"Most enjoyable Brad Thor book"
"Book of the summer and of 2025!"
SPOILER WARNING: Be sure to read Edge of Honor before listening to this interview with Brad Thor!
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00:00:20
All right. Today we are joined by good
00:00:23
friend of the podcast, the Man of the Summer, Brad Thor.
00:00:27
Welcome back. Hey, it's great being back.
00:00:30
I'm sorry it's only with 50% of the team.
00:00:32
I won't take it personally. I understand that.
00:00:34
It really was overwhelming reading the book for him and.
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He couldn't make it to the interview and knocked Chris out.
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It was such a heavy. No, I hope everything's OK with
00:00:43
his grandma and stuff. So I'm sorry.
00:00:44
Sure. I hope that wasn't embargoed and
00:00:46
I wasn't supposed to say anything.
00:00:48
No, no, that's fine. And I mean, honestly, he would
00:00:51
want to be here so badly because he's the one who pushed us on
00:00:54
the podcast once we finished Mitch rap to commit to Scott
00:00:57
Harvath as our second character series.
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And now that we're done with all of them, I know he was RIP roar
00:01:03
and ready to to ask you some questions because we finished
00:01:05
all the Scott Harvath. Pretty impressive.
00:01:09
Well, we could. It's finished.
00:01:11
You can get another word other than rap, I think.
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I think not using that one would be OK.
00:01:16
It's a Mitch rap joke. That's even though it's with
00:01:18
AWI. Get it?
00:01:19
It was just when we finished. Season 1, it's a rap it it just
00:01:23
got overused. I think we had many, many
00:01:25
moments where that joke was resuscitated when it shouldn't
00:01:28
have been. But yeah, Brad, what a book.
00:01:33
I'm just going to start us off with some hot takes here and hot
00:01:36
take #1 this is the most enjoyable Brad Thor book.
00:01:42
I'm saying it I, I put my feet up.
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I actually finished it in 16 hours flat.
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Unbelievable. This one, it just goes down like
00:01:50
a slice of apple pie with vanilla ice cream and a hot dog
00:01:53
on the 4th. You know, a good Sam Adams.
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This book is just so clean, so crisp.
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I'm glad you liked it. I'm really glad you liked it.
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And that's that, that's high praise.
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I've been looking forward to doing this interview with you
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guys because you guys did a whole season of podcast
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dedicated to each one of the books.
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So you really have a very, very thorough in depth knowledge of
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of all the hardbath thrillers. So that's that's a very nice
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compliment. Thank you.
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I'm glad you enjoyed it. I'm going to hit you with hot
00:02:23
take #2 I think it's the most Flinnian Brad Thor book because
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we talked a little bit about Mitch Rapp.
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I felt like going to DC, having this cabal of elites, these
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villains within our government all manipulating, whether it's
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the CIA, the FBIA senator at the White House with a vice
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president and even a Russian asset.
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I just felt like this cast of characters was so Flinnian and
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the way you brought us into DC politics, into the swamp, and
00:02:52
you really have your finger on the pulse.
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Was that an intentional choice? No, and I don't think it's
00:02:57
flitting it at all, to be honest with you.
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And I don't like the comparison, to be honest, because it
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suggests that somehow there's a that was kind of the exclusive
00:03:07
area that that that Vince wrote in.
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And it isn't. I mean, he took characters to
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Afghanistan and other places like that.
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People have been writing intrigue in DC for as long as,
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you know, they've been writing spy novels and stuff like that.
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The reason I did it in DC and I've done other things I've had
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I've had multitudes of corrupt senators and things like that.
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And I mean, my God, my very first book started out with a
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corrupt vice president cooperating with the president
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being kidnapped on ski vacation. So it's I wanted to do to OK, we
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agreed that this is we can go for spoilers here, right?
00:03:43
So all right, so if you have not read all the books, just
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understand there's going to be spoilers in here for Edge of
00:03:50
Honor, but for other things too. So I'll tell you where I am with
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this. So you guys know that when I
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ended near dark, so near dark, there was $100 million bounty on
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Harvest head Harvest got one last guy to kill.
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This is the guy who was the godfather of the Russian
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president's son who Harvest ended up killing to get even
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with the president. There's $100 million bounty on
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Harvest head. He goes up to the hospital room
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because this guy, this Russian oligarch, his wife has been
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undergoing cancer treatments and stuff.
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You see her again in Shadow of doubt.
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What you don't know at the end of Near Dark when Harvest spares
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this guys life is is that he agreed with the oligarchs wife
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to split $100 million bounty that was on his head.
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She gets 50 million, he gets 50 million.
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You learn that in Shadow of doubt because that's how Harvath
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is blackmailed into service by by the CIA in shadow of doubt.
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So essentially what I created for Harvath by giving him that
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much money was I created what I call the supermodel problem.
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And in the 1990s, one of the famous supermodels, Linda
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Evangelista, said I don't get out of bed for anything less
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than $100. And so Harvath's got a $50
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million supermodel problem. Why?
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He's got a beautiful new wife, everything's good, six month
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honeymoon, Why would you get out of bed?
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What's going to get Harvath out of bed?
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And that was the big thing that I struggled with.
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And so I thought, OK, it's got to be a friend who's in trouble
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now. I'm going to only you have to be
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careful because that can get kind of trophy.
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You know, you've got to really be careful how you do that.
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And so I thought about somebody I knew who had worked in a
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previous administration that had gotten a lot of death threats
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and who wasn't able to get a security detail once he was on
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the outside of government. And I thought, OK, that's really
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interesting. Now, a lot of that stuff
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actually broke in real life while I was finishing up the
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editing for the book. Like back in February, you heard
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that Mike Pompeo security detail got stripped and there were a
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couple of other people, John Bolton.
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So if you look back in my Facebook, I actually, I talked
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to David Brown, my publicist, and I said, you know, I want to
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plant a little flag here so people don't think that I
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actually based the whole book on something that happened in
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February. So if you look back in my post,
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I planted a flag where I have the story and I say, oh, I can.
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I linked to like the Washington Post or something or Wall Street
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Journal and say this is Harvest dealing with something very
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similar in Edge of Honor. So the idea was bring him back
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to the USI knew this book was going to pub.
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I wanted it to pub the same week as 4th of July.
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Big patriotic cover. And I wanted to do just a really
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red, white and blue patriotic thriller.
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And for me, there was no place better than to set it in the
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nation's capital right before the nation's birthday.
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And so that's how all that stuff came together And, and it's a
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different book. I'm not bouncing around country
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to country and stuff like that. It's not as international as
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some of the other books are. But it had been a while since I
00:06:41
had had like such a strong setting in the US.
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I mean, hidden orders got a lot of Boston in it.
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I've done stuff before, a lot of to, I think it would take down
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obviously was all in New York, you know, during the 4th of July
00:06:59
weekend. So this is kind of the 4th.
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This is my second, like big 4th of July thriller Takedown was
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the 1st and then that's true. And then this one.
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Yeah. And then the first commandment
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was pretty much all in the United States, although there
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was a side, there was a Side Story where this guy was in
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Turkey and then he comes up in the US through Mexico and stuff
00:07:16
like. That and don't forget lines of
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Lucerne, the slopes, yeah. Yeah.
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I mean, yeah, I was thinking predominantly set in the United
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States versus, I mean lines of concern starts, yeah, starts in
00:07:28
the US and has Park City and then has DC and then Harvard has
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gone to gone to Europe, to Germany and Switzerland and that
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kind of stuff. Yeah, you know, that definitely
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sets this book apart with the DC focus.
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Another thing though, that you do so well, and I think you time
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very well, is this almost single story.
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Yes, there's a lot of different competing storylines here that
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are balanced perfectly. Solvi, the Norwegians, when we
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need her to come in to be the badass hero that she is.
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We get that scene on the dullest toll road, which might have been
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my favorite action scene here. But you, you, you tend to have
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these really, really killer books every 5 or 6 that are
00:08:07
focused on one thing. The way this is in DCI, feel
00:08:10
like the apostle did that. It was the Afghanistan book and
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the way Backlash did it. It was the Siberia, you know,
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book. It was the Russia book.
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And I feel like this being the DC book, those are each spaced
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out. I feel like that's such a great
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move because it's a refresh from all the traveling heavy and the
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globe trotting that we're doing. The other ones it just shows
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your skill set is so varied. I appreciate that I disagree
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with you guys on that. I get it that that's your
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opinion. I think they're all killer
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books. I don't set out to pace and
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there is no it is. I get an idea for a book, I pour
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my heart and soul into it. I bleed to get the book done,
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try to make it as exciting as possible and then, you know, get
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it out there. And, but every individual has an
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individual experience with the books.
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And probably the, the, the coolest way I can describe it is
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I've got an amusement park and each book is a ride at the
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amusement park. Now, I love going to Universal
00:09:04
with my kids and there are rides that I'll go on again and again
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and again because they're my favorites.
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And there's rides that I've tried once that I won't go back
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to. So I suppose when you've got 25
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books, you just have one book. Either people are going to like
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it, they're going to, it's going to be there's people that lines
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of Lucerne is always going to be their favorite because I was the
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first one right out of the gate. So, but, but for me, it is like
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an amusement park where every year I'm coming out with a new
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ride and I'm, I'm trying to do something different and I'm
00:09:29
trying to dial it up. And there's a lot of stuff that
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I do behind the scenes that you may never even notice.
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There's little turns of the screwdriver.
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There's a, I'm, I'm setting down the drafting the paper on the
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drafting table little bit differently than I normally do.
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It's a little bit tilted this way instead of that way.
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And I'm going to come at designing the ride this way.
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So, you know, that's the that's probably the biggest challenge
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as a franchise character writer is coming at it and doing one of
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the nicest reviews I ever got was I forget this gentleman's
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name. He's a writer as well.
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But he said that what I do, Brad Thor every year is I climbed the
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same mountain peak, let's call it the Matterhorn just for fun.
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So that was a code name a few books back.
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So let's say climbing the Matterhorn.
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But every year I'm doing it via a different face.
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I'm still going up to the top. It's just I I mount the mountain
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differently every time. And you know that that's a real
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interesting thing you say, because one thing I wanted to
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ask you about was this almost police procedural, because
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you've done this a number of times, Carolyn and fields are
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just and we met. We had them last book.
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What a joy when we can cut away to them.
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And it's like, as much as I want harvest, as much as I want
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Solvy, you're you're packing our plate full of those two.
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We're getting everything we want out of them, then we step away
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from them. Sometimes books can get a little
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disappointing, like bring me back to, to what I love.
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Well, no, I love those guys. I want to be with them.
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And then when they get a chance to cross paths and, and the role
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they've been playing is central helping Scott, you know, get
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that final guy. I love that.
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Did you have fun writing these two 'cause they're banter with
00:11:09
Sugar Bear and these nicknames and this playful talk?
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I mean, I'm sure you have so many contacts inside the FBI.
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This must be what it's like to be on the job.
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There's a lot of it. There's a lot of gallows humor
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and stuff because what these, what people see, whether it's a
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law enforcement, whether it's in, you know, the military, they
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see so much pain and so much suffering and, and stuff that,
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you know, they arrive after the fact, after the, the evil has
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been there and done its thing and they're, they're left to
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pick up the pieces and, and track down what the evil was and
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that kind of a thing. So you do need a good sense of
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humor to survive. I, I don't think people, I, I
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think people turn to other things if they don't have a good
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sense of humor. And that can be very unhealthy.
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So, but it's, it's, it's fun. It's fun for me.
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I love the interaction of those characters.
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And I mean, I really love the way Fields makes her boss
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uncomfortable. I really, really enjoy that.
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And the fact that he cuts her a lot of slack and she's good and
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she's got yeah. And she's got nothing but runway
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in front of her. He's nearing the end of his
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career at the FBI and stuff. And it's just, it's, it's fun
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and it's fun to see him. He kind of represents old guard
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FBI for me. A lot of the people that I knew
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growing up who were at the FBI who were, man, if I even used A4
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letter word around him, I'd be in so much trouble.
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You know, that kind of Hoover holdover stuff.
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Well, that's exactly who I'm talking about.
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Is, is not Kyle's dad. No, Kyle's dad was I, I wouldn't
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worry about my language around Kyle's dad, but some of Kyle's
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dad's colleagues. And that's how I know, that's
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how I know Kyle is, because one of my dad's dear friends was in
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the Bureau and was best friends with Kyle's dad.
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So that's how we we know each other.
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And there'd be this big FBI conference every summer and so
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Kyle and I would see each other there.
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But yeah, there were some of the some of the guys of that age
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group. And yeah, if I dropped a salty,
00:13:06
salty word boy, it was I heard about it.
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I was I was taking a task. Another one of these guys is Bob
00:13:12
McGee, and after the events of I guess Spymaster Backlash, a few
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other books after that, you know, I feel like almost Carolyn
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and Fields have that same vibe Bob McGee and Lydia Ryan had
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early on. I know they're the CIA end of
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things, but just these teammates, these partners with
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this mutual respect for each other.
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And we we lost Lydia Ryan, you know, so young.
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I thought she had a bright future.
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I kind of see Fields filling that gap.
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And it's really great to have have a character like that.
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And it just goes to another strong point of a Brad Thor
00:13:43
book, Female characters, strong female characters.
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I know you've told us in the past that's important to you.
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And this book again, knocks that out of the park.
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And it's not just Solvi, it's also Fields.
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Well, that it's important to be. I have a daughter.
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I want to write characters that she's going to admire and, and
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look up to and want to aspire to be like.
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And I'm just, I'm surrounded by really smart, very talented
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women with, you know, good cores who know what the right thing to
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do is and, and take that path no matter how hard it is.
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So it's really an homage to the, to the women that I respect and
00:14:17
care about in my life, my editor, my agent, my wife, my
00:14:20
daughter. I mean, I'm just, I'm blessed to
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be surrounded by, by so many brilliant women.
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And then it's the brilliant women that I've met in law
00:14:26
enforcement, the military, the diplomatic corps.
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I mean, I've been very lucky to meet some real, real tough,
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really smart women who, you know, going to get the job done
00:14:36
no matter what it takes. And I respect that.
00:14:38
Yeah, and another hallmark of a Brad Thor mountain.
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I like the Matterhorn analogy. You always have these team ups,
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and I can think of the team UPS going back to takedown with
00:14:49
Bullet Bob going back to Apostle with all the guys, the operators
00:14:53
downrange in Afghanistan. Well, here you're almost
00:14:55
bringing back the old timers. Like I said, Bob McGee, Mike
00:14:58
Haney, you know, we know he's been injured.
00:15:00
And even Brendan Rodgers, that was a call back to backlash.
00:15:03
That was so much fun having the hostage czar come back.
00:15:06
Who saved Scott? He Scott kind of owes him one.
00:15:10
You had amazing callbacks that you, you know, you mentioned
00:15:13
gimmicks that that could come. Oh, no trophy.
00:15:15
You've said trophy. And for some writers, they don't
00:15:17
always nail that. It's like you're reaching back
00:15:19
to something that doesn't exactly connect.
00:15:22
This was authentically, reasonably laid out and just
00:15:26
made me jump for joy. That's why I said this.
00:15:28
The most enjoyable book. Oh, the biggest callback,
00:15:30
Nicholas. Back to the first night Harvath
00:15:34
and Nicholas met, right? He.
00:15:36
I knew I had to bring that. Yeah, I had to bring that back.
00:15:39
I had to bring were. You doing that for the fans
00:15:41
'cause I lost? Yeah.
00:15:42
It was like the ultimate. It was, I know he's such a fan
00:15:45
favorite and it was something that he'd never done again.
00:15:48
We never saw that again after the first time he did it.
00:15:50
And I was like, OK, this would be really cool.
00:15:53
And it technology wise, I was at AI was at a point in that book
00:15:57
where I needed something and that actually would have worked.
00:16:00
It checked, to be honest. It checked.
00:16:02
Yeah. Yeah, so it was just it, it just
00:16:04
turned out to be kind of a good, I didn't think I want to do this
00:16:08
with Nicholas and then backed into it via the tech.
00:16:10
The tech came first and I was like, how do you defeat this?
00:16:12
And I'm like, that's how we're going to do it.
00:16:14
I've always wanted to bring Nicholas back and have him do
00:16:17
that trick again. So that was kind of fun.
00:16:20
I was, I was a little concerned when we learned that Scott was
00:16:23
the point guy for the Carlton Group in protecting this house.
00:16:26
Is this River Edge estate? I was like, if, if the Carlton
00:16:30
Group put this together with Scott and lead, it's
00:16:31
impermeable. You know, there's no getting
00:16:33
past this. And to have the dog fool the AI
00:16:37
detectors who, you know, let the deer through and other wildlife.
00:16:41
Absolute brilliant move. Brilliant.
00:16:43
It's kind of fun. By the way, that house actually
00:16:45
exists. It's just north of.
00:16:49
It's just north of of Mount Vernon and just north of that is
00:16:54
actually where Nicholas posts up and parks his van the the
00:16:57
Horticulture Society of America. I've been there.
00:17:00
Yeah. Oh, so you've been there.
00:17:01
All right. So, you know, so it's kind of,
00:17:03
it's kind of cool. The house actually that that
00:17:05
Harvath hits is for sale. So there's tons of pictures of
00:17:08
it on Zillow. There's a lot of times in like
00:17:10
Brendan Rodgers house in this book that's just South of
00:17:13
Langley in McLean. That place was for sale.
00:17:17
So a lot of times I'll go on Zillow, what I'm looking for
00:17:19
like a really cool house and I'll pick it and I'll map
00:17:22
everything out. So those two places, both
00:17:26
Brendan Rodgers Place and then the the estate that Harvest has
00:17:29
to hit are both places that were for sale as I was writing the
00:17:33
book. That's incredible.
00:17:34
Yeah. When you mentioned River's Edge
00:17:36
was the house, I was like, huh, this is sounding an awful lot
00:17:39
like River Farm, which is the Horticultural Society.
00:17:42
And then you told us it was right next to.
00:17:44
I was like, Brad's got his finger on.
00:17:46
I've been in DC almost 20 years and every time I read a book
00:17:50
that gets DC and the surrounding area right, it's so it's so
00:17:55
refreshing and obviously you know the area so well yourself.
00:17:59
Everything checked out and even new neighborhoods like the
00:18:01
Wharf. Oh yeah, I love the Wharf.
00:18:04
I love the and how about how about our path wanting to have
00:18:06
plenty of antibiotics once he got out of the river.
00:18:08
Oh, of course that that's very accurate, like.
00:18:11
That's. Totally accurate.
00:18:12
At least he wasn't swimming in the Anacostia though, because
00:18:15
that's. Oh God no, no, the.
00:18:16
Antibiotics aren't even going to save you there, no.
00:18:18
No, no, no. Restaurants too.
00:18:20
We know you're a foodie, and we know Scott and Nicholas are
00:18:23
foodies. Hank's Oyster Bar is and Pisco
00:18:25
Inaska are those two of your favorites in DC.
00:18:28
There are two places that I like.
00:18:29
I mean, I really like the Wharf. I think what they did at the
00:18:31
Wharf is way, way cool. I spent some time there over the
00:18:36
winter, so it was really or in in the fall too.
00:18:41
Yeah. So I just, I love that whole
00:18:43
area. And there's just all those cool
00:18:44
restaurants along the Wharf and there's a politics and pros
00:18:47
bookstore over there as well. So it's kind of a kind of a
00:18:51
neat, neat place. So I like that area.
00:18:53
So I like to put places that I've been, you know, that's,
00:18:55
that's half the half the fun. Yeah.
00:18:58
And right across from the Wharf, if you're on the Wharf, you
00:19:01
know, you're eating, you're looking out, You see Haynes
00:19:03
Point E Potomac Park, one really cool setting, a National Park
00:19:07
Service park, really cool setting for a thriller one day.
00:19:10
But there's also a golf course there.
00:19:12
And so looking at the Wharf, playing golf, it's.
00:19:15
Yeah. I just still can't believe you
00:19:17
had Nicholas ride the dog. I can't get over it.
00:19:18
It's. Really sticking with you.
00:19:20
That's good. I'm glad I did my job then.
00:19:23
I nearly lost lost my mind with that one.
00:19:27
But you know who else sticks with you?
00:19:28
The villains. We talked a little bit about it,
00:19:30
but we see on social media your your amazing blog post, 5 Fast
00:19:35
Facts. But one of my favorite themes of
00:19:38
Brad Thore social media is straight out of the straight out
00:19:41
of series. Yeah.
00:19:42
That's fun. When everyone or yourself
00:19:45
reposts an article that something is ripped right from
00:19:48
the headlines, you know, right from your books into the
00:19:50
headlines. I have a list here of seven or
00:19:52
eight things that that happened. It's just unbelievable.
00:19:56
I'm reading this and the NATO summit just this morning.
00:19:59
I'm seeing all these clips of a press conference regarding NATO
00:20:02
and so much in the last election cycle turning on a president for
00:20:05
not staying true to campaign ideals.
00:20:07
When a populist president gets into office and has to actually
00:20:11
deal with the swamp. That's the VP says America First
00:20:15
in his speech as he's trying to usurp power.
00:20:19
The podcast. The Coughlin podcast was a real
00:20:23
interesting take because just look at the last election cycle,
00:20:26
the influence of Joe Rogan or Theo Von and these other new
00:20:30
media. When are we going to see you on
00:20:31
Joe Rogan I? Don't know.
00:20:34
I'm I'm not a I'm not a big Rogan guy.
00:20:38
I don't know. I don't know if I don't know if
00:20:40
I'll ever be on there. I mean, I don't have a problem
00:20:42
with them either way. I just don't know what I I don't
00:20:45
know if he's a big book guy and he likes to talk thriller books.
00:20:48
You know, I'm not, I'm not sure. I'll say one of the things that
00:20:50
I really prided myself on in this book in the first review we
00:20:54
got for it was very complimentary that you know
00:20:57
what, there's no, there isn't politics.
00:20:59
There isn't taking one side. It was right down the middle so
00:21:03
that this book can be enjoyable for everyone.
00:21:05
And that that that Coughlin podcaster guy is actually based
00:21:09
on a real really terrible radio show host from decades and
00:21:14
decades and decades ago, from like the 30s or 40s.
00:21:16
Father Coughlin, who was a real demagogue and a bad guy that
00:21:20
they ran out of the radio business who was very, very
00:21:25
damaging for American culture and things like that.
00:21:27
So that's where that last name comes from for that for that
00:21:31
guy. So that's a little Easter eggy
00:21:33
type thing that's in there. So this idea that this guy is
00:21:36
trying to rile people up, I've always been fascinated by the
00:21:40
French Revolution and the different factions, particularly
00:21:43
the Jacobins, and this desire to force through a change, to say
00:21:49
the people are too dumb to vote. So we're going to take matters
00:21:52
into our own hands and we're going to force what we want onto
00:21:55
the rest of the country. And that was the inspiration for
00:21:59
Edge of Honor, that there is this shadowy cabal.
00:22:02
They, as you said, that there's a new administration.
00:22:04
This is the youngest president since Kennedy.
00:22:06
He was very popular and he gets in and part of it, I'm going to
00:22:12
actually admit this came from Dennis Miller, the comedian.
00:22:15
OK, Do you remember? You're probably, I don't know if
00:22:17
you're too young to remember Dennis Miller that.
00:22:19
Sure, I've seen him. He was on the Bill O'Reilly, you
00:22:22
know. Yeah, he was on O'Reilly all the
00:22:24
time. So he used to have a really good
00:22:25
joke about what he thought first day in the Oval Office was like
00:22:29
for a new president. You get to hop on Air Force One,
00:22:31
you go out to Area 51, you get to get you get to give the the
00:22:36
alien that they have laying on the slab there a purple nerp.
00:22:39
And then you go back to the White House and they drop this
00:22:42
binder in your lap that shows you how serious the world is and
00:22:46
all the stuff that's your responsibility.
00:22:49
So this I was looking for a way. How do I, how do I have a
00:22:52
faction that's maneuvering on the inside to basically collapse
00:22:57
an administration and put their own administration in charge?
00:23:00
Very Jacobin. And this is what this is what I
00:23:04
thought of is to have this group want to basically weaken a new
00:23:10
young president who was elected despite, you know, October
00:23:14
surprises and all this kind of stuff, who was super, super
00:23:16
popular. And so that's where the idea
00:23:18
came from. It wasn't like a Trump thing.
00:23:20
It was a, you know, I really wanted to figure out how to
00:23:24
shoehorn in factions. And that's why the epigraph at
00:23:28
the beginning of the book I actually took from George
00:23:31
Washington's farewell address because Washington worried and
00:23:35
warned us about the dangers of factions and what a tyranny 1
00:23:40
faction oppressing other factions can become.
00:23:43
And I mean, they, it goes back and forth.
00:23:45
So today you're the oppressor, tomorrow you're the oppressed.
00:23:48
So, so that idea of a bunch of power hungry people who think,
00:23:51
you know, the voters are stupid. We know what's best for them.
00:23:54
And even though they voted for this one, one group with this
00:23:58
one political party, we're going to force our will on the rest of
00:24:01
the country. And we don't care how many
00:24:02
people die in the process. So that was the idea for Edge of
00:24:05
Honor. And that worked and that played
00:24:08
out and thank you. I mean, look at something like
00:24:11
the filibuster, right? One party gets in power and all
00:24:13
of a sudden wants to remove that as a mechanism.
00:24:16
What are you going to do with the next election cycle, or two
00:24:18
or three? Shoes on the other party.
00:24:20
Exactly. And I feel like we're seeing
00:24:22
that more and more and it's, it's not a good path to go down.
00:24:27
And it yeah, no. So from from Washington.
00:24:30
It's a great quote from Washington.
00:24:31
And I'm I, I want people to have just a really fast, fun beach
00:24:35
read. Take it to the lake, take it to
00:24:37
the pool, take it to the beach and just keep turning those
00:24:39
pages and those crisp, short cinematic chapters.
00:24:42
So that kind of stuff was was fun for me to, you know, listen,
00:24:47
you can never go wrong making politicians the bad guys.
00:24:50
You know, there isn't a big contingency out there that's
00:24:52
going to be upset by that, you know, so.
00:24:55
Sure, sure. It takes me back to the Smoking
00:24:57
Room and Lions of Lucerne opening up with yeah, with the
00:25:01
senators and the oil executives. At at Senator Fawcett's estate
00:25:06
in Lake Geneva. Yeah.
00:25:07
That they're sitting there discussing.
00:25:09
Basically, they're going to kidnap the president to push
00:25:12
through, to remove the president from the scene so that the vice
00:25:15
president will pass the deciding vote for their piece of
00:25:18
legislation. Yeah.
00:25:19
And Speaking of the politics of it all, the other quote in the
00:25:22
book that floored me was right after the VP gives the America
00:25:28
First speech, clearly wants to usurp things and Senator
00:25:33
Blackwood is sitting there and says, but will it play in
00:25:36
Peoria? And I'm just.
00:25:37
Like this is an old expression, yeah.
00:25:39
These characters are, it's that kind of BS in that political,
00:25:43
you know, political speak. You know, like I said earlier,
00:25:46
Vince Flynn's books were always the politicians, the bad guys.
00:25:49
We even said they were the secondary villains.
00:25:51
The cabal of villains here is phenomenal.
00:25:53
And and another thing you said was these crisp chapters.
00:25:56
I noticed that right from the beginning.
00:25:58
I was wondering why. Like I said, I finished this
00:26:00
book in 16 hours. I started at 10:00 PM one night,
00:26:02
didn't go to bed till 2. AMI was like, I know I don't put
00:26:06
these books down, but this one is sucking me in even more than
00:26:09
usual. And I it was the crisp, quick
00:26:12
chapters that just kept me on my feet, kept me on my toes.
00:26:15
And not to mention that opening action scene.
00:26:17
What was it? Did you get to see our post?
00:26:19
I took the book over to. Yes, I reshared it.
00:26:21
I was gonna, I've been waiting to bring that up here.
00:26:23
I thought it was fantastic. I, I don't think I'll ever be
00:26:25
invited back to the Norwegian Ambassadors residence again.
00:26:28
I've been there a couple times inside, but I probably with with
00:26:33
doing what I did in the book, you know, who knows what's going
00:26:37
to happen? I'm sure it's fine.
00:26:38
I mean, I'm sure they love, you know, having Norway feature so
00:26:41
prominently in the book. And I certainly love writing
00:26:43
about them because I think they're such a cool NATO partner
00:26:45
and that's such a cool part of the world and such a beautiful
00:26:49
campus that they have for the ambassador's residence.
00:26:51
And, and you did such a great job.
00:26:53
If, if, if no one has seen it, they need to look at what you
00:26:57
filmed actually show that intersection, because you really
00:27:00
do have the Papal embassy. And across the street cross
00:27:03
34th, you've got the Norwegian ambassador's residence and
00:27:06
behind that, the embassy down 34th.
00:27:08
And then right across the two from the 2 is the Naval
00:27:11
Observatory where the vice president's residence is.
00:27:13
And I thought, OK, this is really interesting.
00:27:16
And that's, I wanted to make these guys so bad, the bad guys
00:27:19
that they'd attack their own supporters to get their people
00:27:23
riled up, that they would sacrifice and just murder their
00:27:27
own people who are at a protest. So, yeah, that was that was
00:27:31
wild. I've, I've been at that
00:27:33
intersection so many times and I'm sitting there thinking, wow,
00:27:35
it'd be wild if a bomb went off here or somebody started
00:27:38
shooting and. And another added element is
00:27:41
how, and I don't know the protocols and the rules of
00:27:44
engagement, but you've got so much police presence there yet I
00:27:49
don't know, would the Secret Service leave the premises of
00:27:52
the the compound? You know they wouldn't, right.
00:27:55
Even if it's another embassy. Not that it's not their job.
00:27:58
It's not their job because how do you know it's not a ruse to
00:28:03
pull you out, Like. And and then they go in and they
00:28:07
attack the vice president's residence.
00:28:09
So their job is to stay there. Unfortunately, that's not their
00:28:12
job, man. So, yeah.
00:28:14
So that was the, that was the, you know, I had to make sure the
00:28:16
readers understood that because it's like, why didn't those guys
00:28:19
move? They don't care about the
00:28:20
American people kind of a thing. That's not their job, dude.
00:28:24
It's like if my babysitter hears, you know, a car alarm
00:28:27
going off 2 blocks down, she doesn't have to leave my kids,
00:28:30
you know, in front of a boiling pot of water for macaroni and
00:28:33
cheese while she goes and figures out why a car alarm is
00:28:36
going off. That's not her job.
00:28:38
No, completely. And and the fact that you
00:28:40
explained that so well, it made sense.
00:28:41
Like everything in this book, it all checked out.
00:28:43
It all kept the plot moving and I think balance, like I said
00:28:47
before, I think this book is just so well balanced, even the
00:28:49
competing storylines, because it was equally fun wondering about
00:28:54
Senator Blackwood and his mistress and being a thriller
00:28:58
reader of all these years. I was like, I know something's
00:29:01
fishy with with her. I don't know what it's going to
00:29:03
be. And then that meet in Woodley
00:29:04
Park, yet another DC neighborhood.
00:29:07
My school's right. Like I said, near politics and
00:29:09
prose. Just a few miles away from
00:29:10
Woodley Park, another neighborhood you describe just.
00:29:13
Absolutely. Yeah, Yeah.
00:29:16
And thank you. So it's fun.
00:29:17
And I mean, that apartment building that they met in
00:29:19
exists. It's a legit apartment building
00:29:22
and stuff. And yeah, it was just kind of,
00:29:24
it was just kind of fun to just all of a sudden have her handler
00:29:27
go whoop, you're leaving, you're what?
00:29:30
You're leaving, you're out, we're pulling.
00:29:32
Shocking, yeah, yeah. And that's, that was just fun.
00:29:35
And I don't outline my books. I mean, I'm very organic, very
00:29:39
instead of a plotter, I'm a pantser, so it's very much
00:29:43
seated pants. So everyday I come in, I don't
00:29:44
know what's going to happen in the story till I sit down and
00:29:47
I'm I'm working on it. So, yeah, I mean, that was a
00:29:50
that was a lot of, that was a lot of fun doing that kind of a
00:29:54
switch right at the end there like that.
00:29:56
Yeah, and that and that is kind of when the climactic action is
00:30:00
building, we're kind of racing to this finish line, whether
00:30:03
it's taking down the white nationalist.
00:30:05
I mean, you're writing about this Iron Tree group.
00:30:07
And in my mind, I'm just visualizing, you know, the
00:30:11
Shenandoah, Appalachia and, and different places and how these
00:30:14
people are so radicalized and, and the like the Patriot Front,
00:30:18
these marching groups with their khakis.
00:30:19
And I'm thinking all these guys with their tattoos, Nashville,
00:30:23
those. Guys are on our streets all the
00:30:25
effing time, these guys. So so much fun taking them down
00:30:29
watching. It was a lot of fun.
00:30:30
To take them down was fun. The background information when
00:30:34
I, when you have Carolyn and Fields discussing kind of this
00:30:37
lost boy syndrome where these people are economically
00:30:40
disadvantaged. They're not seeing the rise in
00:30:43
wages that their parents and their grandparents saw when I
00:30:45
talk about. But this being the first
00:30:47
generation that's not as upwardly mobile, all that stuff
00:30:49
is legit real stuff. And it does, it does make people
00:30:55
susceptible to certain messages. So, you know, we used to worry
00:30:59
about, we used to worry about homegrown jihadism, people that
00:31:03
would get radicalized online by foreign Muslim preachers and
00:31:07
things like that. We have another kind of problem
00:31:09
with radicalism here. It doesn't mean that every white
00:31:11
person's a neo Nazi and all that kind of stuff.
00:31:14
But the, the, the ground is very fertile in certain pockets for
00:31:19
people who are angry that don't understand what's going on.
00:31:24
All they know is that the system doesn't seem to be looking out
00:31:27
for them, doesn't care for them. So there's, there's an ability
00:31:29
there to kind of work, work people through.
00:31:32
One of my favorite things, though, and I, I couple of
00:31:34
people have commented on it from the book that I actually laughed
00:31:37
at when I was when I was writing it.
00:31:40
You know, I've, if I laugh at my own joke, and I don't often
00:31:43
laugh at my own jokes. But if I do, it's when they go
00:31:46
up to the House of that one white nationalist, that Iron
00:31:49
Tree guy who left, who they threatened if you leave, blah
00:31:52
blah blah, blah, blah. Yeah, in the.
00:31:54
Hospital. Yeah, with a son in the
00:31:55
hospital. And so they go up and Carolyn
00:31:59
sees like the Confederate flag on the door and ask feels if she
00:32:03
wants to stand in front of them and not.
00:32:05
Yeah, that was good. That was a great touch.
00:32:09
And he can say that because of how much they give each other
00:32:12
the business like I love. That that starts in chapter 5
00:32:17
when when he makes a comment about The X-Files and and she's
00:32:22
like, she goes, what, Black people can't watch The X-Files
00:32:25
and he goes, Jesus, not again. That's like his lie.
00:32:27
Not again. Yeah, exactly.
00:32:30
It's not a black white thing. You're too young.
00:32:32
But I loved when he was just like, oh, Jesus, here we go.
00:32:34
Not again. You know, it's like she's trying
00:32:37
to pin him down and she does it on purpose.
00:32:39
She needles him. She knows he's he doesn't care
00:32:42
what color her skin is, but she pretends like it's a big deal,
00:32:45
which just and it's like her, she makes fun of him with the
00:32:47
coffee orders all the time to embarrass him.
00:32:50
And it's just like he drinks frilly coffee and he just drinks
00:32:53
it black. But she announces, you know,
00:32:56
some very, very, I don't want to call him feminine coffee orders,
00:33:00
but some coffee orders that a guy that big at the FBI, you
00:33:03
would not think he drinks and he doesn't.
00:33:05
But she loves to embarrass him. You can't beat Sugar Bear though
00:33:07
when she gives him the Sugar Bear.
00:33:09
That is just the ultimate nickname.
00:33:11
That one better stick. That one, you know, that's the
00:33:13
one that sticks. Yeah.
00:33:14
And the second everyone else at the Bureau finds out about it,
00:33:17
that's. Exactly, exactly so.
00:33:22
So much fun in this book, but a big kind of element we're
00:33:25
missing here is that after Shadow of Doubt, things could
00:33:28
have gone a number of ways. Because they're married, Scott
00:33:31
and Salvi. Could have been the end of
00:33:33
Harvath. It could have just been the end.
00:33:35
They rode off into the sunset and that was it.
00:33:37
That was it. And there's so many times
00:33:40
earlier in the Series 2 where we think he's stepping away or he's
00:33:43
looking for this other part of his life to settle down.
00:33:47
And him finding Solvy was so important in the series.
00:33:50
And then I just go, but how will they operate together?
00:33:53
And I think this book really solves that problem that comes
00:33:56
up in a lot of thrillers is how do you have an apex predator be
00:33:59
vulnerable with a significant other?
00:34:01
And I think the two of them are just a match.
00:34:04
It's a perfect match. And I was wondering where you go
00:34:06
with it. And this book I think was a
00:34:07
perfect again, balance of them being on the same team.
00:34:12
Yeah, I, I, I it was fun to do that.
00:34:14
And Harvath, ever since she was introduced, has said, you know,
00:34:17
the only advantage that he has over her is that he's been at it
00:34:21
longer. So he has more experience.
00:34:23
But in his estimation, he said this repeatedly.
00:34:25
She's smarter, she's got better instincts.
00:34:28
She's more capable, more talented.
00:34:30
I mean, he's been very generous in his opinion of her.
00:34:34
Again, the only thing he's got that she doesn't is, is a lot
00:34:37
more experienced. It's because he's older than her
00:34:38
and he's been at it longer. So he has a lot of respect for
00:34:42
her abilities and everything. And I, I love the fact that
00:34:45
they're both so broken that they've had really bad personal
00:34:49
lives up to this point. So the idea of them finding each
00:34:54
other, people like it moved really fast.
00:34:55
And I'd be like, you'd be surprised.
00:34:58
People who have had had it rough, if they find something
00:35:01
that good, they grab onto both hands.
00:35:02
I've seen it happen. If they're smart enough to
00:35:05
realize they've got something great and that it might not ever
00:35:07
come along again, you grab it as hard as you can.
00:35:10
And they both did. God bless him.
00:35:12
It wasn't him chasing her or her chasing him.
00:35:14
They both realized. And they were just like, F it,
00:35:17
We'll, we'll make it work. And you know, we we go back to
00:35:22
where was it? It was the end of I'm looking at
00:35:24
my books here. That's why I'm looking off
00:35:26
camera. But I think about rising tiger
00:35:28
and how many that came after near dark.
00:35:32
So the end of the year dark or the beginning of near dark.
00:35:35
Basically the Carlton group was going, you're out of vacation
00:35:38
days, dude. You either, you know, you either
00:35:40
submit your resignation or get back here.
00:35:43
So that was always going to be a problem was kind of that
00:35:45
geographic issue between the two of them and how do they maintain
00:35:49
a relationship. And Near Dark she came on so
00:35:52
strong and then Rising Tiger and Even Dead Fall to a point.
00:35:55
I'm wondering what role does she have to play in his life?
00:35:58
And they worked through that and they had to get through that and
00:36:01
now they can be a little more settled.
00:36:03
Just like this book being a July 4th DC based book, everything
00:36:07
seems to be settling into place as it should.
00:36:10
Once we got the villains out of the way.
00:36:12
Bob McGee, not to quote an author back to himself.
00:36:14
A Bob McGee says quote life is all about the timing.
00:36:18
It's true work. So.
00:36:19
True. Bob McGee.
00:36:21
I went through the police Academy in Illinois, and Bob
00:36:26
McGee is a combination of two instructors that I had at the
00:36:31
police Academy. Very, very funny, flippant men
00:36:35
who'd seen a lot were very wise, very worldly, and it seemed the
00:36:41
worst of what mankind was capable in their capable of, in
00:36:45
their careers in law enforcement.
00:36:46
And so it's, it's funny because that character is, is often
00:36:51
times an homage to these two, two instructors that I, that I
00:36:55
liked very, very much. I was a writer at the time.
00:36:58
And there's, there's a program in Illinois where you can do it
00:37:00
like the National Guard and you can go on the weekends and
00:37:04
there's some online stuff so you don't have to sit in classroom
00:37:07
stuff all the time. But it just takes longer that if
00:37:09
you went to the Academy for six weeks, 8 weeks, whatever it may
00:37:12
be. And it was funny because about
00:37:14
1/3 of the way through, I'd find, like, with the online
00:37:19
course material, there'd be like, massive typos that would
00:37:22
actually change the question. And I get the question wrong.
00:37:25
And I'm like, no, no, no, I got the question right.
00:37:27
And eventually they Googled me. It's really funny.
00:37:29
They hadn't Googled me up to that point.
00:37:31
And so for the rest of my time at the police Academy, they
00:37:34
called me Castle. Like that TV show where the
00:37:37
writers working with the detective and his name is
00:37:40
Castle, and he wears the raid vest that says writer.
00:37:43
It doesn't even say police, It says writer.
00:37:45
And the TV show was called Castle.
00:37:47
So for the rest of my time there, they called me Castle.
00:37:50
Put your hand down, Castle. FBI windbreaker that says author
00:37:54
on the back. Author on the back.
00:37:55
Yeah, the Big Blue windbreaker with gold on it.
00:37:57
Author. Exactly.
00:37:59
Yeah, you're investigating the crime scene to write a book, not
00:38:01
to, you know, solve the. Mystery.
00:38:03
Exactly. Exactly.
00:38:06
Well, Brad, this has been a lot of fun.
00:38:08
Everyone who listened to this has already read Edge of Honor.
00:38:11
So go out there, give it a five star review, repost, get the
00:38:14
word out there that this is not only the book of the summer,
00:38:18
this is the book of 2025. So far it's my favorite and I
00:38:21
think it will withstand the next, you know, six months or
00:38:24
so. Yeah, great book.
00:38:26
Wow, I'm honored. Thank you.
00:38:27
And and listen, you guys are always, I don't know anybody who
00:38:32
pulls less punches than you guys do.
00:38:35
You're always very honest. It's all very fair.
00:38:38
But I really respect both of you guys for how much attention you
00:38:42
take, how much care you take. And I mean, it is wild for me to
00:38:47
sit and listen to your podcast about my own books, but it's,
00:38:51
it's just so great. It's like having this very
00:38:53
intelligent focus group and to hear what you like, what you
00:38:57
know, you know, what worked, what didn't necessarily work for
00:38:59
you. And you guys don't always agree.
00:39:01
I mean, right down the covers. I mean, you guys look at the
00:39:04
international covers and all that kind of stuff.
00:39:06
So just know as an as an author, I appreciate the hell out of
00:39:09
you. Hey, I'm glad to hear that, and
00:39:10
I hope you don't take it too personally because we know how
00:39:12
much you pour yourself into the books, but that's why we do it.
00:39:15
We think we see a lot online of the cheerleading, and we're glad
00:39:19
that a lot of media and interviews help spread the word
00:39:21
because ultimately we too want that as fans, as more authors
00:39:24
being supported in their craft, pushing more content so that we
00:39:27
can enjoy it. But at the same time, we think
00:39:30
when something's good, it deserves critique or it deserves
00:39:32
your full attention. And so we want to dig into it
00:39:35
instead of just, you know, post. This is the greatest book ever.
00:39:38
Be a prisoner of the moment, you know, favored one in the series
00:39:40
every year. One, you'll lose credibility and
00:39:43
and two, if it's not, it's still a very good book to enjoy.
00:39:47
And it might play its role in the series and, you know, might
00:39:50
have a a message and a story to tell.
00:39:52
It doesn't need to be the best one.
00:39:53
It might do something unique to advance the characters in our
00:39:56
opinion. And that's really important
00:39:57
overall, if you look at the series.
00:39:59
So I think this one is right up there.
00:40:02
Thank you. Loved it.
00:40:04
And the last thing I got to ask you is you did have a dark blue
00:40:06
2010 Malibu, right? That's your favorite car you
00:40:09
ever own? No, I never owned a Chevy
00:40:14
Malibu, but that I mean, that was another listen, I, you can
00:40:17
tell I had fun writing this book, you know what I mean?
00:40:20
And so that, you know, getting that car that didn't have the
00:40:23
air conditioning and you know, it was just, it was just, it
00:40:26
was, it was it's my 25th book, for crying out loud.
00:40:29
I'm like, if I can't have fun now at this point in my career,
00:40:32
still deliver. And I'm thrilled to hear how
00:40:35
much you enjoyed the book. But I, I'm able to, you know,
00:40:38
take the work seriously, but not necessarily take myself that
00:40:42
serious. And, and that, that that was the
00:40:44
key here was to have fun, which is weird if you're building an
00:40:48
amusement park and you're having fun while you're building the
00:40:51
ride. But I, I had a lot of fun
00:40:52
building this ride. So I'm glad to hear that you
00:40:54
enjoyed it. It's all that matters.
00:40:56
That's the most important thing, actually.
00:40:58
That old Chesterton quote Why can angels fly?
00:41:00
They take themselves so lightly. Oh, that's a great quote.
00:41:05
Great. I probably butchered it, but you
00:41:07
know, Chesterton's the master of that.
00:41:11
All right, Brad, great to have you on.
00:41:12
As always, appreciate everything you do and thanks for spending
00:41:15
the time on Thriller Pod. My pleasure, thanks for having
00:41:17
me. Good luck with the tour.
00:41:19
Thanks got to thank our patrons, including our special, our
00:41:23
deputy director, special deputy director, Sherry F, our special
00:41:26
operator, Jason C, our special agents, Ben, Darrell, Kevin,
00:41:30
George, Matt, Don, Peggy, Mark and Chris.
00:41:34
Subscribe or interview to all three seasons of No Limits.
00:41:37
You can find us at third pod.com or on Twitter and Instagram.
00:41:41
And as always, just let Scott be Scott.