
00:44:22
I agree, don't make. This don't like wreck on it.
00:44:25
Yeah, yeah, don't. Don't wreck on it.
00:44:26
I'm saying. I'm saying do it.
00:44:27
Do it from this point forward, I think.
00:44:30
Yeah, I I don't know how it would work this late in the game
00:44:34
with the universe established this well, but it's almost and
00:44:38
our scores reflected that. We definitely want to get your
00:44:40
scores, but our bad guy scores were slightly lower than.
00:44:43
Yeah, have either of you seen the TV show called Six?
00:44:47
It was on History Channel years and years ago.
00:44:49
So it only ran two seasons, was supposed to be 3.
00:44:51
And so it's like a a seal Team six TV show that's a drama that
00:44:54
with some action and stuff. But what it's what I'm thinking
00:44:57
this this series is going to need and don't wreck on it, but
00:45:00
it basically has this really intelligent American who gets
00:45:03
radicalized. I, I believe he, he starts out,
00:45:05
he's born in Boston and he gets radicalized eventually and he is
00:45:11
being funded by ISIS and he essentially is working for a, a,
00:45:17
a high leader in ISIS and he's starting to basically go and
00:45:21
like chat room as a video games, radicalize Americans and stuff
00:45:24
like that. And so Long story short, the he
00:45:27
kind of usurps the main his, his boss to take his position.
00:45:34
And I think we kind of need someone like that, that is a bad
00:45:36
guy with some like this character in this TV show had
00:45:40
like a lot of personality. He wasn't likable.
00:45:42
He was like the kind of bad guy you wanted to see get get
00:45:44
crushed. And he just always made it out
00:45:47
by the skin of his teeth all the time.
00:45:50
And I don't know, I feel like the bad guys in every book get
00:45:52
whacked and we kind of need something to trail out a little
00:45:57
bit. Was Nazar Katan the best bad guy
00:46:00
in the whole James Reese universe?
00:46:03
Probably. I think he's the most memorable.
00:46:06
I think no, no, no, he's he's not he he's second.
00:46:08
I think he's definitely second. He the best bad guy is the main
00:46:12
bad guy from Savage Sons, Savage Sons Oliver.
00:46:17
He's the American that defects to Russia in true believer and
00:46:21
then in Savage Son he he is in he's basically working for the
00:46:24
Russians and he's the guy that basically financially finds out
00:46:28
where the James Reese is in Montana and then the Russians
00:46:32
send the hit team after him because of him.
00:46:36
But anyways, he's, he's the guy that like, you know, they have
00:46:38
like that Russian spy assistant in there and she's always trying
00:46:42
to feel up on him and stuff and try and like honeypot him
00:46:44
basically. Who's the one that you have to
00:46:46
talking about? Who's hunting for the?
00:46:48
That's not Oliver. That's the no, that's not
00:46:50
Oliver. That's the Russian head, the
00:46:52
head of the Russians. His son.
00:46:53
His son owns that island. You need one of those characters
00:47:00
to span 234 folks or so, even if they're not sounds good, even if
00:47:06
they're not present. Like that's why these Oliver guy
00:47:10
is coming pretty close because you said he was set up and true
00:47:12
believer then has his moments and savage son.
00:47:15
But the same time I want someone with a little more longevity and
00:47:18
who's playing at a higher plane. You can't just be like someone
00:47:22
in turn. You don't move up.
00:47:24
Nazar Nazar. Appears in the second book and
00:47:28
he disappears and I don't even know if he's mentioned, but he
00:47:30
definitely is the main in the blood for yeah in the blood
00:47:33
which is. In the Blood 5.
00:47:35
Yeah, you need that. And the the other thing I think
00:47:37
slightly lacking here is the political leadership.
00:47:42
I, I, I get Jack's critiques of it and I agree with him on
00:47:46
everything but Terminalist, I think, And why it had another
00:47:51
edge was it fit this trope, even though it was a unique way he
00:47:55
used the trope of the inept, incompetent leadership
00:48:00
hierarchy. And sometimes we get so caught
00:48:03
up in James Reese just going to go off and do badass James Reese
00:48:06
stuff. It's like, yeah, well, sometimes
00:48:08
they're made better when they have to go up against their own
00:48:11
superior. So like, you know, when Victoria
00:48:14
Rodriguez, we didn't know what team he was playing for and like
00:48:16
how maybe there was a chance he would not be the hero we needed
00:48:20
him to be. It like added drama that you
00:48:23
might have somebody above you stepping on you the whole way.
00:48:26
And I feel like we haven't had a president.
00:48:28
We haven't had anybody high up in the military command that has
00:48:31
lasted a few books, like if we had a presidential
00:48:33
administration. And part of what James Reese is
00:48:36
going through also goes with the ebbs and flows of an
00:48:39
administration. Like when they're lame ducks,
00:48:41
they're going to make certain decisions.
00:48:42
When it's re election season, they're going to make certain
00:48:45
decisions. And like for operators and
00:48:47
ground branch guys, their lives to be affected by these
00:48:49
political decisions being made in Washington.
00:48:52
I don't know if Jack has ever really had a true Inside the
00:48:54
Beltway Washington book. Yeah, I agree.
00:48:57
I think we could use something like that as well.
00:49:01
But yeah, I think both of your lists of like what you want to
00:49:03
see out of a Tom Reese book is really good.
00:49:06
I think everybody's kind of on the same page in this group with
00:49:08
that topic, at least that court post.
00:49:10
Vietnam post Vietnam, look at the mid late 70s trying to
00:49:14
figure out Carter administration or someone else who's like
00:49:18
affecting these like Iran, like go to 79 or something, you know,
00:49:23
hostage crisis. Like I I feel like the next Tom
00:49:25
Reese book could be him involved in some of those events when we
00:49:28
were maybe hesitant in our foreign policy after having been
00:49:31
through the quagmire that was Vietnam.
00:49:33
Yeah, as far as Cry Havoc goes, I don't know where I rank it.
00:49:38
I'd say it's kind of middle of the road for me in the in the
00:49:42
lineup. Which is look hard.
00:49:46
Oh shit, yeah, let's let's hear the numbers.
00:49:50
All right, I'm going to go. The action's fantastic. 10 plot,
00:49:55
7 1/2 Buy in. Five bad guys, three good guys,
00:50:00
5 setting, 5 cover, 5 free space.
00:50:04
I give. The winner is the jungle.
00:50:07
Yep. Yep.
00:50:09
What was your buy in in bad guys?
00:50:10
I'm just looking bad guys. What's that?
00:50:14
That's a rapid fire score. Sorry, yeah bad guys was 3 and
00:50:18
buy in I, I, I bought in I it really felt very genuine and
00:50:22
authentic. So I we gave it A5.
00:50:24
You gave a five. OK, I.
00:50:26
Think I'm the only one who didn't give the five on buy in.
00:50:29
But it the the buy in isn't based on like the anything that
00:50:32
is maybe lacking the buy in is how good the good shit is.
00:50:36
Like the jungle, the environment, the you know, the
00:50:39
the good guys in their their their relationship.
00:50:43
I really liked Quinn. I was hoping Quinn would make
00:50:45
it. Damn it.
00:50:48
Quinn being lost so early was interesting because I was like,
00:50:51
I was like, are these two? Is he going to be like the main
00:50:54
sidekick? I thought he was going to be
00:50:56
almost like a Serrano. I had a.
00:50:57
Feeling every step of the way. Yeah, no, I thought he was going
00:51:00
to get get taken pretty early like he did.
00:51:03
But my thing was I thought that that, and it kind of is the the
00:51:06
plot point that that is the driving force between his entire
00:51:10
mission. His entire mission from now on
00:51:12
is whenever he goes to rescue a POW, he's going to be seeing
00:51:14
Quinn. They took all the time.
00:51:16
Yeah, yeah, and I'm you too. I mean, what a great character
00:51:21
he was. I think that was trying, they
00:51:23
were trying, he was trying to replicate true believer.
00:51:25
There's a tracker that James, his buddies with and he gets
00:51:28
shot and that reveals his location for Freddie Strain to
00:51:32
come find him. And I think that this felt a lot
00:51:34
like that, like it was a local interpreter and stuff and they
00:51:38
were, you know, partnering with with that.
00:51:40
Indigenous force. And doesn't he give him a gift
00:51:42
as well? The same way they traded in true
00:51:44
believer. He traded the knife here at the
00:51:46
end. This one.
00:51:47
He gave him the sego. He gave him the watch.
00:51:49
Well, he gives him watch. Yeah.
00:51:51
Doesn't you give him a necklace? He gives him a tiger tooth
00:51:54
necklace. Yeah, yeah, you're correct.
00:51:56
So it definitely had had. It definitely recalled what
00:51:59
James did with his friend on the Africa ranch for.
00:52:02
Sure, which is if you read True Believer again, that that that
00:52:05
portion is pretty engaging. Like I buy into that story
00:52:11
pretty good. Excuse me.
00:52:13
So to bring that in and modify it a little bit for this book
00:52:15
works really. Well, so you definitely have the
00:52:17
highest score or are you tied with TV?
00:52:20
Had a 46 1/2 I. Don't want to have the highest
00:52:23
score? It's not that good.
00:52:25
No, you're tied with TV. You both had a 46 1/2.
00:52:28
You went a little higher on Bad Guys where you were with us on
00:52:31
Bad Guys A. Three, it sounded like he
00:52:34
thought it was all that in a bag of potato chips.
00:52:35
And it's it's OK, it's good. It's good compared to almost any
00:52:40
other thing except for the other Jack car books.
00:52:44
And by no means is it the worst. I think we all agree that
00:52:48
Devil's Hand, which is the biochemical Attack 1, is the
00:52:51
worst upon a revisit. I still think it's the worst,
00:52:54
but it's the worst because there is.
00:52:57
No bad guys. And then 3/4 of the way through,
00:53:00
there's one chapter where they shove 12 bad guys in one chapter
00:53:03
and it is very unneutral. The way he teed up the president
00:53:06
in that book in the preface and now 9/11 affected him.
00:53:09
I was like, oh, this is going to be our president.
00:53:12
Like our president for the next 568 books, whatever.
00:53:15
Yeah, we're going to see a full 4 years with this guy.
00:53:19
Totally bummed he killed them off.
00:53:20
They could have killed somebody else off.
00:53:21
Yeah, they should have killed somebody else off instead of the
00:53:24
POTUS. But yeah, I agree.
00:53:26
I think the setup and there's content in that book I like a
00:53:28
lot, but the book as a whole has some flaws for sure.
00:53:32
So. But.
00:53:35
These what it's a tight, it's a tight grouping well.
00:53:38
For sure, it's like I said, like even the worst book is still
00:53:41
pretty good. Yeah, and I I think I'm going to
00:53:46
agree with TVI think he said when we were doing rankings and
00:53:49
ratings, I think he said this is the most impressive book.
00:53:53
And I I might agree to pull this off with the 1968 stuff going
00:53:58
back in time. You have to tell an origin story
00:54:02
for a main character by using his father.
00:54:05
I thought you have to do an espionage tale while you're also
00:54:08
a Mac VSOG on the ground action oriented.
00:54:11
So I just think for the amount of things you had to do in this
00:54:14
book and that he did most of them really, really well, some
00:54:17
perfectly. I think that's impressive.
00:54:19
So wherever you rate this, it's it's hard to rank this one
00:54:22
because it's no. Different for sure, I'll agree.
00:54:24
I'll I'll agree with that. It is impressive for sure.
00:54:28
Something that is that that I really like about it that we
00:54:30
didn't touch on is there's so many.
00:54:32
I wouldn't say so many. Several of the books have like
00:54:34
this world ending or country threat, countrywide threat
00:54:38
event. And it was refreshing to get
00:54:40
something that feels like it's localized.
00:54:42
It's it's very small based geographically was kind of
00:54:47
refreshing. So we're not globe trotting.
00:54:49
There's nothing he doesn't step foot in the States really.
00:54:54
And yeah, I don't know. I enjoyed the setting and how
00:54:57
close everything was country wise and and things like that
00:55:00
so. Yeah, you know, it's funny.
00:55:02
We just brought up Quinn and I'm you.
00:55:05
Well, they make their way into my Limerick.
00:55:08
Wait. Why didn't we start with
00:55:10
Limerick like every year? Forget to do it on our pod like.
00:55:12
So forgot to do the Limerick with TV, actually didn't have
00:55:16
one at the time. So by saying we're going to come
00:55:18
back with Tyler to do another episode on Cry Havoc, it brought
00:55:21
me some time to put together this banger.
00:55:25
The adventures of Tom and Quinn with AMU.
00:55:28
Through thick and thin, true justice they aim.
00:55:32
Seeking traitors by name, they face down the chaos within.
00:55:38
That's pretty good. That might be your best one for
00:55:41
the series so far. That's pretty.
00:55:42
Appreciate that, appreciate it. Had some time for that to cook.
00:55:46
It's yeah, that was pretty good. He's not ChatGPT in it. 5
00:55:49
minutes so. Yeah, I had one other topic real
00:55:53
quick for the for this and it had to do with that setting and
00:55:56
being localized that I thought was was good.
00:55:58
I think, oh, oh, it was this. I'm sorry.
00:56:01
The cast of character seems very, very broad.
00:56:03
Like I feel like there were a lot of characters we had to keep
00:56:05
track of maybe, maybe too much. I think that that may be a a
00:56:10
drawback for it is that there's too many characters having we,
00:56:14
we talked about this briefly in our in our text group that I
00:56:18
finished Hail Mary. That book has a cast even in the
00:56:21
flashbacks total like 10 characters.
00:56:23
Super, super awesome. Actually, maybe like 8.
00:56:27
And that is probably the best book I've read this year.
00:56:31
It was. It was great.
00:56:32
But I wonder. If I think the cast is too big.
00:56:36
I wonder if some of the best books on our scorecard that
00:56:38
we've rated the highest have a small number of characters or at
00:56:43
least a small number of villains.
00:56:45
Because sometimes a book is really good when you get the
00:56:48
team up of all the good guys and each plays their role and you
00:56:51
get that like team dynamic. Scott Harvath, that happens all
00:56:54
the time. But I think bad guys, we tend to
00:56:58
go lower on villains when there's a complicated network of
00:57:02
people and they all don't necessarily scare you or spook
00:57:06
you or or play a central role. It's just like you make villains
00:57:08
just because you need somebody to do something.
00:57:11
You need somebody to get whacked that isn't the main villain.
00:57:13
They can say there's no consequence for the story 100%.
00:57:17
And probably because most of the time when they do that, we we
00:57:21
don't get as much back story on the cast of villains as we do to
00:57:25
getting back story on the big cast of heroes, you know, or, or
00:57:29
the big bad, right? So.
00:57:30
Like Dvorakov, I thought, and if we he could have been a really,
00:57:34
like, scary character. And I loved we caught him and
00:57:36
we're finally interrogating him. We ultimately let him go.
00:57:39
So I'm like, wait. And I get the Pueblo.
00:57:41
The exchange for the Pueblo made sense.
00:57:43
So sure, yeah, the political powers that be are going to do
00:57:45
that. But I felt like he could have
00:57:47
been that edge character that gives me an extra pointer to
00:57:50
boost on villains. But then it was like this other
00:57:53
sidekick who was actually the scary one who got it, Quinn, and
00:57:57
then who shows up? So it like, wasn't that guy, nor
00:58:00
was he really the main guy pulling the strings back at HQ.
00:58:03
It was it was Lavrenenko. So Lavrenenko versus Devornikov
00:58:07
versus this other guy who's like this spook who's actually doing
00:58:10
the brutal, nasty stuff, roll them all into one.
00:58:13
And it was like that would have made a crazy they.
00:58:15
Yeah, they they built up. They built up a good bad guy
00:58:18
there. And Chris, you had a good
00:58:19
description of him being Bane, which which he's pretty close
00:58:23
to. Like he should have had either
00:58:25
the physical strength and and like nothing's taken him down
00:58:28
until you start fucking cutting limbs off or something.
00:58:31
But something maybe a little more shocking than how it ends
00:58:35
up actually going. But yeah, it's it's like the one
00:58:38
thing I'll say about, I know this isn't a comic book podcast,
00:58:41
but that something that Bane has early on in his release into the
00:58:45
DC Comics is he is just as intelligent as Batman at the
00:58:49
time. And he, the, the way he
00:58:52
basically nearly kills Batman is he releases all of the villains
00:58:56
into Gotham, and Batman has to round them all up in one night.
00:58:59
And then Bane basically gets him when he's at his, like, most
00:59:03
vulnerable. He's out of gas.
00:59:04
There's nothing left in the tank.
00:59:05
He's been awake for like, 36 hours straight.
00:59:08
And he basically whips the shit out of him.
00:59:09
And so we need a villain like that that's like both like Bron
00:59:12
and Brains, because James and Tom are always the Bron and
00:59:16
Brains. And nobody can, like, no single
00:59:19
person. Yeah, nobody, no single person
00:59:20
can match them in both categories.
00:59:25
But yeah. What are you?
00:59:27
What's your most anticipated book of next year, both of you?
00:59:32
That's a good one. I know what mine is.
00:59:36
What is it? What's your fourth option?
00:59:38
The fourth option, yeah, OK. I'm really excited for the that.
00:59:42
YouTube come out with in 2027. Can I say?
00:59:46
Right now it's probably it's probably cold 0.
00:59:50
Like just because it's I have I'm planning to dive into it
00:59:56
over the holidays. I love Ward Larson.
01:00:00
And I'm intrigued to see what he does with Brad.
01:00:02
So it's funny because Ward Larson had his own book this
01:00:06
year came out earlier in the year, Dark Vector, and it sounds
01:00:10
extremely similar. It sounds so similar.
01:00:14
You know, secret plane technology goes down, need to
01:00:17
recover it. And and this book seemed to have
01:00:20
a that vibe. But yeah, that's the Brad Thor
01:00:22
co-authored one with this other guy.
01:00:24
I, I don't know, I might say true believer.
01:00:26
Am I allowed to say it? Is that coming up this?
01:00:28
Year or yeah, I'm going to guess it'd be July from from the
01:00:32
timeline that they've established with that production
01:00:35
company and ending their filming schedule and everything.
01:00:38
I'd say that's going to be like a July release.
01:00:40
I actually think they're going to try and bump up that this is
01:00:43
the 250th, 4th of July. So I think that they'll probably
01:00:48
release some special stuff related to that as well, like a
01:00:50
lot of veteran related stuff with the marketing would be my
01:00:53
guess. But yeah, I'm excited for fourth
01:00:56
option. I mean, it's in May.
01:00:57
It's not that far away. Yeah, cool.
01:00:59
Are we getting the essay Cosby TTV show next year, Mike or is
01:01:03
that just starting to be cast? I haven't heard anything that
01:01:06
was actually announced. Oh, you didn't see that
01:01:09
Giancarlo Esposito joined the cast?
01:01:11
No, I had no idea. Oh, yeah?
01:01:13
Oh, he's the guy from that's made-up Rogue One.
01:01:16
What's his name? Dark Sabre Guy.
01:01:18
No, not Rogue One. Yeah, Book of Mandaloria,
01:01:21
Mandalorian we saw. So no the villain.
01:01:25
The villain with the the dog shaber.
01:01:27
OK, yeah, he was in. Breaking Bad.
01:01:29
Yes, I was just going to say. Is the villain in Breaking Bad?
01:01:32
Yeah, looking back to that, what was your favorite book you read
01:01:35
this year? I think hail, Hail Mary,
01:01:38
probably, yeah. I've never read anything that is
01:01:41
that is instantly engaging and I want to see what happens next
01:01:44
nearly immediately. The my biggest beef with it is
01:01:47
that the chapters should be separated a little bit better.
01:01:50
That's one thing I really like about these books is it feels
01:01:52
like a movie scene every time it it, you know, changes a scene in
01:01:56
the setting like say we're going from Vietnam to Russia when he
01:02:00
goes to Russia and they're those characters are talking, it's a
01:02:02
new chapter and it feels like a movie scene a little bit better.
01:02:05
Whereas Hail Mary, like the 1 chapter, I think it, it took me
01:02:09
like over an hour to get through it and there's flashbacks and
01:02:11
then flash, you know, back to current day, another flashback
01:02:14
stubs his toe and then finally chapter's over.
01:02:17
You know, it's like it just took a while for me to feel like I
01:02:20
hit like a benchmark. I don't know, I feel like when I
01:02:23
finished chapter in these books, I can like pause for a second.
01:02:26
Whereas that one I was like, Oh my God, when's this chapter
01:02:28
going to end? But it's so good.
01:02:29
So freaking good. I was wondering how they were
01:02:32
going to handle a lot of the flashbacks in the movie and or
01:02:37
or. How are they going to handle
01:02:39
He's just on a ship by himself? They already, they already
01:02:43
fucked everybody over with a trailer so.
01:02:44
Yeah, I'm so. Both of them, I will say the
01:02:49
trailer for knowing the content and then if you watch the
01:02:52
trailers, I'm into watching like how they edit trailers and the
01:02:55
songs they put in and stuff. They're they're both really
01:02:58
good. But if you don't know the
01:02:59
content and you watch it, it's just spoiled.
01:03:02
It sucks. Yeah.
01:03:03
It spoils it so bad. It's like with the best part
01:03:05
about the book, it's first contact.
01:03:07
I almost didn't. I did not want to see Rocky
01:03:10
until I was in the theaters. I did not want to reveal I I.
01:03:13
Really think I think them showing his thumbs and stuff in
01:03:15
his hands was too much in the first trailer and then they show
01:03:17
all of him. And then they show all of.
01:03:19
Him in the second, I wasn't happy with that.
01:03:22
Yeah, I think it's going to be. I think it's going to be good.
01:03:25
You just have to remember that that book takes like, I don't
01:03:28
know, 12 to 14 hours of read and we're getting a 2 1/2 hour
01:03:32
movie. So just.
01:03:33
I know I'm worried about the month it's coming out in.
01:03:37
When? When February is it coming on
01:03:39
it? That's typically when they put
01:03:40
like, you know, they call it dumpuary where you have January
01:03:45
and February where they dump these movies.
01:03:47
Well, I mean, if they're smart, they look at the directors that
01:03:50
are attached. Both of them are really good and
01:03:52
reputable, has a good writer. It's from a good source
01:03:54
material. The success of The Martian is
01:03:56
when they. That's the only.
01:03:57
List bought the IP to begin with so they should know they don't
01:04:00
have a turd. I mean Martian was hugely
01:04:03
successful mainly because of non book readers so.
01:04:06
Unless they're looking back after the fact after filming and
01:04:09
rapping and now editing, it's like.
01:04:11
This move this to February no, you'd see you'd see problems and
01:04:16
stuff like that like it it's very hard to it's very hard to
01:04:19
hide stuff like that in the film industry anymore like there's a
01:04:22
couple of channels on YouTube. I really like that almost are
01:04:26
too revealing, especially when like actionable news is
01:04:29
happening and things are like currently going on.
01:04:33
And so I feel like we would have heard about some issues, but.
01:04:37
You know, all right, well, a lot to look forward to a lot of good
01:04:44
books in 25. Hopefully we get equal amount of
01:04:48
good books in 26. And Tyler, I, I let me end with
01:04:52
an apology. Actually, I said on the TV
01:04:55
episode, there's nobody I want to talk more about a Jack Carr
01:04:59
book with then TV. Well, I got to say you're tied
01:05:02
for that first place. So I should have put you in the
01:05:04
conversation as well between Ty Boo, Ty Booer and TV.
01:05:07
There's no two people I would rather talk more about a book
01:05:11
with Chris that's for Scott Harvath and Mitch Rapp.
01:05:13
I'd rather talk with you. But when it comes to Jack
01:05:15
Carter, it's it's TV and Ty they take the first spot.
01:05:18
So you were equally tied. I apologize.
01:05:20
No, it's all good. I think we're we all are casual
01:05:23
enough with each other now that the conversations go so much
01:05:26
smoother than they used to. So I'm happy, happy that you
01:05:30
guys keep inviting me on and having fun and I keep I keep
01:05:33
making friends from your community.
01:05:35
So one one of them is a pretty pretty, Yeah.
01:05:39
Pod we we bring people together. Love to hear that that's what
01:05:41
we're about. One of them is is his name's
01:05:44
Justin and he, I will affectionately call him a bitch,
01:05:49
but he's he and I him and I him and I play video games with
01:05:52
another friend of mine pretty freak pretty frequently
01:05:54
throughout the weeks. So.
01:05:56
Let them know we appreciate them tuning in it really.
01:05:58
Yeah, I think, I think in March we're trying to do an in person
01:06:01
meet up. So that's going to be fun.
01:06:03
Dude, good stuff, good stuff. Well, to put on your radar,
01:06:06
there's a mystery thriller convention coming to DC Boucher
01:06:10
Con September 2027. So we're trying to do a thriller
01:06:14
pod meet up in the DC area. Think it's just after Labor Day
01:06:18
or is it Labor Day weekend or or first week of September at some
01:06:22
point, but OK. Yeah, I will keep that in mind.
01:06:26
Yeah. And I mean, it's not that far of
01:06:29
a drive for me. I, I don't mind it.
01:06:31
I went. September down there, 1st
01:06:33
through the 5th. Of first through the show so
01:06:35
it's. 2027. 27 Yep. All right, well, just as long as
01:06:39
we can go to virtue feed and grain and make Chris eat.
01:06:42
So for sure, yeah, yeah. Good meal, good place down there
01:06:45
on the waterfront. So that's the best.
01:06:48
We'll have to put together some sort of like thriller novel
01:06:50
tour, like find famous locations from the books and or maybe the
01:06:54
books we've covered. And there's a couple right
01:06:56
there, right there at the waterfront where you and I went.
01:06:59
Sure, sure. Well, Landini Brothers was a
01:07:02
restaurant we walked or would have walked past if it wasn't
01:07:05
flooded out. But that wasn't a Jack R book.
01:07:06
I think that. Was can we go to that the blue
01:07:08
door on the canals? Sure.
01:07:10
Yeah, the Brad Thor, Scott Harvey Lock house.
01:07:15
Yeah, good, good stuff. All right.
01:07:18
Well, appreciate you coming on here and.
01:07:20
Thanks, Tyler. No problem guys, appreciate it.
01:07:23
We need to thank our patrons, including our Deputy director
01:07:25
Sherry F and Brad E, our special agents, Adam, Mike, Ben, Daryl,
01:07:30
George, Matt, Dawn and Chris. Please subscribe, rate,
01:07:33
interview to all three seasons of No Limits.
01:07:35
You can find us at the other pod.com or on Twitter and
01:07:38
Instagram. And as always, just like Tyler
01:07:42
and be Tyler. Just quick little story time.
01:07:53
Jack Carr and Cry Havoc actually inspired me last time I was home
01:07:57
up in New York to sit down with my dad, because as a Vietnam
01:08:01
vet, he's talked briefly in generalities about it but hasn't
01:08:05
really shared too much. And it was kind of cool.
01:08:07
As I told him about a little bit about the book, I heard way more
01:08:10
stories than I've ever heard from him about his time in the
01:08:13
service. So I always knew he was a radar
01:08:16
guy and he was on a, it was called DLG at the time.
01:08:19
I don't think they have many more now.
01:08:20
They're like cruisers, destroyer leader, guided missile, I think
01:08:23
they called it. And I always knew he was the
01:08:24
radar guy, but he never really talked about anything else.
01:08:27
And he told me because I mentioned the Pueblo and he knew
01:08:31
all about and he was like, oh, yeah, the Pueblo, of course,
01:08:33
right. He told me, you know, they still
01:08:35
have it in Korea, North Korea and all this.
01:08:37
But we got the guys back. And I was telling him, like, how
01:08:39
suspenseful the scene was of, like, the spy boat, like,
01:08:41
completely quiet in the waters, but then they get boarded.
01:08:45
He told me about this mission they did in Haifang Harbor, so
01:08:49
in North Vietnam, it's right outside Hanoi.
01:08:52
And he said his ship was sent in to go complete silence.
01:08:57
And they had to turn off all communications, could not speak,
01:09:00
could not talk. And they had to go through the
01:09:02
harbor and cross into certain waters.
01:09:05
And he said the whole point was so that they could draw
01:09:07
electronic signals. And we were tracking them,
01:09:11
pinging the ship. So like they were sent in almost
01:09:13
as a decoy to get pinged. And then they can find
01:09:17
installations and like all the electronics and surveillance
01:09:19
equipment on the shore based on where the pings were coming
01:09:22
from. And the crazy part was, he said
01:09:25
two days before they were sent in, they stopped in Subic Bay in
01:09:29
the Philippines and they got fitted with some device.
01:09:32
And then as soon as the mission was over, back to the
01:09:34
Philippines and they took this system off.
01:09:36
It was called the sink system. So they outfitted the ship with
01:09:40
a device to broadcast these Russian ID codes.
01:09:45
So as the ship was going, turns out they were actually
01:09:48
broadcasting. I'm guessing it was a long
01:09:50
Russian pick up. Yeah.
01:09:52
So yeah, they were outfitted with it in Subic Bay, and it was
01:09:56
designed just to broadcast these codes, which wood forest, the
01:09:59
North Vietnamese, to ping them back thinking it was some sort
01:10:01
of communication. Yeah, I would guess that they
01:10:03
had another another ship or something to detect into the
01:10:07
shoreline whenever that ping gets picked up because it sends
01:10:10
a another signal. I think I have to check with my
01:10:13
dad because he did similar stuff in the Navy.
01:10:16
He was on a cruiser. So that was one of those like
01:10:19
really cool stories that I would have never heard if it wasn't.
01:10:22
Yeah, that's awesome. Definitely ask more questions.
01:10:24
Yeah, that's awesome. He told me about his buddy who
01:10:27
he never even talked about before.
01:10:29
He and this guy were at a monkey mountain, which Jack brings up
01:10:32
early on the base in Danang and he said they were they were
01:10:36
sitting there, they were having a cigarette and this Air Force
01:10:38
officer walks by and his friend goes good morning and how you
01:10:41
doing? He was the southern guy and he
01:10:43
said because Navy was a lot more LAX about saluting your officers
01:10:47
and what not when they were there.
01:10:48
And this Air Force guy had a stick up his butt and wrote to
01:10:51
their officer was like punish these dudes.
01:10:54
And once they get called in, he's like, how do you how can
01:10:56
you address an officer like this?
01:10:57
He said they're their commander, said all right, I'm going to
01:10:59
punish them with, you know, two months on boat.
01:11:02
They can't leave the boat. And it happened to be that they
01:11:04
were just leaving for a 2 month tour or whatever and they were
01:11:06
going to be a base or whatever. So he gave them the punishment
01:11:09
while they were already out at sea.
01:11:11
But I would have never gotten stories or heard things like
01:11:13
this if it wasn't for Jack and the book.
01:11:15
Oh, the other one was since he was the radar guy.
01:11:18
My dad was getting trained in damn neck at the Naval Tactical
01:11:21
Data Systems training. So my dad was always a computer
01:11:25
guy growing up. I never quite knew the extent of
01:11:27
it, that it was the Navy training that really got him
01:11:29
into, oh, that's cool, early computer systems, like he was
01:11:32
fixing computers and all this. I didn't know it was the Navy
01:11:34
that had taught him that, but they got new radar systems at
01:11:38
one point they detected something going Mach 5, totally
01:11:41
confused by it. We're trying to run it up the
01:11:43
flagpole. Nobody's listening.
01:11:45
Turns out it was an SR-71 that they weren't supposed to be able
01:11:49
to detect with with this level of equipment.
01:11:52
And they detected it. And he said the guys had to come
01:11:54
out from the head shed and telling them the radar is broken
01:11:57
and your data is unreliable. Forget what you've seen here.
01:12:00
The people came and they checked it and like.
01:12:02
This never happened. Yeah, and they're like, no, we
01:12:05
know our system. Our system is working just fine,
01:12:07
and the state is legit. So you guys got to find out what
01:12:09
the fuck that was. And it turns out later it was an
01:12:11
SR-71 that they were not supposed to be.
01:12:13
Able to detect, but that is awesome.
01:12:16
That's. My favorite plane, I don't have
01:12:17
a model of it on my desk because it's at work on my desk.
01:12:20
I love those. They're my that's my favorite.
01:12:21
I got to, I got to see one at the the Air Force Center out
01:12:25
there or the. What used to be the Smithsonian?
01:12:29
Yep. Yep, yeah, I love that.
01:12:32
I started, I don't know when, 30 minutes.
01:12:33
Those came out when they were tested, but he was in from 60.
01:12:37
I want to see 68 to 72. Those are so cool.
01:12:41
Yeah. So I don't know how that lines
01:12:43
up with when they were. In the works, yeah, they're
01:12:46
they're in there in that time frame.
01:12:48
What's cool, one of my favorite stories is that last flight,
01:12:50
that one that's in DCI, think it was in California.
01:12:54
I can't remember if it's San Diego or Lai.
01:12:55
Think it was San Diego base and it flew to DCI.
01:12:58
Think it made it there in like 60 minutes I think.
01:13:01
Wow. Something like that.
01:13:04
It's pretty awesome. In January, I'm doing a bunch of
01:13:07
doing this thing where I'm trying to basically find
01:13:08
everybody who served in the military in my in my family
01:13:11
tree, like in my bloodline. And my great grandfather's
01:13:15
brother was in Battle of the Bulge.
01:13:17
And so it throughout January, I'm like doing more digging than
01:13:21
I have already. I had to get some like some of
01:13:23
their like date of births, their full names, stuff like that.
01:13:25
If I could find their Social Security numbers, that also
01:13:28
helps to get like a lot of their service records.
01:13:31
But that was one of the cooler ones that popped up that I
01:13:34
didn't know about was Battle of the Bulge person.
01:13:36
And then both like I'll tell a really quick story.
01:13:41
So World War 2 on my grandmother's side, her dad and
01:13:45
he has two siblings. Those two siblings are twins.
01:13:49
I can't remember exactly what they were in.
01:13:52
I think 1 was in the Navy and one was in the Army Air Corps.
01:13:56
And they're all three of them were in the Pacific.
01:13:57
And so they're all three sending letters back, back home and
01:14:00
stuff. And I don't to my knowledge,
01:14:02
they didn't know this was going to happen, but the Army Air
01:14:05
Corps took an island in the Pacific for A to use it as an
01:14:07
airstrip and the Navy docked there to like get supplies and
01:14:12
stuff. And the twins got to see each
01:14:14
other in the Pacific, which is super cool.
01:14:17
That's one of my favorite, my favorite stories.
01:14:18
I'm trying to find more documentation like if they sent
01:14:21
letters home and be like, hey, I saw both of them had nicknames
01:14:24
Popeye and Wimp. And so I I want to find like
01:14:29
letters of him being like, hey, I saw a wimp yesterday.
01:14:31
Like how crazy is that? Like I'm trying to do some
01:14:34
digging, but yeah, that's one of my favorite family war story
01:14:37
type deals, so. Would never hurt or got to hear
01:14:40
a lot of these stories again if it weren't for Jack Carr in this
01:14:42
book. Yeah, that's awesome.
01:14:45
From the from the Jack Carr interview, my mom thinks that
01:14:48
Mike and I look like twins so. My my beard's not quite up to
01:14:54
par yet on that end, so. We'll get, we'll get it there.
01:14:57
We'll get it there, buddy. Dude, thanks for coming on man.
01:15:01
Yeah. Thanks guys.
01:15:02
We'll chat over the holidays. Hope everybody has a good time
01:15:05
though, and spend some good time with their families, all right.
01:15:07
You too. Congratulations again.
01:15:09
Thank you. Appreciate it guys.