The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – Blood and Treasure by Ryan Pote

Episode Date: August 16, 2025

Blood and Treasure by Ryan Pote The destruction of the International Space Station and the discovery of an ancient scroll are inextricably intertwined in this debut crossover thriller from a former Navy helicopter pilot. The International Space Station suddenly loses contact with Earth. When a NASA tech devises a way to restore the feed, the images that come through are unfathomable: a scene of terrible violence, the crew unresponsive, droplets of blood hovering in zero gravity. But which of the astronauts on board would have done such a thing? And why? Off the coast of Mozambique, former special ops pilot and current treasure hunter Ethan Cain sees something he can’t believe: an object shot out of the heavens plunging deep into the Indian Ocean. When he goes to investigate, it becomes even less intelligible. A space capsule has crashed into the sea, and inside is a woman—alone, unconscious, and injured. Ethan knows he must save her. What he doesn’t know is who she is, how she got there . . . or why she’s the only survivor of a killing spree conducted 254 miles up in the sky.

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Because you're about to go on a moment. monster education rollercoaster with your brain. Now, here's your host, Chris Voss. Hi, folks, this Voss here from the Chris Vos Show.com. Ladies and gentlemen, the early things that makes official work for 16 years and 24 episodes of the Chris Voss show. Today, we have an amazing man on the show. We're going to be talking about his new debut novel, and I think you're going to be excited

to hear about it. But in the meantime, we need you to go to Goodrease.com, Fortress, Chris Voss, LinkedIn.com, for it says Chris Foss. Chris Foss, one of the TikTok, and he and Chris Foss, Facebook.com. Make sure everyone subscribes to the show. They're on the iTunes and Apple and all that good stuff. Today, we have Ryan Pote on the show with us today. His newest book is out July 22nd, 2025.

It is called Blood and Treasure, which I think describes my first nine marriages. Anyway, so we're going to get into with him. Find out more about what's inside his new book. He is a 12-year veteran Navy pilot. of helicopters, who was part of a joint interagency special operations task force deployed throughout Central and South America. He was medically separated after sustaining injuries during an emergency landing. He currently works for the Department of Defense. Before his time, the Navy, he worked as a scuba diving instructor in Hawaii as a microbiology lab tech conducting algae biofuels research.

He was a master's degree in history from Ashland University. He lives with his wife and children. in New England. Welcome to the show. Ryan, how are you? Hey, how are you, Chris? Thanks for having me on. I'm doing awesome. Thanks for coming. We certainly appreciate it. Give us your dot-coms. Where do you want people to get to know you better on the interwebs? Sure, everybody can find me at ryanpote.com. And then on all social media channels, Instagram, Facebook, X, and Goodreads. They can find me at Ryan Pote Books. So give us a 30,000 over you. What's inside your new book? Oh, so my new book, it's a crossover thriller.

So the kind of elevator pitch is the destruction of the International Space Station and the discovery in ancient scroll are in inextricably intertwined in this thriller. So the high level 30,000 foot view is you are open the book in the prologue. You are thrust right into the middle of a problem in NASA at Johnson Space Center mission control. You are attached to a character. Nobody knows what's going on with their connection to the International Space Station. It's been lost. Something's wrong with the station.

and they're trying to figure out what's wrong and so are you. When they establish a video feed back with the station, they find out that an astronaut has killed everybody, murdered everybody on board, and then this astronaut, Mosjad blows up the space station. And they're left completely not knowing why or what's going on, and that kind of kicks off the big mystery of the story.

And then cut chapter one, you are off the coast of Mozambique with our protagonist, Ethan Kane, who is recovering something for a, client off the coast underwater, an ancient object. And when you're at the tail end of this search and some bad people are after him for it. And as he recovers it, he witnesses a fiery mass come out of the sky and almost take out their entire boat and crew and then plunges into the ocean. When he goes to investigate, it's the Soyuz space capsule and it has sunk and it's filling

with water. And inside is one lone astronaut who's drowning. And he asks to save her. He doesn't know who she is, but the reader knows who she is. She's the astronaut. not Moja Zahdi, who killed everybody on board the space station. And he rescues her, and the two become linked in an adventure that spans the globe as the people who are after him for his artifact are also after her. Oh, wow. That sounds pretty interesting. Blood and Treasure, probably significant the title.

Now, this is your debut novel. Is that correct? Yeah, it's the first book I got published, but not as many writers' journeys. It's not the first book I wrote. I wrote five books. I wrote five novels before this. and this was the fourth of five that finally, you know, hit it. So, well, congratulations for sticking.

Thank you, sir. There's a lot we talk about with authors on the show and, you know, some of their journeys and stuff of what they go through and writing. Are the four prior books published at all or are they, were they? So, yeah, I wrote two with this series, it features a character called Ethan Kane. And he, I wrote two books with him in it before this that had some momentum and some, you know, almost success with it.

and they kind of failed to hit the mark but the second one in they're all kind of coming down the pipe i wrote two other completely different you know spin off kind of books an espionage thriller and a dark domestic crime thriller and um so i tried to you know pivot a lot as most writers try to you know find what sticks but yeah now now once you kind of make it through the door especially with a publisher like penguin um you know it kind of it kind of all starts to surface because uh all that work you put in you know they're all they're all kind of of of the same standard, you know, so people start noticing and reading them. So that's kind of typical I've seen. Oh, yeah. I mean, once you get that major publisher, the major publishers, they put a lot

of advertising behind the book, too. You know, they can afford to sink some money into the advertising. And, you know, they just give you that high profile and stuff. And for a book like this, that probably, I guess there's a, there's a future series of this using the progenus. Yes, yes. So it was purchased as a series, a multi-book, a multi-book series. series. And the second one is already in and getting a cover for it now. It's completed and approved. It's got a publishing date of June 2nd. So you know, readers who who pick this up and really enjoy it, it's already resonating with readers. It's got, it's got great reviews from other authors and the trades. And so, you know, people have been getting tons of emails, like people

who really enjoyed it. They found the readership that they're looking out for a second one. So there is one coming. And it is coming June 2nd, 2026th. And the series will continue. Pump out those books. We've had like the folks who pump out the Jack Ryan novels and stuff like that on the show. Yep, yeah, my friends. And some of the other offers that are, yeah, you probably know everybody in that space. It's funny how a lot of them are military, ex-military,

and so they can use their military knowledge. We've had other authors, we've on the show, have used to be in policemen or detectives that write novels. And so they just use their experience. And since they kind of know, you know, the gun language of which gun does this and, you know, and the military sort of aspects of theaters of war and conflict, you know, they can, they can write with an accuracy. I think that, like, I could never write about any of that stuff. I don't know how planes work.

I don't know. So it definitely helps. Yeah, it definitely helps. Evidently they have wings and propellers. Somewhere you make a turn. I don't know. just, I just dated myself when I said they had propellers, I think. It's got a flux capacitor, whatever.

It's got a flux capacitor. It's all about ball bearings. So tell us about your journey through your life, some of the things you did and accomplished. And then when did you start writing, if you can lead that up to when you started writing and when you kind of made the decision that you're like, I think I have a knack for this. I think I have some potential. Sure. Thank you for the opportunity to tell you.

So, you know, I never wanted to be a writer. It wasn't even something I aspired to. I never wrote fiction. Yeah, it's a funny story, like, you know, how life, you know, hands out differently than you expect, you know. I was always good at writing papers. Like, I read a lot of fiction and nonfiction growing up. Always had a book, read all Clive Custler and, like, you know, this kind of adventurous books. But I was doing what I wanted to do.

You know, I went to Hawaii after high school and I became a scuba instructor and I was, you know, living kind of an adventurous life. I had that bug. And then I joined the Navy and became a helicopter pilot. in the Navy. I was attached to a task force that we combated drug cartels. So I was all over Central South America to three deployments, fighting transnational criminal organizations. We don't call them drug cartels anymore because they have diversified portfolios. And so I worked with a lot of different government agencies and foreign partners to combat that mission. And then I got injured. And I battled for years to get back up on flight status and was unsuccessful. And eventually

I got what they call med boarded out of the Navy where you can no longer fly anymore for the FAA due to your injuries. And so I was kind of left without a purpose and a plan and I had to leave the military after a 12 year career. And I ended up becoming an investigator for the Department of Defense investigating like aircraft development contracts and stuff like that. But it wasn't it wasn't really what I envisioned for myself. You know, I still had this toe in aviation and it you know, and that's a really weird place for a former aviator to be, you know, kind of half in, half out, you know, I wanted to just be a career pilot. And, you know, it was kind of, it was taken away from me due to circumstance. So I, I was kind of struggling to figure out,

you know, my new mission and reinvent myself. And at the same time, you know, when I'd stopped flying, you know, of all the times I had, you know, been three seconds from death, I had just, I had started to experience some pretty severe PTSD that was pretty crippling in my life. Oh, wow. I couldn't, I couldn't drive at night. I was having trouble understanding the lights at intersections and it was, you know, giving me panic attacks and thunderstorms and, you know, smell of fire all the time. And it was really, really affecting my life, my marriage, to the point where, you know, my wife was like, look, you got to go talk to somebody or, you know, this is it. And, you know, it was pretty debilitating, you know, coming from someone who was a pilot who could

multitask, you know, used to having a crew of five, do 20 different things at one time, you know, I couldn't do two things anymore. You know, I'd have one thing going on and then, you know, something would happen, you know, like the toilet would overflow or something like that. something stupid and it would just make me feel like I was drowning, it would paralyze me. So I started talking to a trauma therapist about it. And she recommended that I journal my experiences. So every morning before work,

I would write in this journal about all the times that I almost bought it or the different things that were giving me panic attacks. And it was really cathartic experience. She wanted me, that was phase one, was writing about reliving it. Phase two was talking about it in a group setting. So I did that, but I didn't feel comfortable talking about the detail.

that I had written about drug cartels and missions and stuff because it was still so fresh. And, um, you know, those people are all throughout the United States. And it was so close to when I had stopped doing it. So she was like, just fictionalize the, the, the event, you know, the person, you can almost be anonymous. Just I want to experience like what you experienced and share that. Um, so I did that. So I was essentially writing little fiction stories, little short stories every morning. And it got to the point where it was so helpful that I, I didn't need therapy anymore. It turned my life around 180 degrees. And then at the same time gave me this new mission, this new purpose. Like, wow, writing is really helping me. Like, I want to use it for

something, not just journals. So I was thinking I would write a history book because I had my master's in history. So I started doing that, but it wasn't the same as writing those fiction stories. So I got inspired to try writing a book. So I wrote two books in secret early in the morning before work, like 4 a.m. to 7 in the morning. And my wife didn't even know. And then I reached out to her and had her read it and um or excuse me i reached out to my brother had him read it then i had my wife read it just you know give me the honest truth is do i have some kind of talent here and um because i knew uh what it was going to take to go for it and um she said yeah you know you do you do you do so go for it so my world got real small i cut out you know my friend group got real

small i cut out all my hobbies and i just devoted myself to trying to do this for for a living and um you know i finally got published five books later after completely giving up you know That was my plan until I gave up, right? And, yeah, but now I'm here. That's pretty cool, man. That's pretty cool. You know, we've had a lot of people on that. We've talked about PTSD, veterans, and doctors and stuff.

And do you find that the writing helps your PTSD because it helps you? Like, one thing I found, I had a lot of stories. And when I put them in my first book of my pseudo memoir, some of my stories, what's kind of been interesting is I've forgotten them. Like, I used to tell those stories all the fucking time. Like, just parties, wherever I was. These are the stories I would usually tell. These are my favorite stories.

And once I wrote them down in the book, I don't even remember them hardly anymore. Like, and it's kind of like, like I have ADHD and OCD and probably D-U-M-B. A couple other D's. I think I have some D-U-M-B, sucked on some paint chips, lead paint chips when I was a kid. We've all got a little of that. Yeah. And we have those moments, right? And so what was funny was I lay awake at night wanting to, and, you know, with the ADHD brain just running its wheel going, oh, you got to do this tomorrow. You got to go. Don't forget that. Don't forget this. And then I found that writing stuff down made it so I could go to sleep. Because what my brain was doing was trying to remind me of this shit, probably for, you know, sometimes just to make sure I didn't fuck it up or, you know, danger. There's your ego brain kind of always kicks you with stuff. stuff that you did like 40 years ago you can't change but it does that kind of a safety thing so did you find maybe like and i basically like people ask me how my stories now i'm like read

the book i forgot what the fuck the story was and uh so maybe maybe that helps in that kind of sort of way where it now that it's written down the ego brain goes okay we've got he's got it on paper somewhere we don't have to keep reminding him and punishing him maybe yeah it was it was like a three-part thing you know in retrospect that's the time, I didn't really understand why, but now that I've, you know, been writing for a while in looking back on it, I think, I think two parts. One, like you said, like, you know, as a military pilot, you don't really talk about anything that's going to scare your family, your wife, and stuff like that, because you come home and then they got a, you know, I remember talking

on the phone with my wife and then it cut out and she didn't hear from me for three weeks in the middle of an operation. And, you know, that the kind of anxiety that she told me she experienced for those three weeks was like, you know, nobody would tell her anything and all that. So like, I knew that kind of stuff. So I didn't, I always wanted to portray that what I was doing was like, I was fine and play it down and I was safe and everything was good. And, you know,

meanwhile, I just landed on fire, you know, like, you know, so you don't, and when I come home, everyone's just so happy to see me. Nobody asks any questions. No, but I don't want to share because I don't want to freak them out because I got to go back 22 days from now, you know? So, so you tend to not talk about it with your, you know, you, you discuss it with other pilots to, learn from your mistakes. But that's what you treat it as a learning experience. You move

forward. You put it behind you and you don't really think about it again. And so you have to always be on for the crew and you have that kind of, I always say that fly in a military plane with the crew is very much like, very much like the Kevin Kostner movie for Love of the Game when he goes to pitch and he says, clear the mechanism. Like, you just got to forget about all your problems and just focus on what you're doing and get everybody home. So, you know, it was part like talking about the reliving it like you said like forgetting reliving the actual experiences and you bubble up the emotions again and you actually realize what's triggering the panic attacks and all these unknown emotions that you're having you know and you can trace them all back i'm not

just angry all the time for no reason all of a sudden you know it's because of this you know and so you start talking about it and that was extraordinarily helpful to relive these experiences realize what the source was and actually talk about them but then on the second part you know i was a man and without a mission. I had devoted my life to flying planes. I was used to studying every day. I was used to being in a highly competitive environment. And I didn't really have that anymore. And I was lost after the military. I didn't know how to apply the skills because my skills were gone. I couldn't fly anymore. So, you know, having a purpose, which was hard, doing something hard, you know, learning a new craft and trying to become a new professional at something. So it was like a two-part thing.

It gave me that mission and that focus, but also gave me that release of, of, you know, all those, all those, uh, core sources of my problems. So, and then I poured him onto the page. And that's where this, this character, Ethan Kane comes from. He's, he's a, uh, he's a, uh, he's a very unique thriller character. He's completely burn scarred from his neck down to his toes. Oh, wow. Um, and, uh, he deals with a lot of issues. He's kind of a, he's kind of the character that I worked out my problems with. And he's a memorial to two of my friends as well, one who died, burned to death and crash and another who was who survived but he was horrifically burned very similar to the character and um so uh he's kind of an amalgam of me and two people you know he feels very real because he is he is really real well it's this i you don't wonder if this could be used for therapy for more veterans with PTSD i know you know one of the things that they come back with too is the missing the brotherhood missing the camaraderie missing you know there's a lot of organization to the military too so like you say you know when they come home you know they're they're kind of lost, and the suicide rates of veterans are just unconscionable.

And we need to do more to help them. But, yeah, I mean, this would be a great way to help people with PTSD. You know, there's an old saying. When you keep these, you know, with trauma, it's kind of the same way. And I think maybe, you know, a way war is trauma. But they say, you know, one of the most important things you can do with trauma is to get it out, to talk to people and share your thing. and flesh it out and of course realize you're not alone you know there's other people that

usually when you start talking about your issues but it's great that you've you've honed it into a vehicle that you know can you can take advantage of your experiences you can share it with people and everything else yeah so it looks like there's a real future to what you're building here and uh in the new books um do you do you plan on maybe putting one out once a year at the pace you're going yeah that's the plan with the publisher to Typically, when a big publisher like this brings on a series, it's typically one a year. So, you know, just like all those other series you see out there.

So right now, I'm kind of on pace for that. And I've got a lot of other projects in the works. And, you know, I'm the kind of person who, you know, once you break through the door, that's not the time to sit back and crack a beer and say, I made it. Like, you know, it's time to hit the gas and try to make it, you know, because once you make it through the door, that doesn't mean anything. So, yeah, there's a lot of stuff coming down the pipe that I can't really talk about. but I've doing a lot of different projects with this series and without the series.

I got stuff in Hollywood and I got an original audio drama that's a sci-fi thing coming up. And I got that we did a, I partnered up with another Navy pilot, another author. We did a Choose Your Own Adventure book that we pitched to the Choose Your Own Adventure series for kids. I'm just doing all kinds of things, you know, just to just to, this is what I want to do. So, yeah, I'm going for right for it, man. And I mean, we have so many amazing novels like yourself on the show. They've been doing novels for, you know, years or. decades and it's funny some of them they just book every four to six months i think

oh wow and then and then sometimes you know we're talking about their book that they have this is real indicative of the jack ryan series and jack ryan junior series yeah and some of those other veins of of military uh novels and and and i mean they're just on the show every six once i'm just like that's wild sometimes i'll be talking to him and be like wait it's since there's another new book coming out in four months is that what is that is that is that the one we're doing or they're doing this one and like oh yeah that's not even supposed to be up on the amazon i bet it gets confusing i bet and and they have their own series and then they have like tom glancy series and then they're writing you know what's craziness what i've tried to do with this book is

do something a little different you know being a new author and breaking into this space you know the book itself is different. It's a crossover thriller. There's supernatural. There's, there's military thriller, there's espionage, there's drama, there's mystery. There's all kinds of elements to make it accessible to all kinds of readers. They marketed as like a military thriller because that's my background, but it's really not. And you know, you start to read the reviews. You'll see that about the book. But there's other things I tried to do to kind to make it different and kind of not just bring a new book to the publishing world, but bring a whole new mentality of the publishing world. So like, first off, when you get this book, there's

an augmented reality cover. So if there's a QR code on my website, you can click it, scan it. There's a fully interactive augmented reality experience for the book that's interactive that ties right into the kicks, kicks you right off before you even read it. And then inside the book, there are secrets and codes and it's treasure hunts built within to the book. And you can find them on my website, Ryan Potte.com. And then there are codes that unlock hidden passages on my website that are part of the treasure hunt that unlock tie-in content that's absolutely free there's you know interactive story games there's you know tie-in chapters there's all kinds of things that that i've made for the readers to make it an interactive fun quick uh experience that if you if you really

like this book if you really enjoy what i'm doing and that's different it'll it'll carry you to the next book and you won't be sitting sitting around because there's nothing else for people to read for me right now if they really like it uh so what i tried to do was bridge that gap um from book one to book two with a lot of fun, engaging, totally free content that is very well done, professionally well done. Well, lots of Easter eggs and stuff there, I guess. Yeah. Oh, yeah.

Yep. I noticed on your website, there was like a group they could join or something on those. Yes, there's a good, so there's, because there's so many discussion things about this book, it's very layered. And, you know, if you read some reviews, you'll see, there's lots to discuss about it. A lot of people have mentioned they really enjoy buddy reading it with somebody because it's one of those books you want to kind of. to talk about because of what goes on. But because of all the codes and the extras and the

discussion stuff, there's a people have wanted to talk about it. So there's a Goodreads group that has been started on Goodreads on my page and people will get early access to all the things that I'm releasing that tie into it. And also a spot where they can go to ask me questions or jump into discussion. I also zoom into people's book clubs. So if they're really interested in that, I'll zoom in and do a total, you know, private, you know, talk about all the spoilers and anything you guys want so um yeah um i really love interacting with readers who really enjoy what i'm doing and because i really enjoy what i'm doing so um trying to just you know break into the space and do it a little bit differently than other people have done there you go well that should be fun i i love

how you're doing on this interaction with your with your audience because that's really you know what will build and bind them to you like i have a lot of novels on the show and they'll be like yeah, sometimes our audience comes up to us at book signings and stuff, and we'll tell us stuff about the character. Like, Jay Jance was on one time, and she's like, she's like, yeah, this, I wrote about this character for like 18 books or something, and then one of my readers came up and said, you know, that guy's an alcoholic, right? And she's like, I never knew it.

I never paid attention. I didn't realize that. I wasn't alcoholic. And so, you know, it's interesting how, you know, fans. will take that. So I'm glad you have an interaction, interactive sort of thing for them. You know, they the people love the lore of these

things. They go crazy for them, you know, and the books are usually you know, they're not, they're not war in peace, so they're usually a good read, and so people read them over and over, and then they'll dig into the meat of them and stuff. So, yeah, it's a, it's a fun game.

So, Ryan, as we go out, give people your final, did I say, give people your final pitch out so that we can they can pick up the book wherever and find out more about you.coms, etc. You can pick up the book wherever books are sold. It's available in audio, hardcover, an e-book. The audio is done by William Demerite. It's absolutely fantastic Shakespeare-trained Yale actor who does incredible voices

and brings the book to life. If you want a signed copy that also comes with a bronze Roman coin from my personal collection of ancient. coins you can get that at longfellow books.com so if you look up just google long fellow books in portland main they have um i think they've got like i think 11 copies left that come with a coin and and they're signed as well so um you can check those out and they'll probably have more on hand as well i'm giving away my entire collection of roman coins with this with this book so yes i am i've already given away hundreds so i have a very large collection and i'm not sentimental so

okay well there you go well thank you very much ryan for coming the show and we'll look forward to hopefully having you on again as you released these wonderful books. I appreciate it. Great talking with you. Thanks for having me on. Thank you. And thanks for tuning in. Order up his book wherever fine books are sold. It is entitled, Blood and Treasure out July 22nd, 2025. Excuse me. Thanks about us for tuning in. Go to goodreads.com, Fortress, Chris Foss, LinkedIn.com, Fortress, Chris Foss, one, the TikTokity, and all those crazy places in the internet. Be good to each other. Stay safe. We'll see you guys next time. That should have us out.

Thanks for coming on the show, Ryan.