Mastering Intrigue with Brad Thor

0:00Tuesday on NBC, Jimmy Fallon and Bozma St John host the highly anticipated new competition show. I hired 10 creatives from all walks of life. They will be battling it out to see who can impress the world's biggest brands. This is a huge opportunity. This is the battle for the next big idea. This is not play play. We're spending millions of dollars. I'm so excited to embark on this adventure with all of you. Make the best idea win! On Brand with Jimmy Fallon. Series premiere Tuesday on NBC. I'm NFL linebacker TJ Watt, and this is my personal best. YPB by Abercrombie is the active wear I'm always wearing.

0:37That's why I reached out to co-design their latest drop. I worked with designers to create high-performance activewear that holds up to my toughest workouts. Shop YPB by Abercrombie in-store, online, and in the app. Because your personal best is greater than anything.

0:58This episode is brought to you by State Farm. Checking off the boxes on your to-do list is a great feeling. And when it comes to checking off coverage, a State Farm agent can help you choose an option that's right for you. Whether you prefer talking in person, on the phone, or using the award-winning app, it's nice knowing you have help finding coverage that best fits your needs. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there.

1:28Hello, I'm Anthony Scaramucci, and this is Open Book, where I talk with some of the brightest minds out there about everything surrounding the written word, from authors and historians to figures in entertainment, neuroscientists, political activists, and of course, Wall Street. Sorry, I can't resist. Before we get into today's episode, if you haven't already, please hit follow or subscribe wherever you get your podcasts and leave us a review. We all love a review, even the bad ones. I want to hear the parts you're enjoying or how we can do better. you know I can roll with the punches, so let me know.

2:02Anyways, let's get to it.

2:11My guest today's new book is already a New York Times bestseller. Brad Thor has written 24 thrillers, and I'm sure many of you will have read at least one of them. He is, of course, a brilliant novelist, but he also has his hand firmly on the pulse of what's going on around us. For those listening in, he also has a fantastic head of hair. Sorry, Brad, but I had to mention that because I think I have a fantastic head of hair. So what do you think of that? But in any event, I love this conversation and I hope you will too.

2:51I'd like to take a second to recommend my friend Andy Ostroy's great podcast, The Back Room. Every episode is a fun, incredibly honest take on our society and the political situation, along with some brilliant guests. I've been honored to join Andy on the show, and you know anywhere that accepts me with no filter deserves a shout out.

3:18so joining us now and back by popular demand is brad thor he's a number one new york times best-selling author he's got 24 thrillers uh the latest one i'm going to hold it up here shadow of doubt okay so let me tell you something i don't know how you do this but i do think that you have like a you could tell me if there's a crystal ball somewhere in that house of yours because you're predicting events that happen prior to them happening, right? So everything in this book could happen, and I want to get into that. It's brilliant to have you here. I'm a big fan. My mother-in-law is a big fan, and I will point out to everybody that Brad is a good guy.

3:53He wrote a very nice inscription to my mother-in-law, which made me look good. So thank you. You're welcome. Let's start with you because I want to refresh everybody with your background, how you got into writing these books. and this is obviously a labor of love for you, but you weren't always doing this. And remember, I'm gonna ask you to color this where I have a lot of young people listening to this podcast, Fred. And how do you go from what you're doing, which is a traditional thing, to something that is a labor of love and when did you make the leap and why? Okay, so real quick, my family background, we're an immigrant family, so to speak.

4:29My grandfather was the first one born in America. We're from Scandinavia. My dad went into the Marine Corps so we could go to college on the GI Bill. I went to the University of Southern California to study business, to take over my dad's real estate development firm. He builds office buildings and hotels. And I hated it. I hated business administration. I would have rather taken a bullet in the head than to have sat behind a desk my whole life. And so I changed my major in college to creative writing and film and television production. And when I got out of USC, I had saved a bunch of money. I leased apartments in LA while I was in college.

5:02That's how I made money to help pay my way through. In addition to my old man helping me a little bit, but he was really serious about, you know, we worked from a very young age in my family. I think my first job was like seventh or eighth grade. I started pumping gas up in Wisconsin in the summers. So anyway, I'd saved up all this money and I thought, I'll do something no American has ever done. I'm going to go to Paris and write a novel. Of course, tons of Americans have done this. It was just my running joke at the time. Starting with Hemingway. Exactly. Exactly. And Henry Miller and on and on and on, F.

5:33Scott Fitzgerald. So I got over to Paris, a friend had a room in her apartment, let me have it. And I was very afraid of failure. And so I got a couple chapters into that novel and I gave it up. I had that voice in the back of my head that said, why risk the embarrassment? Maybe the book's going to suck. Maybe nobody's going to like it. So better to not write it at all than to set yourself up for failure. And I gave into that voice. It was a mistake. But I traveled around Europe with the money I had saved and I saw all of these young people with backpacks. And I was like, wow, this is amazing.

6:06And seeing my country from abroad, I always felt made me a better American. And I said, I'm going to get back and pitch public television on a travel show for young people, 18 to 34 year olds. I came back, it took a long time, but I pitched them. They loved the idea. I got a show on the air called Traveling Light. I was the producer, the writer, the host. I used to make up names for the credit crawl. I used to take friends from high school and throw them in there and stuff because I didn't want to seem like a small time operator. And on my honeymoon, after my second season of shows, I met my wife, we got married and we're on our honeymoon.

6:38And she said, what would you regret on your deathbed never having done? And I said, writing a book and getting it published. And she said, okay, when we get home, you need to start spending two hours a day, protected time, make that happen. And that's kind of the condensed 30 ,000 foot version of how it happened. But there's a lot there though, right? You have, you know, my grandfather once said, if you pick the right spouse, focus on one, don't focus on many, they'll help you get to wherever you want to go. So your wife definitely helped you. Second thing there is you had something burning and some of us snuffed that out.

7:12We get fearful. We're worried about our paychecks day to day and we don't want to take the leap. You know, I always want to have my own business. I was at Goldman making a lot of money, Brad, but I said, you know, I got to go have my own business. I left. I took a seven-figure job to a no-figure job. And everyone thought I was crazy, but it was a better life for me because it fit my personality. It didn't hem me in. So has your writing fit your personality? Well, I think so. First of all, that's that old poem that a path diverged in the woods and I took the path least traveled by and it's made all the difference, right?

7:47You took your chance. I took my chance. Neither of us are going to wake up on our deathbed saying, what if we don't only done this years ago. So the writing, I will say this, Anthony, the character, my protagonist, Scott Harvath, and for those of your viewers and listeners who haven't read a Brad Thor book before, I tell people that my thrillers, because I've got the same guy in all the books, Scott Harvath. He's a former Navy SEAL that does very, very off the book stuff for the government. And I tell people that the books are like the James Bond movies. If the newest Bond movie is in your local multiplex down the street, you can go see it.

8:22Doesn't matter if you've never seen a Bond movie before, you're not going to miss out on anything. You'll get caught up real quick. Same thing with my books. So I tell people that Scott Harvath is kind of my alter ego, the same way I believe James Bond was for Ian Fleming and then Jack Ryan was for Tom Clancy. So he gets, I used to joke that he gets to do the things that my wife won't let me go and do. And if I say that near shot of my wife, she said, well, I let you go to Afghanistan. And I said, Yeah, we made sure all the insurance was paid up and all that kind of stuff. But my wife was pretty cool when I wanted to go over there and do some research.

8:53So yeah, he's my alter ego. So I get to have a lot of fun writing this character. But you're talking to a lot of people. You're talking to intelligence sources. You're on the ground in places like Afghanistan. You're on the ground in other Middle Eastern countries, Asian countries. The stuff you write, and I've been to some of the places that you write about, including Afghanistan. I was a part of the business executor of national security for five years. So I traveled to Iraq, traveled to Afghanistan on troop support missions. The stuff you're writing about is real. And it's sort of like, I sort of feel like it's near nonfiction.

9:30Like some people are fiction writers, but you're near nonfiction, meaning it's coming up. Coming up is what Scott Harvath is doing in this summer's novel, except it'll be sometime in 2025, we'll have to deal with it. So let's set the scene without blowing up the book for people. Tell us a little bit about the plot and where Scott ends up. So I call what I do faction, where you don't know where the facts end and the fiction begins. Right, that's a beautiful word. I like that word. Yeah, and it's one of the reasons, and I will get to the book, but the Department of Homeland Security after 9-11 set up something called their Analytic Red Cell Unit, where they invited creative people into D.C.

10:09to help them war game. They realized very like the day of 9-11 that we got hit and Al Qaeda was successful because we weren't creative enough and they were determined never to let that happen again. So they brought in all these creative thinkers from outside DC. I was one of them to help war game different scenarios. And I refer to that as the Las Vegas of government programs because what happens in the red cell stays in the red cell. I can't use it for any of my books, but they wanted me there for the way I drew up these scenarios. So with this summer's thriller, with Shadow of Doubt, I have a high level Russian defector that crosses the border into Norway with a ton of secrets that could shatter the West.

10:43And at the same time in Paris, a French intelligence officer has discovered a huge secret within the French government. Can't trust anybody in his own government. So he set up breakfast the next morning with the CIA station chief in Paris, but he dies. He's murdered that night before he can get to the breakfast. And then we've got my character, Scott Harvath. He's just come off an operation to rescue an American hostage in Ukraine. He's taken a week. He told his bosses. Don't call me. Don't email me. Don't text me. I'm not going to answer. I'm going to go to Norway and I'm going to meet up with my fiance and I'm taking a week off.

11:14Well, when he lands in Oslo, there's a CIA station chief there as well. And she says, we know your fiance is going to debrief this Russian. We need to know what she knows and we want you to spy on her. And he says, up yours, I'm not doing it. I've never said no to my country before, but I'm not going to spy on my soon to be wife. And the CIA blackmails him into service. He has never said no to an op. This one he's blackmailed into. But there's a twist. He figures out how to turn it around a little bit back on the CIA. So that's the jumping off point for Shadow of Doubt. So friend or foe? I'm going to ask you a couple, I'm going to say a couple of names.

11:48You tell me friend or foe. Ready? Okay. Vladimir Putin, friend or foe? Foe, 100%. No question. Okay. So why are all these Republicans so sympathetic to him then? Well, so here's what's going on, Anthony. If you read particularly, I don't know if you read in Applebaum's book, Autocracy Inc. is her newest one. Twilight of Democracy. I've invited her on. Actually, I just I just bought that book. It's a small little book. I saw it in Barnes and Noble. I purchased it. I haven't read it, but go ahead. So Anne Applebaum, her book from two summers ago is Twilight of Democracy. So when you look at the Balkans and other places that have slipped into ethnic strife and conflict, what you find is, is that the one group that had been dominant, that had been the all powerful whole group, as they start to slide into minority, they fight back and they fight back and lose respect for the rule of law and all this kind of thing.

12:40They want to preserve their way of life no matter what. In fact, one of the most interesting statistics or determinants I heard for whether or not your county had somebody at the January 6th insurrection was whether there was a dwindling white population in your county. So that was one of the greatest determinants as to whether or not somebody from your county was at the January 6th insurrection, which is very interesting. So if you look at the Balkans and other places that have slipped into ethnic strife and conflict and the minority trying to shove the newly minted majority out, that's what you see.

13:10Not even out, but to prevent them from rightly taking power. And that's what we've got here. So now with these people who feel their way of life is in danger, that the country is slipping away, all of that kind of stuff, they are gravitating towards autocracy. They want a strong man. I alone can fix it sort of a person. And so they respect Putin. They like Putin. And let's face it. It is absolutely horrific that Trump holds up and slobbers all over Putin and Kim Jong-un and President Xi, all that kind of stuff. So that's where a lot of that nonsense is coming from. Well, Abelbaum believes he does that because he wants to be them.

13:46Do you think that's the case? Oh, I think if given the choice, yes. What kind of insane person says, I want to be a dictator on day one? What kind of American citizen who appreciates the founding documents, the founding of this country, what America stands for? Can you imagine Reagan making a joke like that? I mean, that's insane. No, listen, I work for the man and I saw how dangerous he was. And so they tried to discredit me the way they fired me and then roughed me up on the way out because they were like, OK, this guy sees exactly what we're doing. He doesn't like what we're doing. And so they went to discredit me.

14:19So I know exactly what they're doing. I just wrote a piece on Project 2025. That is Trump's agenda. He put 85 of his acolytes in there. but you know he's up against you know she has some hard left policies so there's a lot of people in the middle that don't see it as clearly as you and me and they're like okay well she's got hard left policies he's not hard left but he he he could be an alligator that eats you while you're crawling on his back you see what i mean yeah and so for trump it's not necessarily the policies he likes he likes that there's no guardrails that these guys can do whatever they want and nobody stands in their way.

14:56Everybody falls in behind them, never in front of them and says, stop. That's what Trump likes about these guys. So Putin is a foe. And I'm glad you said that because I've seen the intelligence briefings. I know what a foe he is. I know what he's capable of. And I always tell people that Putin's people, which was written by Catherine Belton, she was the former Financial Times Moscow bureau chief, H.R. McMaster, who has a new book out, He sent me during COVID in 2020 a copy of her book. I read it from cover to cover. Putin is a foe. President Xi from China, foe? Foe, absolutely. No question. I mean, listen, this is one of the things with the populist agenda and kind of the American first crowd is they don't want America to project power or be involved in other nations, but they still want America to be number one.

15:42Those two are mutually exclusive. You can't sit behind your oceans and be number one. If we step off the world stage, Xi and China are going to step into that power vacuum. They are already doing it with the Belt and Road Initiative and have been up to it for decades. I think it's over 20 years now. So this is – you can't have both. You can't be isolationist and number one. It just doesn't work that way. Okay. Let's keep going. I'm with you, and you and I share the same philosophy, and it's evident from your books. I'm an American first, and I'm a partisan last, actually. So I don't even recognize the party that I used to be a part of, which was Reagan and Abraham Lincoln's party.

16:23But me neither. Let's keep going. OK, so Scott has been through hell and back. He's a loner, but he's a friend. He's he knows how to bond with people. He is incredibly resourceful. Have you met people like this that work for the United States government? I know the answer to this, but tell us about them. I have. So Scott Harvath, my main character is basically an amalgam of people who I know that are out doing some of this nation's most dangerous business. You've got to be a self-starter. You've got to be charming when it's necessary to be charming. You've got to be able to work well on a team.

16:58But most importantly, they've got to be able to put you into some of the worst places in the world. And you've got to figure out how to adapt and overcome. And that's my protagonist, Scott Harvath. Okay. And I agree with all that. Okay. So far passing the test. Good. Yeah. But I mean, the thing you've done well, and I want you to explain to people who are writers that listen, because this is an author's podcast. The title of the book is, the title of the podcast is Open Book, and it's really me interviewing bestselling authors. But you've done something really well here. I have read all of these books.

17:30So I feel like I know Scott Harvath. But then I try to step back and say, let's say I just read this book on its own. Let's say I read Shadow of a Doubt on its own. I know the book. How do you do that? How do you write a series of books where I can pick up book 13 and I'm right in it and I didn't have to have books one through 12 or I could pick book 24? Good question. How do you do that? So it's a high wire act, Anthony, because I've got people like you that have been with me since the very first book. And then I've always got new people coming on board. So how do I onboard those new people quickly without boring the old people that know the history of Scott Harvath?

18:08Elmore Leonard was famous for saying his advice to young writers, leave out the parts that people skip. So I've got to be careful not to put too much in there. So what I try to do is when I'm explaining a little bit of Scott's background is I find a new way to do it with each book. I tell maybe a little bit different thing from his past, which will be new to the existing readers and of course brand new to new readers, but it serves two purposes. It gives the existing longtime readers a neat little piece of the puzzle of Scott's background, but it also serves to bring brand new readers up to speed.

18:38Because my editor gave me a great piece of advice as I was going into book number two. And she said, don't cannibalize your own sales. You never want somebody to walk into their local bookstore looking for that great beach read and they say, oh, here's Brad Thor's book. Oh, this is book number five. Oh, wait a second. If you haven't read the first four books, you can't buy this. And then they go buy a Patterson book or something like that. God help them, you know? Yeah. I mean, I don't want to be critical of him, but he - No, and I'm just teasing. Patterson's a great guy, great writer, great guy.

19:07He's a great guy, great writer, but it's very good. I can predict his books. There's a formula to his books. And if you read one of them, great. But if you read 10 of them, you're like, okay, I can see where this is going. I can see chapter 22 in chapter four. Your book, I can't figure it out. So I have to actually read the damn thing. I have to turn the page. And so that's my second question related to your writing style. You make it fresh and you make it relevant. And it doesn't matter which book I buy. I'm in the book. But then, because listen, I have read every spy novel that comes out. I mean, I am a spy novel reader.

19:44Charles Cummings from the UK. You mentioned some of the other competitors you have, which I won't mention on this podcast. But you know what I'm talking about. Sure. I can't predict what you're doing. So what do you do? Do you say, okay, the reader thinks I'm going to go this way. Let me go the other way or what do you do? So that's it. So first and foremost, my job is to entertain you. So I'm crafting short, crisp cinematic chapters. In fact, one of the nicest pieces of – one of the nicest accolades I get is, oh my God, I bought my son your book or I gave your book to my mom who wasn't a reader and now she is.

20:16She loves your book. She's gone back and read all of them. So what I try to do, there's two types of authors. You get somebody who is a plotter and they outline or a pantser. somebody who flies by the seat of their pants and doesn't outline. And I'm a pantser. So now that can be tough. It can be really stressful because I'll paint myself into a corner and my wife jokes by the look on my face. She can tell if it's a red wine night or a bourbon night when I get home from the office and she says, don't worry, you'll figure it out tomorrow. And then I'll come in and I'll work it out. But I like to say that I take the first, first of all, I want to have the same experience writing these books, Anthony, that you do reading them.

20:50Robert Frost said, no joy in the writer, no joy in the reader, no surprise in the writer, no surprise in the reader. So, I want to have the same heart-pounding, palm-sweating experience writing it that you do reading it. So, my rule is if it's time for something new to happen in the book, I take the first four ideas that come into my head and I throw them out. Because if they're that obvious to me, they're going to be that obvious to the reader. And then I start toying with five, six, and seven. And that's where it gets interesting. And that's, I think, what keeps it fresh, exciting, and you don't know what's coming around the next corner.

21:20Well, terrific. Let's talk about the world. I'm new to the world. I've just landed. My Martian spacecraft has landed. I'm in your backyard. I come into the house. I'm in your beautiful study. And I say, okay, tell me about this world that you're living in. Tell me about the intrigue that you are so on the pulse of, this international intrigue. So go ahead, give me a briefing. Tell me what's going on. So you're talking about the real world that we're Right now. The real world. Not the world that we teach our kids. Not eighth grade social studies about America, but really what's happened in America and really what's happened around the world.

21:58And because I let me let me preface it by saying this to you. I think you and I are two of the luckiest people that have ever lived. And let me explain why we've grown up in a post World War II America where America has run the card table. Maybe it's becoming harder to run the card table, but for 80 years. And we're still the reserve currency for the world, the result of which there's a ceiling. There's an unlimited, as George Bush's dad, George Herbert Walker Bush said, Kavu, ceiling and visibility unlimited. That's been the case for America for a long time now. But tell us about the world that you're living in.