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0:49
This is Undaunted Life, a man's podcast.
0:51
I'm your host Kyle Thompson.
0:53
Let's get into it.
0:54
All right, guys.
0:55
Today we got a special return guest of the podcast.
0:57
His name is Jack Carr, so he is a retired Navy SEAL.
1:00
He spent 20 years in Naval Special Warfare.
1:02
He transitioned from an enlisted SEAL sniper to a junior officer leading assault in sniper
1:06
teams in Iraq and Afghanistan to a platoon commander practicing counterinsurgency in
1:11
the Southern Philippines to command a special operations task unit in the most Iranian influence
1:16
section of Southern Iraq throughout the tumultuous drawdown of U.S. forces.
1:20
And then after he got out of the Navy, he became a number one New York Times best-selling
1:25
fiction writer, and he's the writer of the James Reece series, which includes the terminal
1:29
list, true believer, savage son, the devil's hand, and in the blood in his debut novel,
1:34
The Terminal List, was actually adapted for the screen starring Chris Pratt and became
1:39
the number one Amazon Prime video series that was released last summer, and that led to
1:44
an announcement earlier this year that season two of The Terminal List with Chris Pratt is
1:48
going to be made.
1:49
And they're also going to do a spinoff series about Ben Edwards, and that's the guy played
1:53
by Taylor Kitch.
1:55
And then today we're also going to be talking about his latest book in the James Reece series,
1:58
the one I got right here.
2:00
Only the dead.
2:01
This is out now.
2:02
If you're listening to this podcast live, this is the sixth novel.
2:05
It is out now.
2:06
And then most importantly, in addition to all those accolades, he's been on this podcast
2:09
twice before.
2:10
So he's been on episode 168 and episode 309.
2:13
So guys, we don't do a lot of the introductory stuff on this particular interview.
2:17
So you can go back to episode 168 and episodes 309 to really dig into that.
2:22
But on this interview, I always like to start whenever I talk with him about things that
2:25
are outside of the work he does and because he has a lot of interest and history and current
2:29
events.
2:30
And so we talked about the rise of China as a formidable adversary.
2:33
We talked about Ukraine, the war with Russia, the potential of World War three, but then
2:38
we got into The Terminal List show and kind of how that all came together, the wild amount
2:42
of success they had and how that led to the expansion of The Terminal List universe.
2:47
What type of involvement is he going to have in terms of the writing and all that moving
2:51
forward.
2:52
Then we do get into Only the Dead.
2:53
We get into that novel and here's a special spoiler for some of you guys.
2:57
What we did, and I did this way back in the day, if you've listened to my show for a
3:00
long time, you remember when I did this with Stephen Pressfield, we stopped the interview
3:04
around the 35 or 40 minute mark and then I'm going to do the normal outro and then after
3:10
the outro music ends, we're going to do a spoilers only question and answer thing about
3:16
Only the Dead.
3:17
So do not.
3:18
And I mentioned this in the interview.
3:20
Do not listen to everything we talk about after the end of the outro music.
3:25
If you have not caught up, read all six novels or listen to them.
3:29
And also more importantly, read Only the Dead.
3:32
So guys, I know this is coming out the day the book comes out.
3:35
And so if you want to listen to this first part, go and read the book or listen to the
3:38
book and then come back and get the back end.
3:40
I think you will really, really enjoy it.
3:42
But we do also spend some time talking about a new writing venture that he has.
3:46
He's getting into the world of nonfiction.
3:48
Okay, and so that's something that we can look forward to next year.
3:51
I always enjoy my time with Jack Carr.
3:53
So guys, I'm not going to keep him from you any longer.
3:54
So without further ado, let's get into it.
3:58
Jack Carr, welcome back to end on to life of man's podcast.
4:01
Thank you so much for having me.
4:02
Great to see you.
4:03
It's good to see you every year.
4:04
We're going to make this an annual thing, but this is this is your third appearance on
4:08
the show, Jack.
4:09
And now I know, especially in the last year, and we'll get to that you've got a lot of
4:13
accolades here recently.
4:15
But the third appearance on Don to life of man's podcast, I feel like that's something
4:19
that you should, you know, put in a frame and put up on the mantle.
4:21
That's a big deal, Jack.
4:22
I just might do it.
4:23
I just might do it.
4:24
What was like?
4:25
So it was the first book we talked about was a savage son or devil's hand.
4:28
So we went devil's hand in the blood and then now we're on only the dead.
4:33
So yeah, we've just kind of done one, one, a year since then.
4:36
And you're going to be expanding your writing prowess here very soon.
4:39
I'm excited to talk to you about that.
4:41
But the last time we did talk, and I don't know if we talked about this on air or off
4:44
air, but we were just talking about how crazy busy you were, how you're going to try to
4:47
get back in the gym and you keep threatening to hire an assistant.
4:51
So Jack, this is your accountability hour here.
4:54
Have you hired an assistant?
4:55
Are you have you gotten back in the gym yet?
4:58
So I'm doing 50 50 as far as this goes.
5:02
Assistant.
5:03
Yes.
5:04
Jim.
5:05
No, but it is just outside this window.
5:06
I do have one now, and it is just starting to appear from beneath the snow.
5:11
And it's got the sore necks off the grid rack, some posts in the ground.
5:17
So it's kind of rocky forest style, but it's just over here, but it was covered.
5:20
It was under snow until just last week.
5:23
And now the sun came out, so the snow is going down, and now you can see the top of it just
5:28
now.
5:29
So every day it's dropping a little bit out.
5:30
So I have like 24 different 3DR tree targets around here, different places.
5:34
And so the moose over here, you can see a little bit of the antler, then more of the antlers
5:40
than the head.
5:41
So that's what those melt fast.
5:43
So maybe at some point I'll do a pull up or a push up or something in the future.
5:46
But right now there are so many projects going on that those that fall into the bottom of
5:51
the priority list.
5:53
And that's just how it goes.
5:54
But I love the writing and love all these other things that are going on right now.
5:58
But I do have an assistant, so that has helped alleviate a lot of stress as far as scheduling
6:02
and cancellations and changes and flights and all those sort of things.
6:07
So at least that stuff is off the plate so I can focus more on writing, which is fantastic.
6:11
Well, you may see a ginger show up on your driveway at some point in the future.
6:15
Just know I come in peace.
6:17
I'm only there to work out with you early in the morning.
6:19
But we got a lot of stuff that we're going to cover in terms of the work that you do.
6:24
But I did this with you a little bit last time.
6:25
I like to give you the opportunity to kind of talk about some things that are important
6:29
to you that are happening in the world because I like to get your perspective because, you
6:33
know, the books and the TV shows, all that's great.
6:35
We're definitely going to get to it.
6:36
But I want to talk about some real world stuff as well.
6:39
And this does tie into the new book, Only the Dead, but the rise of China as a legitimate
6:44
formidable adversary.
6:46
You do talk about this somewhat in some of your some of your writing, some of the public
6:50
speaking that you do social media.
6:53
But we keep hearing about them potentially invading Taiwan, aligning with Russia and
6:58
Iran, trying to create a new currency with, you know, Russia and Brazil and, you know,
7:03
they have their own debt issues, they have a population replacement rate issue.
7:08
But you know, we seem to see that they're having good success at trying to rot away
7:13
America from the inside as opposed to attacking us, you know, from our west coast or something
7:18
like that.
7:19
But just since we're just flying over this topic, what are your thoughts as we move forward
7:23
into the future, Jack, with China being an actual adversary of ours?
7:26
Well, they don't really need to do that much.
7:28
That's the sad and disheartening part of all of it, and is that they can set back and just
7:34
watch us just spray ourselves from the inside, maybe a couple of them are even laughing about
7:39
it.
7:40
I mean, they got some serious problems, of course, over there, some of which you just mentioned.
7:44
But when they look at international adversaries, us, they can sit back and just maybe wander
7:50
and scratch their heads and say, how did this amazing, powerful country, the United States
7:55
of America, this economic powerhouse, this military might, how did this devolve into
8:02
what it is now, how did it, how did they have 20 years to plan for an exit from Afghanistan,
8:06
and how did they, how did it end up the way that it ended up, and why are they arguing
8:10
about all these things internally that just benefit a political ruling class, an established
8:18
bureaucracy, a permanent Washington, you know what, we don't need to do that much.
8:23
We can just sit back and maybe pop some popcorn and watch, and that's the saddest part of
8:28
all, because we're doing this to ourselves.
8:30
We're digging this hole for ourselves, and it's even more disheartening and even more
8:38
sad, if you think about it, in terms of what was sacrificed to give us all the opportunities
8:43
and freedoms that we've had for so long that made us such a powerful country economically
8:48
and militarily with all the freedoms that we had, and what do we do?
8:52
We squander them, and I think a lot of that is because we don't understand our history,
8:56
or we don't read our history, now we're not interested in it, and all those diversions
8:59
that I was talking about keep you from actually putting down that phone and going into the
9:04
pages of history so you can think about why, the why behind certain freedoms, or just putting
9:11
the requisite time, energy, and effort into the study of history and the study of these
9:14
issues, rather than just retweeting something that an influencer tweeted who probably also
9:20
has no idea what they're talking about, probably doesn't even care, they're just tweeting something
9:25
that someone else did, or that their party did, or whatever it might be, so it's a disservice
9:32
to future generations, and it's disrespectful to those who sacrificed everything to give
9:36
us these freedoms, so I try to be hopeful, I try to remain hopeful, but at the same time
9:41
when I do look at things realistically, and if there was a new world to go do, I'd be
9:45
packing my family on that boat and headed for it right now, unfortunately we are already
9:50
here.
9:51
Well, Jack, it's one thing to get beaten, it's another thing to beat yourself, like you
9:54
know, you talk about in tennis, there's unforced errors, those sting a lot more than your opponent
9:59
hitting a good shot down the baseline, but this is all kind of at the very least tangentially
10:05
related to what's happening in Ukraine, and so obviously we're coming into the spring,
10:10
we keep hearing about the spring offensive, the summer offensive, what Russia's going
10:13
to be doing, what Ukraine's going to be trying to be doing, what NATO's going to try to be
10:16
doing, and everyone keeps using the phrase World War three, World War three, we're very,
10:22
very close, what if Putin gets, you know, backed into a corner, what's he going to do
10:25
to lash out, and I guess give me your thoughts overall again, I know we're just barely scraping
10:31
the surf at top and talking 30,000 foot foot for you on this, but the war in Ukraine and
10:37
some people in America, they're just, you know, blank headed support of it is strange to me.
10:44
Other people just basically, I don't know, it's an odd situation, just kind of give me
10:48
your read on it right now.
10:50
Yeah, so you ask a question about it, and all of a sudden you're on Putin's side.
10:54
Right, right.
10:55
I mean, that's how social media has been weaponized, I mean, it's a tool and it's been weaponized
11:03
to divide, and that division helps permanent Washington, helps parties galvanize bases
11:10
for reelection campaigns, whatever it might be, helps, of course, the different industrial
11:18
complexes, whether it's pharmaceutical or military or tech or whatever it might be.
11:23
But it's interesting that I read an article this weekend that was written in 1997, it
11:28
was an op-ed for the New York Times and it's essentially predicted what has happened today,
11:35
but it was written in a time when it was in the moment in 1997, a current event of how
11:42
we were treating Russia and Ukraine as we came out of the Cold War and it was very interesting
11:49
to read right now.
11:50
But of course, that's not, I don't think that's really going to get republished or get too
11:53
much attention in the media, but it's a, we can't seem to find a war we don't like.
12:00
And unfortunately, this one, you could predict, I did, I put it in my second novel, True Believer,
12:06
which came out in 2019, and it's also interesting because as we write the scripts for that series
12:11
on Amazon with Chris Pratt, the endings are going to have to change a little bit now because
12:15
they actually did invade Ukraine.
12:17
So that's going to have to just change, just because that's the state of the world that
12:22
we're in right now, but it's unfortunate that there are a lot of these problems that we're
12:27
talking about, specific to Ukraine and Russia.
12:29
We had a large hand in creating at the end of the Cold War.
12:32
So it's tough to look at and also tough to look at in a way that we don't take those
12:38
lessons and apply them going forward as wisdom.
12:41
We just go to the next thing and it seems like who's this war going to benefit?
12:45
Well, you can take a guess and who's it not going to benefit?
12:48
Once again, these are not hard questions.
12:53
It's tough.
12:54
I did weave it into the novel here.
12:55
There's a memo that was declassified for a short amount of time that had gone through
13:00
a multi-year review process and it was a memo, the Perutes memo.
13:04
It's in the back of my book.
13:05
I put in the acknowledgments.
13:06
I've woven into the fabric of this story and then it got reclassified.
13:10
I might know a guy with a copy, just because it was longer in the public domain for a while,
13:16
but it sheds light on the Russia-Ukraine dynamic, the Russian mindset would be very helpful to
13:22
us right now.
13:23
But of course, why is it being declassified again?
13:27
I don't know.
13:28
We can ask the questions though.
13:30
Yeah.
13:31
There's quite a bit of power, power brokering going on behind the scenes, but it's kind
13:34
of what you've alluded to when you talk about constantly on your Instagram, it's like we
13:37
just don't know our history.
13:38
We're so unbelievably ignorant and we're ignorant of the history of a month ago, much
13:43
less decades ago of things that are pointing to today, but one thing that you just brought
13:46
up there that we obviously need to talk about, we need to talk about the terminal list on
13:49
Amazon because last time you were on the show, Jack, this was May of last year, which was
13:54
actually before the release of the terminal list on Amazon Prime Video in July.
14:00
I just got to be honest, I was nervous about watching the show because I was like, "It's
14:04
going to be impossible to mess this up, so they're probably going to find a way to mess
14:07
this up."
14:08
I was like, "I kept watching the social media and I'm like, "Okay, this looks good."
14:12
And then in the first episode, I was like, "You know, the first half first episode."
14:14
I was like, "I don't really know if I buy Chris Pratt as this character," but then at
14:17
the end of the first episode, it's like, "I can't believe they actually showed that.
14:20
No spoiler alerts.
14:21
Anyone that hasn't read the book or seen the show."
14:24
But it was amazing.
14:26
It was one of the most impressive visual storytelling things that I've ever seen, and I'm not just
14:31
blowing smoke.
14:32
Like, for me, it's up there with like a Breaking Bad or Rome, that was a show that HBO did
14:36
back in the day.
14:37
This is really high quality shows that told a larger narrative story, overwhelmingly successful.
14:43
The number one streaming series on Amazon Prime Video almost immediately, it sent you
14:48
really to the stratosphere.
14:49
I was nervous that we weren't going to be friends anymore because I was like, "This
14:52
guy's going to be on a rocket ship to the moon."
14:54
Just I mean, I don't really even have a question, Jack.
14:56
I was so happy for you.
14:58
I was so happy for everybody that worked on the show.
15:00
It was absolutely top notch.
15:02
Take me through last summer and what that was like for you.
15:05
Yeah, it's been amazing to be a part of this from the very beginning, and usually once
15:09
an author options something, they're pushed to the side.
15:12
They don't want the author involved at all because things are going to change.
15:15
You're telling a story through a visual medium now.
15:17
Very different.
15:18
In writing, there's no budgets.
15:21
I can put any set of set piece that I want in there with no consideration towards budgets
15:26
or travel, where none of that, well, in the script, guess what?
15:31
If you pick this thing up and move it to CountryX, or let's say the Eiffel Tower is a backdrop,
15:37
or you need a Golden Gate Bridge to explode, or you can't do that often time on television
15:45
just because of budgets or how the story flows over an eight-hour period.
15:49
That's how long you have to tell the story and how this story arc.
15:53
So it's interesting to be involved in it from the very beginning, and that's due to Chris
15:56
Pratt and Antoine Fuqua wanting me involved from the very beginning.
16:00
They found the showrunner, David Gillio, and I talked to him in December of 2019 for the
16:04
first time, and we've talked every day since, including today.
16:07
He's out scouting locations.
16:08
We have to go pens down on this next series, or we went pens down on it last night.
16:13
I'm not part of the writer's guild, but the writer's guild of America went on strike
16:16
at midnight last night, so that just means that no more working on scripts, so I'll just
16:21
shift focus back to book seven, adapt.
16:24
I think I'll be part of the guild after this one because I'm writing the finale of this
16:29
spin-off series.
16:30
So I think I'll be part of the guild after that, but I'm not right now.
16:34
So to be part of that, so from Chris Pratt optioning it, finding the showrunner, to talking
16:38
to him, to have him bring me in so early, and to write that first episode and maybe just
16:43
a sponge on that, advising on that, and putting the writer's room together, advising on all
16:47
of those scripts, and then taking that and moving into production and being on set and
16:52
having a cameo, and then going through the post-production process and the editing process,
16:57
and then move into the marketing side of the house, and dropping it on July 1st of last
17:01
year, and then how that follow-up works.
17:04
So being part of all of that as an author, people tell me it's fairly unique, it's my
17:08
only experience in it, obviously, up to this point, but most authors tell me that they
17:13
don't have that same experience.
17:15
But it was amazing.
17:16
It came out a couple hours early on Amazon, and so I guess it really came out June 30th
17:23
or whatever it was.
17:24
But anyway, July 1st was the day, and it was just incredible to see it on screens, and
17:30
to have it get the audience reaction that it did, and brought tomatoes and have it be
17:35
so high up there, it has just been fantastic.
17:38
So I feel just fortunate, grateful, thrilled, I'm just thrilled that it got made.
17:44
And now that being part of that whole process, I am shocked that anything that's made in
17:49
Hollywood, and too that anything that's made in Hollywood, because there are so many opportunities
17:54
for things to go off the rails, and there are more opportunities for things to go off
17:58
the rails than there are to improve, I think, just because there's so many people, so much
18:02
going on, it's kind of chaotic.
18:06
But all those things have to come together, and I got so fortunate with that core team,
18:10
with Chris, with Antoine, with David DiGillio, with my buddy Jared Shaw from the SEAL teams
18:14
in there, Max Adams, former Army Ranger in there as well, Raymond Doza, buddy from
18:19
the SEAL teams doing the technical advising.
18:21
We just had such a solid crew in there, Kenny Sheared, who, buddy from the SEAL teams also,
18:26
who was one of the SEALs in that first episode, who's now writing on this spin-off series
18:30
as well.
18:31
So we just have this amazing team, and from the get-go, Chris was always about making
18:35
this thing for that person who has gone downrange to rack in Afghanistan, so when they put their
18:40
feet up on the coffee table instead of the couch at the end of the day, and crack open
18:43
a beer to watch this, they at least know we put in the effort to capture the mindset of
18:47
a modern warrior.
18:48
We made this for them.
18:49
Didn't make it for critics.
18:50
Didn't make it for Hollywood.
18:51
Didn't make it for anybody else except that person that went downrange, and so Chris brings
18:54
that up in every conversation that we have, and so is Antoine on that authenticity piece.
19:00
It has to be authentic to Antoine, and if it's not, then boom, it's out.
19:04
So I guess got so lucky with that team, and then also those guys on set, Antoine's like
19:08
the commanding officer up here.
19:10
Chris is like the troop commander, platoon commander down here, setting the tone tactically,
19:15
Antoine's setting it strategically, and they just bring this energy to set, this positive
19:20
attitude, encouraging this mentorship type of an atmosphere that they've created for
19:24
everybody on set, whether it's like hair and makeup person, or it's a stunt coordinator,
19:28
or the mobility person, or a teamster, whatever, whoever.
19:32
Everybody wants to bring their A game because those guys set that tone at that level, so
19:37
people are excited to get to work every day and just crush it, so that was really, really
19:41
cool to see.
19:42
One of the cool things as well is I follow a lot of guys that have been downrange on social
19:47
media, and those guys are quick to point out when people make, you know, when cops make
19:51
tactical mistakes in the field, or when someone makes a mistake when they're at their range,
19:55
and I was expecting a lot of nitpicking to happen with the show, because I didn't go
19:59
downrange.
20:00
I don't really, if y'all had made a mistake, it wouldn't, I wouldn't have known, and they
20:03
didn't have anything to say either except for good things, and so I think that that was
20:06
kind of like a rubber stamp for you guys, that this was, this was really, really done
20:09
well.
20:10
We ended up a few times, this success has led to the expansion of the terminal list James
20:16
Reese Jack Carr universe, and so fans of the series were made, were led in on huge news
20:21
earlier this year, that prime video confirmed season two of the terminal list starring Chris
20:26
Pratt.
20:27
And to be honest, I don't think any of us were really surprised by that, but what was
20:30
kind of shocking was that they also announced a new prequel series, the spin off that you
20:34
talked about with Taylor Kitch, who portrayed Ben Edwards in the first season, the terminal
20:38
list.
20:39
So give us a little bit of a behind the scenes look into the negotiations, because you look
20:45
like you had a great time, Antoine did, Chris Pratt did, Amazon, obviously enjoys whenever
20:51
a lot of people are watching, but it couldn't have just been the easiest negotiation to be
20:55
like, okay, let's, let's do another season, is it going to be terminalist season two,
21:00
or is it actually going to be true believer in like, just give me a sense of what all
21:04
that looked like.
21:05
Yeah.
21:06
So it's interesting, it's my first time down that path, so I was having a great time once
21:10
again, if there wasn't a second season and there wasn't a spin off, I'm still, I'm still
21:13
thrilled that that got something made because I've wanted to do this since I was a little
21:16
kid, serve my country uniform as a seal.
21:19
And it was right thrillers after that, just like this.
21:21
And it was to be a number one New York Times bestseller and it was to get something made
21:24
into a movie or a TV show.
21:25
So all those things like happened and I am just thrilled beyond belief.
21:30
So even if nothing ever went beyond that, I'm good.
21:34
So as far as how that came about, when you're dealing with a, you know, a list star like
21:39
Chris and a director like Antoine, things take a little time and negotiations.
21:43
I think that's just how it, how it goes.
21:46
But I also know Chris's schedule.
21:49
So as I was, as Sherman Lewis was getting ready to drop, I'm thinking, of course, of
21:54
other books, I want to write and all these other things that I want to, what I do with
21:57
the series, what I want to do with James Reese, what I do want to do with other characters
22:01
in his family line, some other people out there as well, they're in the books, the Hastings
22:06
family.
22:07
Like I'm thinking about all these things and when it's appropriate to dive into these
22:10
things a little more.
22:12
So I thought, you know what, spin off.
22:14
And I came back from, I think I came back from the weekend of the premiere.
22:18
So we went out to the, did the premiere, like in mid June or late June, and I came back
22:23
from that weekend in L.A. and I just sat down for some reason, the kids were out of the
22:27
house and my wife was gone.
22:29
And so I just sat down and I wrote out a, a spin off series.
22:35
Every episode, themes, the whole, the whole deal, I just went all day and just wrote this
22:39
whole thing out.
22:41
And, and then Chris called and was like, Hey, I have this idea for a spin off.
22:47
What do you think?
22:48
And it was different than mine.
22:50
But I was like, Oh, yes.
22:52
And his made much more sense than mine because now we have this fan favorite character Ben
22:56
Edwards, people are a little curious about why he, I guess, if you have to say spoiler
23:01
or not, like how, yeah, how we terms that and like that, that side of it.
23:07
And, and people love Taylor and Taylor is one of the characters or Ben Edwards is one
23:11
of the characters that I think was much more fully developed and in a much better way than
23:15
I did in the book.
23:17
And what Taylor brought to that role also just elevated it to another level.
23:22
And so that's so, which completely makes sense to go with a, a Taylor hitch, Ben Edwards,
23:27
spin off prequel series, answer some questions and do something also.
23:32
So no one, this is what I love about it also, because there's not a book of it.
23:36
Someone who loves, who, who's a fan of the books doesn't sit there and be like, Okay,
23:41
this was different.
23:43
This was different.
23:44
This was different.
23:45
I hate it.
23:46
So that's not even an option.
23:47
So it's kind of cool to create something at old plot.
23:49
So it's a, it's a series created by me in the show runner David Agilio and, and it's,
23:54
it's awesome.
23:55
It's, I guess what I can say is it's a more of an international espionage thriller rather
23:59
than terminalist being revenge thriller, conspiracy thriller, action thriller.
24:03
This takes things to another, another level and is, is, yeah, I think that's probably
24:08
the best way to describe it.
24:10
But yeah, I'm, I'm fired up.
24:11
These scripts are looking awesome.
24:14
Well, we're fired up as well here on this end.
24:17
And as you mentioned a little bit earlier, you've predicted these things were going to
24:21
happen that, you know, 20 years in the SEAL teams that you were going to be with Simon
24:24
and Schuster.
24:25
You predicted, you know, your editor that you'd be number one New York times that would
24:28
be made into a television show or, or a movie or something like that.
24:32
So I'm going to make you predict something now, which is how much bigger will the terminal
24:39
list slash, you know, Jack Carr universe get because Chris Pratt is one of the most in-demand
24:45
superstars on the planet, he's one of the most famous actors on the planet right now.
24:48
He's the A list of A lists.
24:51
We've got six books out.
24:52
Now we're going to get to the book here in the news book here in just a second.
24:54
Is that six seasons of Chris Pratt?
24:56
Are we just going to keep going with this?
24:58
How much longer physically can he be the James Reese character, which is an incredibly
25:03
physically demanding challenge?
25:05
Give me an idea of where the expanse of this universe goes and dad gummy, you're going
25:09
to be specific.
25:10
Okay.
25:11
Well, I have a strategic plan.
25:12
Actually, I print it out every time I make a change to it, it's on my board over there.
25:17
And I think the best way to do it is let Chris announce those, those things.
25:22
So you never know, you know, you have great plans and things in the works and something
25:27
derails and that's just how life, life goes.
25:29
So you never know, but I guess I could say that there are, there are, are some really
25:36
interesting and cool ideas that, that we want to explore, I think it's probably the best
25:41
way to.
25:42
Fair enough.
25:43
Well, do you have any idea when season two of the term, is it going to be called the
25:46
terminal as season two?
25:47
Is it going to be called true believer?
25:49
Do we have an idea of when that could potentially hit the airwaves as it were?
25:52
Yep.
25:53
So it's, so the spin off is what we're doing first.
25:57
So we're working on those scripts right now.
25:58
Well, I'm not right now because it's as a few hours ago, there's a better strike.
26:02
But however long that takes, the last one, I think was a hundred days.
26:05
So I'm not sure how that'll impact filming.
26:07
Yeah, we'll see, but plan is to do that first and then roll into true believer and write
26:14
those scripts and then roll into filming that.
26:17
So I don't want to get too specific, especially because writer strike and who knows how that's
26:21
going to act, whether that's a day or 30 days or 100 days or 150 days, you know, who knows
26:26
how that impacts things.
26:27
But that's what's been announced thus far and it's, if the terminal is true believer,
26:31
which is season two of the terminal list and then the spin off series is a yet to be titled
26:38
some great titles in that that we're working on right now.
26:42
Okay.
26:43
Very good.
26:44
Well, let's go ahead and make Simon and Schuster happy.
26:45
Let's talk about the new novel only the dead.
26:47
This is the sixth novel in the James Reese series.
26:50
Like, yeah, you've got your copy there.
26:52
Thank you so much for getting me a fancy copy, which by the way, what is a guy got to do
26:55
to get the fancy fancy copy because I got the fancy copy, but mine didn't come in like,
26:59
you know, the special packaging with like a grenade and like a special watch and all
27:03
that.
27:04
But we can talk about that off air me getting on the special list.
27:06
But this is the sixth novel in the James Reese series.
27:09
They literally keep getting better and no, no blown smoke.
27:11
I think this is the longest of the six, but I love, okay, it is the longest.
27:16
This is my favorite cover.
27:18
So far, I think the cover was absolutely fantastic, especially if you read the story,
27:22
which by the way, guys, as I mentioned in the introduction, stick around after the interview,
27:27
if you've read the novel, we'll get some into some spoilers.
27:30
So for those that have not read the novel yet, maybe they're not caught up with all
27:33
six novels, give us a 30,000 foot view of what fans can expect from only the dead.
27:39
Well, it's certainly the longest.
27:41
It's the also the most brutal.
27:42
Um, and you know, when you do these things, I kind of thought I had a good idea of once
27:47
I have that title, I have that theme, I do a one page executive summary.
27:52
And then I read that and I say, is this worth the next year and a half of my life?
27:55
And if that answers, yes, then I read it again and say, if somebody was walking by like Hudson
27:59
news in the airport and we're to pick this up and read a little bit about it here, would
28:02
they be willing to invest time that they're never going to get back into this story?
28:07
If the answer is yes or probably, then, then I'm all in.
28:11
And then I turn, turn that into the outline and the outline, I'm like, okay, this will
28:16
probably be about, this is my sixth time doing it.
28:18
So about 115,000 words, 118,000 words.
28:22
And I blew right past 115, passed 118, passed 120, blew past 125, blew past 130, blew past
28:29
135.
28:30
So this is about 139,000 words in this one.
28:32
So it is the longest to date, but that's just how long it took to tell the story.
28:37
So I don't get to, you know, 100,000 words or 105,000 words and start saying, Oh, time
28:42
to wrap this up.
28:43
It's, uh, that's about it.
28:45
Uh, that's what these books should be.
28:46
I just, it's however long it takes to tell the story.
28:49
And I'm not overly concerned with my deadline.
28:52
Um, maybe we should edit that out for Simon and Schuster, but I'm not really concerned
28:55
with that.
28:56
I'm only concerned about the best story possible.
29:00
And however long that takes, that's how long it takes.
29:02
And this one took 139,000 words.
29:04
So, um, and, uh, and I, yeah, the first review came out a couple of days ago and I could
29:09
not be, cause you never know, it's like, it's art, it's subjective.
29:13
It's like having this painting or this sculpture up here and then you have it covered with
29:18
that tarp or something and, uh, you bring a bunch of people around and then you pull
29:21
it off and then you hear these gasps of horror from the audience.
29:24
Um, so that's always a possibility.
29:26
Uh, but first review from somebody from the real books by, uh, out there was, oh, I mean,
29:33
amazing.
29:34
So I was like, a little bit of a relief there.
29:35
And then a few more have come in.
29:36
There's like four or five of them out there now and, uh, all of them have said that it's
29:40
the best one yet, which is always my goal, uh, to do it better than the last time and
29:44
make the next sentence better than the sentence before, uh, to move the genre forward, even
29:47
if it's only by a degree, um, but to always get better.
29:51
And that's what I owe, uh, the audience, the readership because once again, they're investing
29:55
that time with me.
29:56
They're never going to get back.
29:57
So, um, so all my energy and effort goes into making it the best product it can possibly
30:02
be.
30:03
And, uh, yeah, I can, I'm pretty, I'm pretty excited about it.
30:06
Well, uh, what I've done with your novels is I, this is just kind of the way that I do
30:10
it.
30:11
I compare everything to Savage Sun because Savage Sun to me, that was like, I enjoyed
30:16
the term list, I enjoyed True Believer, but Savage Sun for whatever reason spoke to me
30:19
in a different way.
30:20
And so I compare the subsequent novels to Savage Sun and it, it, you know, not necessarily
30:26
the storyline, but like, Hey, how did it make me feel?
30:29
How did it yank me through the narrative is kind of the way that I do it.
30:33
But in the preface of only the dead, you talk about how James Reese is not a superhero and
30:38
you use that word specifically superhero.
30:41
Now, are you making, did you make that statement in the preface based on critiques?
30:46
People were leveling towards some of the things that your lead character had been doing and
30:50
the last several novels.
30:51
Cause I even remember last year asking you about that, like, Hey, are you concerned that
30:55
James Reese is maybe like, he knows too much than what could even be reasonable.
31:00
Cause that's why the, these books are have been so good to me is cause it's like, you
31:03
can believe that somebody could do all of this.
31:06
The, the, the show, you believe that Chris Pratt as James Reese could do all the things
31:10
that he was doing.
31:11
I, I, I just keyed in on that word and perhaps I'm reading into it a little bit too much.
31:15
Were you sending a message there in the preface?
31:18
I'm not necessarily a message and I don't give too much attention to, uh, uh, comments
31:25
on social media and you know, they, they, they sting, of course, uh, when someone hates
31:29
it or just wants to be mean or whatever, you know, how it goes, but I don't change anything
31:34
because of it.
31:35
I'm writing to write the best story.
31:36
I possibly can.
31:37
I'm not looking at reviews and saying, Oh, they said the last one was too short or this
31:40
one's too long or, uh, oh, James Reese is a superhero now.
31:44
Like I, I don't, I've never even paid attention to that.
31:46
It didn't even, if there's out there, I never didn't register with me.
31:49
Um, so I don't write based off that stuff.
31:52
Yeah.
31:53
I write for the story.
31:54
I write for those characters.
31:55
Um, I write to me to be the best storyteller and the best author I can possibly be.
32:00
And, uh, so I'm not going through, you know, if I go through my own, it's on reviews.
32:03
I'm pulling out negative ones to read on my podcast for fun, uh, just to kind of make
32:06
fun of them, uh, and turn them into a positive turn negatives into a positive because somebody
32:10
who says too violent, uh, too much gear, too much weapon description, someone else is
32:15
like, Oh, I love that stuff.
32:16
That's my book.
32:17
So I think the negative reviews actually help.
32:19
So that's the only credence I give to the negative reviews is, uh, is that sort of a
32:23
thing.
32:24
And then all my bandwidth just goes into improving, uh, as an author to improving, uh, my craft.
32:29
Uh, at my craft.
32:30
So, um, so yeah, and I would use that, that, that sentence in there just because it was,
32:34
uh, on my mind that day, um, and it just seemed to seem to fit.
32:39
Um, she, he's, he's human, um, and, uh, and so yeah, it just made it in there because
32:45
of that.
32:46
Well, one thing that I noticed as I was reading through, and I'm not the best nonfiction or
32:51
the best fiction reader and you know, that'll lead into my next question.
32:55
And so I struggle with remembering characters and remembering storylines, especially if
32:59
it's been a year or maybe refer to something that happened in true believer and it's like
33:03
crap.
33:04
Like what, what, this is significant, but I don't know why.
33:06
And so one thing that I thought was interesting about only the dead is that we hear more of
33:11
the internal dialogue of James Reese, because you're the chapters are kind of written from
33:16
James Reese's perspective, a lot of them kind of, but you were hearing more of the negative,
33:21
the darker sides of his internal dialogue, which I found to be very, very interesting
33:25
because I have rancid internal dialogue like my, my internal dialogue.
33:29
If it was on the podcast, people would think, Oh, this guy's absolutely, absolutely insane.
33:34
So I think that you are with every one of these, I'm honestly telling you, I feel like
33:38
you're sharpening the sword a little bit better.
33:40
This is going to become the thriller series that you have to read.
33:43
And this is going to be one of those things and you know, I'm not blown smoke, but 30,
33:47
40 years from now, however many thrillers we are in at that point, people are going to
33:51
talk about you in the same way as like a Stephen King or a Dean Coons or a Tom Clancy or one
33:56
of these guys that is just no matter what they do, they're nailing it.
34:00
So don't mess it up, Jack.
34:01
I gave you this great compliment, so book seven's terrible, you know, I'll tell you
34:05
about it.
34:06
So, but they're thinking my whole time.
34:07
Oh my gosh, just take a band with, I just wanted to edify you as you go into the writing
34:11
for, for the seventh book, but actually a lot of people also compare all the books to savage
34:19
son.
34:20
I think that's not uncommon.
34:21
It's a lot of people's favorite.
34:23
I think if I did, if you, if like my favorite's always the one I just finished because I put
34:27
so much into it, but I would say if I was my informal polling just based on comments
34:32
or whatever else, I think savage son is probably people's favorite and in the blood, the last
34:37
one, like those two are probably tied for fan favorites.
34:42
But so I don't think it's unnatural to compare, compare the other ones to savage son.
34:46
Well, it's a subject matter.
34:48
It's like, okay, hunting of humans and hunter-hunted dynamic and then the sniper dynamic, like,
34:53
who doesn't like that?
34:54
Like, if you don't like those two subject matters, you don't like thrillers, so you're
34:58
not going to be reading them anyway.
34:59
And so I think you're just here with, yeah, I wanted to start with, when I started, I
35:04
wrote 6, 7, 8, 9 ideas down and I wanted to start with savage son, knew that the characters
35:08
weren't developed enough to explore that dark side of man through the dynamic of hunter and
35:12
hunted.
35:13
So I knew terminalist was the one that was the hardest hitting out of the gate.
35:16
That's the one I needed to introduce the characters in.
35:18
And then even at the end of that, I knew it still wasn't ready for savage son had to
35:22
go through true believer in this journey of redemption, of violent redemption, of finding
35:26
that next mission and purpose in life.
35:28
So then after that one, then it was time and I wanted to write that savage son as a tribute
35:33
to most dangerous game, which is a short story that I read back in sixth grade.
35:37
It's a 19, early 1920s written by Richard Connell.
35:42
And back in the sixth grade, I said one day I'll write a story, a novel that pays tribute
35:46
to this short story and savage son was that, was that, was that book?
35:50
Well, and that's the thing, you know, I've told this before, we have a book list on our
35:53
website, the 100 books every modern Christian man should read list.
35:57
And so putting savage son on there would, would it serve me?
36:00
But people have to start with the terminalist because it's the foundation for everything.
36:04
And man, I loved everything that you talked about when you were in Africa and the second
36:08
novel, like it just, you could literally feel like you were in the bush, like, you know,
36:13
with the family and with them while they were doing the stuff that they were doing.
36:15
And so it seems like to a degree, you wouldn't admit this out loud because you're humble,
36:20
but you've mastered the art of fiction.
36:22
But you announced here recently that you're going to be venturing into the world of nonfiction.
36:27
So there's a book coming out of fall of 2024 is what it looks like, called targeted the
36:32
1983 Beirut barracks bombing.
36:35
And so this is going to be your first foray into the nonfiction route.
36:40
You're going to co-author that with a Pulitzer prize finalist James M. Scott.
36:45
So I'm just curious why, boom, there you go.
36:48
We got a book rampage right there by James M. Scott, but just talk to me about that.
36:52
Like you're leaving the world where you're familiar and known and famous and awesome.
36:56
And that's fiction.
36:58
You're going into the nonfiction world.
37:00
Tell me about the process of working with a co-author.
37:03
Tell me about how this is going to, you know, affect your writing schedule for the upcoming
37:07
Amazon series for the continuation of the James Reese novels, you know, so why are you
37:11
doing this?
37:12
Why are you trying to rock the boat?
37:13
Maybe I just don't want to work out anymore.
37:15
I had a long run of, yeah, that's what it is.
37:18
That's exactly one excuse, just adding more to the place, so I don't have to do anymore.
37:23
That's actually might be quite possible.
37:25
But history, I've always been a student of history my entire life.
37:28
I weave a lot of history into the novels.
37:30
I talk about different historical, primarily terrorist events on my social media accounts.
37:36
They're not forgotten.
37:38
And I knew I always wanted to go into the nonfiction space, but not write about anything
37:41
that I did.
37:42
People did so much more than I ever could have hoped to have done in the SEAL teams.
37:45
So I didn't really want to write about any of that.
37:47
And I always knew that if I went into the nonfiction space, it would be from a historical
37:51
perspective on something.
37:53
And that something is very clear that it is going to be terrorist events.
37:57
I've been studying those since I was a little kid.
37:59
They're very impactful to me growing up everything from 1979 Iranian hostage crisis.
38:04
Those are some of my first memories to the 1983 Bay River Barracks bombing, TWA 847, a
38:09
killy little old Pan Am 103 multiple attacks at night clubs and cafes in Europe, primarily
38:15
throughout the 80s, because that was a formative time in my youth.
38:19
And it's made sense to start with the 1983 Bay River Barracks bombing, because there hasn't
38:23
been that seminal work done on it yet.
38:25
There's not that seminal documentary out there on it yet.
38:29
There's newly declassified material from the Reagan White House that talks about the decision
38:32
making process, what was happening in the Oval Office, who was advocating for those Marines
38:36
to go ashore and who was advocating for them to stay on a ship, on an amphib ship in the
38:41
Med.
38:42
And then it also has a beginning, middle, and an end.
38:45
It has the embassy bombing in April of 1983 that kind of leads into the summer and then
38:53
to October when we have the actual bombing of the Bay River Barracks, where Marines lost
38:57
more people in one day than they lost Sensei Wojima in one day.
39:01
And then there's a little finality to it, meaning the mastermind or the planner of the
39:07
attack is killed in Damascus Syria in 2008, so over 20 years after the attack.
39:13
And he was assassinated by probably a joint operation with two different intelligence agencies
39:20
that have never acclaimed responsibility for it.
39:23
So there's a little investigative journalist side to it as well.
39:26
So it has all the elements of an amazing story, and it's not just rehashing something that's
39:30
already been done, it's something I want to keep alive, I don't want people to forget.
39:34
And it's also something that has loomed over US foreign policy ever since through today.
39:39
So it made sense to start with that one.
39:42
And James Scott is the only person I wanted to work with on this.
39:45
He's a fantastic author, has five books out there, most of them on World War II, Pulitzer
39:49
Prize finalist, historian, and such a good guy, just absolutely amazing.
39:55
So we've teamed up on it, and he's just incredible.
39:59
So my original idea was to do one a year in the fall, and have, so the targeted series
40:05
will be nonfiction every fall.
40:08
As soon as we started doing this research, it became very apparent that it was going to
40:11
take, we're going to do it right, it was going to take longer than a year.
40:15
So I called my publisher back and said, Hey, I know the contract says every year, but says
40:20
it's going to be an two year thing, and they're said, fine.
40:24
So yeah, it's, I'm learning a ton, and I'm sure some of the things that I learned doing
40:28
during this will make their way into future novels.
40:31
It's just naturally how things go, but yeah, that's a year and a half out.
40:36
So yeah, I'm really excited about that.
40:39
It looks like it's going to be a hand in glove thing with you and your publisher, you and
40:43
the co-author.
40:44
And I mean, I'm very excited about it.
40:45
And we'll certainly have you want to talk about that and get that to our audience, but
40:48
I'm going to go ahead and close out this portion of the interview and then go ahead and go
40:51
into our spoilers for all right, right.
40:55
But before we get there, that's all for this part of the interview.
40:58
Is there anything else you want to get off your chest before we sign off and then come
41:01
back on?
41:02
No, but you mentioned the darker side of this novel and it's both literal and figurative.
41:08
So it just, you know, he's a people over the last one.
41:10
They know kind of where he's headed and where he's going to be found in the beginning of
41:14
this novel.
41:15
And it's in a very dark place.
41:17
So that's, it just, there was no other way really to deal with that than to deal with
41:22
the dark side.
41:24
It hits you right in the mouth from the very first words of the very first chapter.
41:28
So we'll get into that here in just a second.
41:29
Again, guys, we'll do our normal intro or normal outro and then we'll come back to a
41:32
jack car.
41:33
Thank you for coming back on a Daunton life of man's podcast.
41:36
Thank you so much for having me sincerely appreciate it.
41:39
There you go guys.
41:40
I hope you enjoyed the return appearance of jack car on the podcast, but before we let
41:43
you go, we are going to do a quick resilience boost.
41:45
Add on Daunton life.
41:46
Our mission is equipping men to push back darkness with content that for just spiritual, mental
41:50
and physical resilience.
41:51
So the links I've got for you today.
41:52
I've got a link to Jack's website so you can check out his, his mailing list.
41:55
You can check out his reading list.
41:57
You can check out what all kinds of stuff he's got great swag on there.
41:59
You can get information on the books.
42:01
I do have an Amazon link to his sixth book, Only the Dead, a Thriller.
42:05
So you guys can check that out there.
42:06
And then all I've also got links there to our, to his last two appearances on this show.
42:10
So guys, those are great interviews.
42:12
You should definitely check those out as well.
42:13
Thank you guys for listening to this episode.
42:15
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I'm your host, Kyle Thompson.
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43:17
Jack, we are at the bonus segment again.
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This is the spoiler alert.
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This is now the 15 time I've announced it guys.
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If you have not read only the dead, you're a moron.
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If you keep listening, you're going to ruin your life, but in only the dead, we finally
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get to see the contents of Reese's father's safety deposit box, which leads to the main
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plot of the book, because in only the dead, I would say that the main plot is that there's
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an international cabal or group of power brokers that are trying to reset the global power
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structure away from the West, more specifically the US, and this group comprised of Russians
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and others, they attempt unsuccessfully because of Reese and his crew to try to blow up a
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nuclear bomb off the coast of Israel.
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We're launching right in here.
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We're launching.
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I know I'm making you uncomfortable here.
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But again, I gave I gave the caveat, but then they wanted the evidence to suggest that Israel
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was attacked by Iran.
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Israel would obviously go to war with Iran.
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The United States would be pulled into another war in the Middle East by coming to Israel's
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aid against Iran.
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This would open the door for Russia to fully take over Ukraine and for China to invade
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and take over Taiwan, thus changing the power dynamic of the world.
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So I would assume that that that's a decent summary of kind of that main part of the book.
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But I guess my question to you is, you know, that you give the group the title the collective.
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This is a group of power brokers that don't see country nearly as much as they see capital
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P power.
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Do you think a group like the collective exists?
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And that's why you were able to pull that into the narrative of the novel.
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Do you think that that type of a reset of the world power structure is is possible or likely
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or inevitable?
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And that's why you kind of brought it to the fore here?
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Yes, I don't know.
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And I called it the collective for a reason, meaning it's kind of ambiguous.
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It's not like there's a membership roster.
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There are people that are associated with it at different levels and some not even knowing
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exactly what they're what they're connected or what they're connected to.
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So it was intentional to use kind of that kind of a terminology and could the collective
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exist?
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Well, there are things are certainly becoming more global and have been for the past 30
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years, but not just in a sense that it's less expensive to manufacture this park for
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an American company, let's say in Mexico or in Thailand or whatever it might be.
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Now it's the allegiances that are shifting.
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So that's the difference, it's not just, I think at the beginning, a lot of those companies
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that started manufacturing overseas, they did so for purely economic reasons.
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But as these things have grown, they have also become multinational corporations that
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are necessarily loyal to the company or the country that gave them the opportunity to
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build these amazing businesses, specifically tech today.
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And so I wanted to explore, explore that piece.
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So now you're beholden in some cases to shareholders and in some cases not, but it's, it seems
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like that loyalty to country is trumped by loyalty to shareholders responsibility to
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shareholders who in many cases are not US citizens.
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So now you are loyal to this, this group that is does not have the best interests of
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the country at heart and a lot of cases actually might have the exact opposite as their goal.
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But they've infiltrated and I keep going back to, I think I put it in this book or maybe
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it was the last one, a couple sentences about during the Cold War of Russian leadership
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and intelligence service leadership had had a crystal ball and could see us today.
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They probably wouldn't have, wouldn't have worked so hard to sort us back then.
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All they needed was patience, they just needed a sniper's patience to wait.
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So not much shocks me these days, I guess that's the best way to put it.
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Well, so I guess that actually really leads to my next question because what I sense and
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again, I told you, I suck at fiction.
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So if I'm drawing lines that aren't there, then just call me on, call me stupid.
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But in only the dead, you can sense a growing cynicism with Reese as it pertains to the
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current state of the US, the future of the US, you know, Russia and China trying to defeat
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the United States from within, which you kind of just talked about as opposed to from without.
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And then it's like, okay, we don't have any sovereignty with our borders.
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There's no faith in our elections, the politicization, politicization of everything, including sports
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and military, LGBTQ craze, BLM Antifa, the distrust of the media and government younger
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generations feeling entitled and fragile and they don't want to work and all these things,
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we can see the decay of our society around us in real time in 2023.
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But I'm sensing that from James Reese in the novels, am I wrong?
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No, but I want to give him a little bit of hope.
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Like I have him moving that direction the more he sees, the more he experiences.
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That's the natural way to go.
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But I like to give him just a little bit of hope still because that's going to need to
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carry him forward into other novels.
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Now that essentially the opposite of that is Rafe and Rafe's family has experienced similar
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things before in Rhodesia and Africa, moving versus South Africa and then to the United
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States, specifically to Montana.
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And he's got a different mindset about this.
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He's the mindset of just going to the mountains and hunkering down.
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And of course, this is how things are going to go and there's nothing that can be done
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about it.
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He still thinks that there's something that can be done about it.
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So I like having that, the differences from those two warriors with similar backgrounds
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gives him something to talk about and gives two different perspectives because there are
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times when I sit down on the couch with my wife at the end of the night and pour a glass
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of wine.
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And we are exceedingly worried about the future of the country for our children's sake.
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And it's hard to keep that light of hope alive.
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So that's kind of maybe that's the battle going on.
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Yeah, that's really a battle.
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But those are just the two differing perspectives that maybe I'm dealing with inside.
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Perhaps.
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Well, Jack, I mean, I've asked like back and forth, I'm typically wired for pessimism
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anyway, but I've asked like back and forth between being very cynical about our future
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and very optimistic about our future because as a Christian, you have to believe that history
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is going in a particular direction and it ends with Christ ruling over all.
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But at the same time, we're here now and we want to do things as a country and as a family
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and as an individual that leads to the most amount of human flourishing possible.
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But when you see the degradations happening around you culturally, it's not just conservative
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Twitter saying that it's not just Fox News and that's not just your favorite, you know,
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Republican pundit on your podcast that you like to listen to.
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You can just see it.
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You can feel it.
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You can see it in the eyes of people working at, you know, department stores are working
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at restaurants.
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This malaise this this I just don't really care and and COVID had a lot to do with that.
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But you know, I share that that similar sentiment and you and your wife probably talk about it
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a little more than my wife and I do because my wife's the most optimistic person ever.
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So I'm trying not to bring her down.
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But one thing at the at the end of this book, Jack is obviously you've talked about book
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seven.
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We know the James re story is going to go on, but compared to what happened in in the blood
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in the blood left you with a cliffhanger, a major cliffhanger like a James Reese just
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got arrested for killing the president.
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Hello, but then and only the dead the story kind of wraps up nice and neatly.
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He stops the collective.
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He kills the guy that killed his father, at least, you know, the guy that paid for the
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bullet as it were.
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He's with Katie.
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You can see you can hear the wedding bells in the in the off ramp or whatever like.
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It seems like you're done with James Reese, but we know you're not.
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So is this just kind of like you're, you're experimenting with a nice neat bow at the end
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of a book versus leaving us on a cliffhanger and hating you for a year?
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Well, I think, but what I'm thinking about readers and I haven't left all of them with
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cliffhangers, but I've left them all with a little something.
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And that's their ambiguous, right?
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You don't know exactly what's going to happen.
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Yep.
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But there was more of that in this last novel, you know, only the dead.
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So the art is to wrap up and give the reader or listener these days enough resolution where
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they're like, Oh, amazing.
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But then also wanting them to go on to that next book and so leaving just enough, just
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like you leave at the end of a chapter, you want to leave that end of that chapter in
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a certain way that makes them turn the page at night.
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So they stay awake all night reading this book.
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So I like to finish books like that as well, but only the dead.
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I thought about that ending quite a bit and I wanted to give it a shot.
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So I thought there was enough resolution, but then there was something that was introduced
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at the end that I'd also set up back in the previous novel.
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People would go back and read the devil's hand.
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There are two sentences in there with President Christensen where it is a direct link to what
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happens to him.
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So I've been setting it up for a little while.
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And so anyway, it made sense to end it.
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This one liked that, but it's not a formula.
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It's not like, Oh, I need to leave it on a cliffhanger.
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How am I going to do that?
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No, no, this one just naturally ended up in that place.
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The last one in the blood is naturally ended up there just as this one naturally ended
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up the way that it did and tied up a lot of those storylines that I'd been exploring,
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teasing over the last few novels.
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So most of everything gets tied up here, which also means that there are a lot of different
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ways things can go in book seven.
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At the end of the last book, there was really only one way things were going to go, at least
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to this for the start.
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So I knew exactly how it was going to going to start this one could start a few different
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ways this next one.
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So people left a way to year for that though.
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Okay.
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Well, I will tell you after I got done within in the blood, I was very angry at you.
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I was not happy with that.
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It's just you did what everyone does, like when you end a season of a show and you end
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it with the guy almost dying, it's like, okay, this is terrible.
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This sucks.
53:37
But the last question of the day, I'm actually going to let it be an open ended question
53:40
because here we are.
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We're behind the curtain.
53:43
We're talking about spoilers.
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I've made you nervous.
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Is there something about only the dead that people that have read all six novels and have
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ended with only the dead?
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Is there something that you kind of want to talk about that you're not going to be able
53:54
to talk about most of the other interviews because the people haven't read the books yet?
53:58
Ooh, that is a very good question and I'm not sure.
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There's probably multiple things that I want, you know, I mean that the POWMA issue certainly
54:10
is one that the more research I did into it and that's back in 2002, I first read Eric
54:17
Haney's book inside the Delta Force and I was reading, I read every, back then I was
54:21
reading every book that came out on special operations and I got to this chapter where
54:27
he said, "Hey, in 1981, Delta Force was spun up to go back to Southeast Asia to rescue
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American POWs."
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And I was like, "Wait, what?"
54:36
What?
54:37
Yeah.
54:38
And he devotes about two pages to it but I remember, "Oh my gosh, that is, are you kidding
54:43
me?"
54:44
And didn't get much play in the media, which was shocking to me but I filed it away and
54:49
I kept the novel, not the book, it's nonfiction.
54:53
So I kept the book and then I revisited that book and a host of others and it's more deep
54:58
dives into really how the Vietnam War ended, the Paris Peace Accords, referring with honor
55:05
than what happens in the '80s and then different people who came out that flew either SR-71s
55:10
or U-2s or had access to satellite photographs and all these different things that were kind
55:17
of, well, not really explored too much by the media for some reason because there were also
55:23
some crackpots that were saying certain things.
55:25
And so there was a lot to go through back then but it was shocking that not that many
55:30
people did.
55:31
We have a few books here, one, two, three, four, five on the issue right here next to
55:37
me that I'll put out in my reading list that highlights all the books that I use for research
55:41
for this novel.
55:44
So yeah, that's kind of a spoiler because I don't think people are expecting that to
55:47
come up in this book.
55:48
I don't think people are expecting to kind of set up what's in James Reese's father's,
55:54
Tom Reese, his safety deposit box to be certain something.
55:57
I've been kind of hinting that it's kind of like, oh, it's going to be some so-former
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Soviet assets dropped into the United States back in the '60s, '70s, '80s, maybe early '90s
56:07
who are still around.
56:08
We have a second generation.
56:09
I've dropped some hints that we're kind of leading people in that direction but that's
56:14
not what's in there.
56:16
So what is in there is that surprise.
56:21
And it's all based on this research and unfortunately, and I talk about in the author's note at
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the end what's real and what's not.
56:26
People can go back to that author's note at the end if they want a little more information
56:31
about that issue.
56:33
So that's one right there that I don't think people are expecting in this book.
56:37
Absolutely.
56:38
Well, I got to be honest, I'm excited for the author's note with every one of your books
56:41
as well just because I'm like, okay, all this feels super real.
56:45
Like, where did you take me for a ride?
56:48
That's basically where I go to.
56:50
So I always appreciate a little bit of that author's note.
56:52
But Jack, I appreciate all the extra time here at the end, buddy.
56:55
Absolutely.
56:56
Absolutely.
56:57
Thank you so much.
56:58
This is awesome.
56:59
Always great to talk to you.