Understanding The Future of the World I Anthony Scaramucci and Brad Thor I Open Book

Brad Thor Introduction on my honeymoon after my uh second season of shows uh I met my wife we got married and we're on our honeymoon and she said what would you regret on your death bed 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 so 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 for you everybody shadow of the 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 wall 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 uh 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 that Brad is a good guy he wrote a very nice inscription to my mother-in-law which made me look good so thank you you're wel but let's start with 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 How did Brad Thor get into writing? remember I'm going to ask you to color this where I have a lot of young people listening to this podcast bre and how do you go from what you're doing which is 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 we're an immigrant family so to speak my 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 and then um I went to the University of Southern California to study business to take over my dad's uh 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 the 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 that'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 uh I think my first job was like seven seventh or eth grade I started pumping gas uh up in Wisconsin in the Summers so anyway uh I'd saved up all this money and I thought I'll do something no American has ever done I'm gonna go to Paris and write a novel of course tons of Americans have done this that was just my run and joke at the time but starting with Hemingway but yeah exactly and Henry Miller and on and on and on F Scott Fitzgerald so I got over to Paris a friend had a room in her apartment let me have it and um I 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 gon 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 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 and 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 love 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 smalltime operator uh and on my honeymoon after my uh second season of shows uh I met my wife we got married and we're on our honeymoon and 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 you know that but there's a lot there though right you have a you know uh my grandfather once said if you pick the right spouse uh 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 the second thing there is you had something burning and some of us snuffed that out we get fearful we're worried about our paychecks day to day and we don't want to take the leap um you know I always wanted to have my own Has Brad's writing fit his personality? business so I was at Goldman making a lot of money bread 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's it's it it was a better life for me because it fit my personality it didn't hem me in so has has your writing fit your personality well I think so uh first of all that's that old uh that old poem that uh path diverged in the woods and I took the path least traveled by and it's made all the difference right you took your chance I took my chance uh neither of us are going to wake up on our deathbed saying what if we'd only done this you know years ago so the writing I will say this Anthony the the character my protagonist Scott harbath and for for those of your viers 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 uh he's a former Navy SEAL that does very very off thee book stuff for the 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 doesn't matter if you've never seen a Bond movie before you're 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 James Bond is uh or sorry 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 to 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 in earshot 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 so yeah he's my altero so that's I get to have a lot of fun writing this character so but you're talking to a lot of people people uh you're 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 uh the stuff you write and I've been to some of the places that you write about including Afghanistan you know I I was a part of the business executive 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 of like I sort of feel like it's near non-fiction like some people are fiction writers but you're near non-fiction meaning it's coming up coming up is what Scott harvath is doing in this Summer's novel except it'll be sometime in 20125 we'll have to deal with it so so let's set the scene without blowing up the book for people tell us a little bit about the plot and uh where where where Scott ends up so I What is the plot of the latest book? call what I do faction where you don't know where the facts end and the fiction begins that's beautiful word I like that word yeah and it's one of the reasons but and I will get to the book but the Department of Homeland Security after 911 set up something called their analytic Red Cell unit where they invited creative people into DC to help them war game they realized very at like the day of 911 that 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 I drew up these scenarios so with this Summer's Thriller with Shadow of Doubt I have a highle high level Russian Defector that crosses the border into Norway with a ton of secrets that could shatter the west and 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 uh 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 well 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 Tobe wife and the CIA blackmails him into service he has never said no to an OP this one he's blackmailed into uh 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 uh Shadow of Doubt so Friend or Foe I'm going to ask you a couple I'm going to say a couple names you tell me Friend or Foe ready okay Vladimir Putin Friend or Foe foe 100% no Vladimir Putin (Friend or Foe?) question okay so why are all these Republicans so sympathetic to him then well so here here's what's going on Anthony if uh if you read particularly I don't know if you read in apple bomb's book uh autocracy in 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 y i i saw it in Barnes & Noble I purchased it I haven't read it but go ahead so Ann aam 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 group as they start to slide into minority they fight back uh and they fight back and lose respect for the rule of law and all this kind of thing they want to preserve their way of life no matter what in fact one of the most interesting statistics uh or determinants I heard for or 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 6 Insurrection which is very interesting so if you look at the Balkans and other places that have slipped into ethnic strife and conflict and one the minority trying to shove the M the newly uh minted majority out that's what you see not even out but to prevent them from uh rightly taking power and that's what we've got here so now with these people who feel their life is in their way of life is in danger that the country's 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 let's face it it is it is absolutely horrific that Trump holds up and slobbers all over Putin and Kim Jong-un and president she all that kind of stuff so that that's where a lot of that nonsense is coming from well AB believes he does that cuz he wants to be them do 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 who appreciates the founding documents the founding of this country what America stands for who would even can you can you imagine Reagan making a joke like that I mean that's insane no know I listen I 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 okay this guy sees exactly what we're doing he doesn't like what we're doing and so they went to discredit me so I know exactly what they're doing I just wrote a piece on Project 2025 that is Trump's agenda it's he he put 85 of his acolytes in there um but you know he's up against uh 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 a hard left policies he's not hard left but he he he he could be an alligator that eats you while you're crawling on his back you see yes yeah and so for Trump it's not necessarily the policies he likes he likes that there's no guard rails that these guys can do whatever they want and nobody stands in their way everybody falls in behind them never in front of them and says stop that's what Trump likes about so Putin Putin is a foe and I'm glad you said that because I've I've seen the intelligence briefing I know what a foe he is I know what he's capable of I always tell people uh that Putin's people uh uh which was written by Katherine Belton she was the former Financial Times Moscow bureau chief uh HR 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 Chief from China foe foe absolutely no question yeah I mean listen this is one of the things with the populist agenda and kind of the American first crowd is they President Xi Jinping (Friend or Foe?) don't want America to project power or be involved in other nations but they still want America to be number one those two are mutually exclusive you can't sit behind your oceans and be number one if we step off the world stage she and P 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 up to it for you know decades uh I think it's 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 Have you met people like Scott in real life? let's keep going I I'm with you and you and I share the same philosophy and it's evident from your books and uh I'm an American first and I'm 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 but neither let's keep going okay uh so Scott has been through hell and back uh he's a loner but he's a friend he's uh he knows how to bond with people uh 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 got to be a self-starter you've got to be Charming when it's NE necessary to be Charming you got to be able to work well on a team but 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 that's my protagonist Scott harbath okay and I agree with all that okay uh you uh uh so far passing the test good yeah but I mean 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 best-selling authors but you've done How do you write books that people can read in any order? something really well here I have read all of these books so 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 Doubt on its own I 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 can pick book book 24 yeah how do you do that so it's a it's a Highwire 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 how do I onboard those new people quickly without boring the old people that know uh the history of Scott harbath Elmore Leonard was famous for saying uh 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 uh 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 of his 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 backr but it also serves to bring brand new readers up to speed because 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 album right you know yeah I mean though 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 great guy great writer but it's very I can predict his books there's a formula to his books and 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 uh I I can see chapter 22 in chapter 4 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 okay I mean I a spy novel reader Charles Cummings from the UK you mentioned some of the other competitors you which I won't mention on this podcast but you but you but you know what I'm talking about sure I can't predict what you're doing good 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 or what do you so so that's it so number 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 uh one of the nicest accolades I get is oh my God I I bought my son your book or I gave your book to my mom who wasn't a reader and now she is she loves your book she's gone back and read all of them so what I try to do there's two types of author you get somebody who's 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 pancer 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 uh when I get home from the office and she says don't worry you'll figure it out tomorrow uh 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 I want Robert Frost said no joy in the writer no joy in the reader no surprise in the writer no surprise in the reader so what I 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 well I terrific um uh let's talk about the world uh I'm new to the world I've just landed my Martian uh spacecraft has Current state of the world 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 living in right now world not the world that we teach our kids not eighth grade social studies about America right but really what's happened in America and really what's happened around the world and uh you 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 let me explain why we've grown up in a postor war II America where America has run the card table uh maybe it's becoming harder to run the card table but for 80 years and we're still Reserve currency for the world a result of which there's a ceiling there's an unlimited as George Bush's dad George Herbert Walker Bush said cavu ceiling invisibility unlimited that's been the case for America for a long time now um but tell us about the world that you were living in give me a briefing so see look here's what America's dealing with now here's where the Russians are here's how India's coming into the situation here's the Chinese here's what's going on with the Iranians and the Israelis yeah so let's let's preface this on the the uh the aliens at least know that we are uh what the West fan nation state is and that we've got uh different tribes let's let's say on this planet we we may might be all the same species but we're not all of the same tribe and just for young people what what what Brad has to the Treaty of West failure we've really aggregated ourselves into Sovereign Nations and we each have a Sovereign Nation that represents itself in the International Community and a result of which it's tied to certain respected International laws and Norms even Norms in war as an example we have a Geneva Convention in terms of how we have to treat each other where we're in war okay go ahead absolutely so I would tell the aliens that uh for the longest time on this planet we people thought that history repeated and it's only of late that we're realizing that history doesn't necessarily repeat but it does rhyme and I would back us up to 2014 where Putin uh via his little green men basically uh men in green fatigues that didn't have any insignias that said they were Russian military though they were went into the Damas basically went into eastern Ukraine 2014 took it over uh now what's really interesting is when the Soviet Union broke up at the end of the 90s a third of the Soviet Union's nuclear Arsenal was in Ukraine and we went to the ukrainians and said please don't keep these missiles let us help you get rid of them we're going to help you deactivate them you don't want these you don't have the wherewithal to maintain them and the ukrainians were smart they said listen we'll do it we'll agree to this but we need a promise from you the United States that if we give up our nukes nobody's ever going to invade us nobody's ever going to take our territory and you're going to see to it and the US said fine we'll sign that it was called The Budapest memorandum and they said great your the ink is now dry get the Russians to sign it this is pre Putin and the Russians did but then Putin came to power and what Putin did by going into the eastern part of Ukraine he said he was there to help Russian speakers that were in that area which is the same excuse that uh Hitler used when he went into Czechoslovakia so when you see pictures of Neville Chamberlain waving around the piece of paper saying peace in our time that's when they decided to hand over the sudon land this area that had a lot of ethnic Germans German speakers to Hitler thinking it would slake his thirst so what I would tell the aliens is we are living through both an exciting and very perilous time in our history because a lot of things that happen have happened in the past are happening again not exactly the same way but similar again history doesn't rhyme or it doesn't repeat but it does rhyme but we're also living through things in history that have never happened before you know so you had LBJ that didn't go for a second term but the Biden thing Biden's not going for a second term but there's a flip now it's kamla Harris who's now uh stepped in and it's a really short race in the Trump campaign although they say they were prepared for it they weren't prepared for it and they don't know how to handle this so I I would say if I had to you know the Chinese are on the rise they're they are becoming a near-peer power uh they have a very impressive Navy we need to invest a lot more in our Navy we need to be putting a lot more into ice breakers in particular I'm I'm very concerned about that's Coast Guard but I it is navy adjacent so the Iranians I think uh I'm on hold with the Iranians because I was really expecting a lot more with Hezbollah and the Israelis I'm glad not to have seen stuff but I would tell the aliens grab a beer sit down let's watch the next X amount of weeks between now and election day in November because I think we not only are we living through one of the most exciting points in history we live in the best country in the history of the world at the absolute best moment if you were a spirit up in heaven a soul that was waiting to be born and you could pick any time in any place to be born you wouldn't know if you were black Jewish gay if you were par pgic if you were going to grow up rich grow up poor if you didn't know any of that stuff just you could pick the time and the place you would pick America right now today it would give you more advantages more opportunities and it's exciting so we have roles and responsibilities as Citizens because we're stewards of this Republic but I gotta tell you Anthony I'm not a baseball guy politics is my baseball and this is so exciting so I that's why I would encourage the I I would hope my enthusiasm would be uh infectious for the aliens okay so one one followup question from the aliens okay uh uh when I watch the american electoral situation both sides think it's perilous uh the Democrats think democracy is ending with Donald Trump and uh and the the Republicans or the people supporting Donald Trump if you can call them Republicans they think that we're going to end up with Communism and Marxism in the country so or either of them correct or neither of them correct so I I don't believe so I left the Republican party in 2018 I worked on two Republican Presidential campaigns prior to that uh I worked on uh Rick San TMS and Rick Perry's uh still friends with both of them uh and listen Trump sat on his big orange ass for three hours during the Insurrection didn't do anything could have called the people back because he wanted them to be successful he was hoping that they would succeed if you didn't want that to go on you wouldn't be sitting there watching it unfold on Fox news so he wanted that to succeed the the idea that we are giving him another shot at office is reprehensible it's repr that's Kevin McCarthy's Fault by the way because McCarthy had down to marago and kiss his ass he could have put him right through the ropes and he would be running for he' be the most popular Republican in since uh Reagan all he had trp could have been banned from office but think about this for one second but hey I'm the speaker of the house you're invading my house who would allow that only Kevin McCarthy would allow that so anyway only Kevin McCarthy and then you listen there were two impeachments and nothing happened in the Senate so there's a lot of Republican Senators who have this on their hands too including Mitch McConnell mcarthy could have broke him McCarthy could have gone to McConnell and Schumer and said I'm done you're not allowed to do that the damn broke Anthony when McCarthy went down to Mar Lago and kissed the ring I mean McCarthy gives it big speech about how Trump is is completely responsible for January 6 and then like a what was it a week five seven days later he's down in Mar Lago so McCarthy should not be remembered fondly by I listen I love when he kicks Matt gates in the pills I love that I think that's terrific but I don't like McCarthy that's about the only thing he does that I like and I hope that uh history uh remembers him uh as poorly as he deserves to be remembered well said okay I mean I'm loving this conversation so I'm gonna keep going okay okay yeah talking about Being in Afghanistan research okay you're in Afghanistan something you learned in Afghanistan that you could not learn about reading about Afghanistan go what is that uh let's see you know one of the things I learned about uh and I had heard about it but I saw it firsthand there's this uh the poshu tribe have uh a code of honor called the pinwall and so uh with the team I was with we didn't go into any Village unless we had been invited by the elders because uh they would fight to the last man in the village to keep you alive because you were their guest and what was interesting is I was with this team uh and they they were constantly introducing me as an author as this American author and I finally had to say why do you guys keep telling them what I do for a living you know can't I just sit back here and and let them think I'm one of you guys and they're like you don't understand in Afghanistan two of the most honorable and respected professions are doctor and author so that was something that I never heard before that I uh learned in Afghanistan also the best fried chicken I ever had was in jalalabad somebody's house yeah I love I love the uh love the food I definitely thought it was amazing um how about okay how about uh Weaponry where are we going with Weaponry well what's com what's coming that the average citizen is not aware of Future of weaponry or not ready for okay so there's a lot of underwater stuff that we're working on now uh there's a big Drive in the United States for uh in our military here things that we could use against the Chinese uh in uh in a confrontation with China whether that's around the Philippines which we are bound to help protect or with it's with Taiwan so there's a lot of unmanned underwater stuff which is very very interesting and also that's a big push with NATO NATO is now standing up a new kind of security Center or an operation Center uh because they're very concerned about non-state act not not so much non-state actors because it's hard for them but actual states that that are uh uh enemies of the West uh severing the undersea cables that we rely on for data transfer and all that kind of stuff so the undersea Warfare is is amazing and I think that would really shock people uh the advancements and how much money is going in there and the kind of stuff they're coming up with it's incredible very sexy okay um it's not your last book right Brad No in fact I just signed a brand new contract with Simon and Shuster for a few more so happy to keep them going at rer block what do you have to do so you know what Anthony it's it's Writer's block funny that probably I had it several years ago when we decided to move our family back to Chicago from Park City Utah and I moved into a house that wasn't complete and it was just noisy and the kids and all this kind of stuff and I had terrible writers block and I did some research in the best piece of advice I've ever found I've never found anything better than this it's give yourself permission to write a crummy first draft okay it's that desire to have everything be perfect that locks you up and so if you have any Talent at all that crummy first draft is not going to be crummy and uh there's a famous saying that you can't edit what hasn't been written the the the tap needs to be open for the words to flow so if you give yourself permission to write that crummy first draft that is like a battering ram that goes through uh writer's block which comes from perfectionism that's where it stems from okay amen I've got five words for you we're going to close it out with this I uh my producers and my uh team after reading the book I'm going to say five words all going to say the word you think of whatever comes to your head Final Five ready yep I say the Pentagon you say what professional okay conscience courage you say the word service you think of what patriotism okay okay I say two words Scott harth is that you Brad Thor it's it is me to a large degree but more than that it's no ma to the men and women that go do some of this nation's most dangerous business away from their families I tell people that there is no American Dream without those willing to protect it and then I go further and say what does the American dream look like for those who do protect it and that I wrestle with a lot in the books right no it's interesting because they do make incredible sacrifices okay I say the two words Brad Thor you say what Junior because I think it makes me think of my dad the marine and he's senior and I'm Brad Thor Jr okay see I see incredible life force that's what I think I see incredible life force Boundless Energy uh Mr Thor thank you very much the title of the book is Shadow of Doubt it's another incredible Thriller who is this good-look guy on the back of this book by the way is there any that's called digital digital Botox is there any filtering going it's a 10-year-old it's a 10y photo I need to get I need to get back in front of the camera God bless you it's in bookstores now the uh the I don't know who the narrator is but the audiobook version AR schz thank you yeah he's great he's been with you for a while because I recognize his voice and and the book is phenomenal I wish you great success and thank you so much for coming on open book thank you good to be here and please give all my love to your wonderful mother-in-law Anthony all right there you go see you know you know what you're doing okay you know