The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – Breakneck: A Captivating Novel of Suspense (An Arliss Cutter Novel) by Marc Cameron

Episode Date: May 27, 2023

Breakneck: A Captivating Novel of Suspense (An Arliss Cutter Novel) by Marc Cameron https://amzn.to/3WEEgvm A train ride through the austere beauty of Alaska’s icy wilderness becomes a harrowing fight for survival at the Gateway to the Arctic in the thrilling new Arliss Cutter adventure from the New York Times bestselling author of TOM CLANCY POWER AND EMPIRE. Off the northeast coast of Russia, the captain and crew of a small crabbing vessel are brutally murdered by members of Bratva, the Russian mafia—their bodies stuffed into crab pots and thrown overboard. The killers scuttle the vessel off the coast of Alaska and slip ashore. In Washington, DC, Supreme Court Justice Charlotte Morehouse prepares for a trip to Alaska, unaware that a killer is waiting to take his revenge—by livestreaming her death to the world. In Anchorage, Alaska, Deputy US Marshals Arliss Cutter and Lola Teariki are assigned to security detail at a judicial conference in Fairbanks. Lola is tasked with guarding Justice Townsend’s teenaged daughter while Cutter provides counter-surveillance. It’s a simple, routine assignment—until the mother and daughter decide to explore the Alaskan wilderness on the famous Glacier Discovery train. Hiding onboard are the Chechen terrorists, who launch a surprise attack. While they seize control of the engine, Cutter manages to escape with Justice Townsend by jumping off the moving train—and into the unforgiving wilderness. With no supplies and no connection to the outside world, Cutter and the judge must cross a treacherous terrain to stay alive. Two of the terrorists are close behind. The others are on the train with the judge’s daughter—and they plan to execute her on camera. With so many lives at stake, Cutter knows there are only two options left: catch the train and kill them all . . . or all will be killed.

You wanted the best. You've got the best podcast, the hottest podcast in the world. The Chris Voss Show, the preeminent podcast with guests so smart you may experience serious brain bleed. The CEOs, authors, thought leaders, visionaries, and motivators. Get ready, get ready, strap yourself in. Keep your hands, arms, and legs inside the vehicle at all times because you're about to go on a monster education roller coaster with your brain. Now, here's your host, Chris Voss. Hi, folks. This is Voss here from thechrisvossshow.com, thechrisvossshow.com.

Are you ready for the massive roller coaster with your brain? Oh, my gosh. We've had some amazing authors that have come on the show that have been talking to us about the science of the brain. And the shows haven't come out yet. But the next couple shows, you're going to see them. Well, it's actually going to be the next couple prior to this show. So if you're seeing this show, you've missed the past two or three. So make sure you watch those because they're really important i want to reiterate it we're

putting out two to three shows a day much like a radio show simon schuster and penguin random house are pretty much auto booking the show now which has gotten a little bit out of control but we're trying to rock it um but make sure you're catching and listening to two three shows a day because we're doing the work people and you always got to remember the real benefit is to you because if you're smarter and if you know more and you're more intelligent, you're more sexier to the, to whoever you want to attract. So if you find that, uh, you know, you're getting more likes on Tinder and stuff and more people are flirting with you and checking you out, it's because you're listening to Chris Voss Show. That's some of the science we learned on some of the prior episodes.

Check that out as well. Anyway, guys, as always, for the show to your family, friends, and relatives, the guilt and shaming begins. Go to goodreads.com, 4chesschrisvoss, youtube.com, 4chesschrisvoss, linkedin.com, 4chesschrisvoss. If you think I'm funny here, we're trying to do some funny stuff on TikTok as well as the cuts of the podcast on the show. He is an amazing, prolific author, and he joins us on the show today. I'm really excited to have him. Mark Cameron is on the show with us today.

He's written a multitude of books, more than I can count, because I flunk kindergarten. He, I didn't really, uh, but who does? No, seriously. Uh, he has written his latest book that just came out April 25th, 2023. It's called breakneck, a captivating novel of suspense. It's an Arliss cutter novel from the series there. And, uh, it's already just racked up 1058 ratings on amazon alone so it's highly popular and i think that's just for the hardcover as well there's still the paperback

and all that other good stuff so we're talking to him today about his amazing books and everything he's done and uh he's also into the tom clancy series you may have heard of that series it's highly popular so if you haven't checked it out then uh we'll get into that and what that's about he is a retired chief deputy u.s marshal uh mark cameron spent nearly 30 years in law enforcement his assignments have taken him from alaska to manhattan canada to mexico and dozens of points in between he holds a second degree black belt in jiu-jitsu, note to self, don't find him on the show, and is a certified scuba diver and man tracker. Wow.

He could coach some people on Tinder. I don't know what that means. An avid, I always see these women, they're like, we're all the good men. So, you know, there might be a second career there. An avid adventure motorcyclist, Cameron's books heavily feature bikes and bikers from OSI agent Jericho Quinn's beloved BMW GS. Ah, BMW, yeah, there you go.

And Harley Davidson, Royal Enfields, Ducatus, and most everything on two wheels. Cameron lives in Alaska with his wife, Blue Heel and a Dog, and BMW GS Motorcycle. And there you go. Welcome to the show, Mark. How are you? Hey, I'm good. Thanks for having me on, Chris. This is great.

There you go. And thank you for coming. It's an honor to have you as well, sir. Give us your dot coms, wherever you want people to find you on the interweb, which is in the sky. Yeah, it's really easy to find. Just Mark Cameron Books or markcameronbooks.com. Easy to find. There you go. Now, I'm going to need you to calm down for the show to kind of take the energy down just a little bit

for us okay uh so you live in alaska why do you hate the sun well we get more of the sun up here we in the this time of year um we we take these suicide runs down just a day and back to go fishing. And, you know, it doesn't get dark until where I live, which is below the Arctic Circle, you know, around Anchorage. We can drive down to the Kenai Peninsula and fish, fish, fish, fish, fish, and drive home during the three hours of the dark we have at night and be back for work the next morning. Does that freak you out? Does it break your brain a little bit with the whole thing? the three hours of the dark we have at night and be back for work the next morning so yeah does it get does it break your brain a little bit with the whole yeah yeah i think the the daylight is for me now some people have that seasonal affective disorder where they need the lights and the darkness of the the winter gets to them but for for me having those super long days in the summer where the longest day of the summer,

you know, around the end of June, it'll get daylight around 3.30 in the morning and won't get dark again until around 1 a.m. And even then, it's not dark. It's just dusky. Last night, we had a mama moose in our yard with two brand new babies. And my wife and I were out on the back deck watching them at about, about midnight and we could still see very well. There you go.

And you've written for the Tom Clancy series, which you can probably get a plug in for that as well. How many books do you have? So about 26 books overall. I'm just finishing my seventh in the Jack Ryan Senior Series for the Tom Clancy Estate. And that will actually be my last. I've asked to, I've told them that I'm going to step away. Mark Graney did them before me.

So several authors do. Mike Madden wrote the Jack Juniors. And then when I started writing the Seniors, and then Don Bentley writes the Jack Juniors. And then when I started writing the Seniors, and then Don Bentley writes the Jack Juniors now. Mark Graney was writing the Tom Clancy books when Tom Clancy was still alive. I think Mark started in 2012, 2011, or 2012, and wrote a couple while Tom Clancy was still alive with Tom Clancy. Oh, wow.

Yeah, so he had the opportunity to actually meet the man. I never met him, but I've been a Tom Clancy fan since I was, gosh, in 1984 when I was a rookie police cadet in the academy. The Hunt for Red October came out, and I can pretty much gauge my career by what Tom Clancy book was out. I know I was on my way to, uh, uh, guard a federal judge in New York when the hunt, when, uh, some of all fears came out. I know where I was when it was in Sherman, Texas, when without remorse came out. So, you know, I've been a Tom

Clancy fan forever. So Mark Graney stepped away to write, to focus on his own books. He writes, I don't know if you've had him on the show, you have we have actually i was gonna put a plug in for him great guy just a great guy and we've become friends over the years and yeah he was gonna step away to work on his own gray man series and he um unbeknownst to me he had me in mind to fill his shoes and so he asked what i was working on i was writing a jericho quinn novel called field of fire i sent him the he said hey could you send it to me i'll uh give you a cover blurb and so i said that's great so i sent him the manuscript and a couple of months later i heard from my agent that he had forwarded it onto his publisher and they showed it to the estate and asked me to write the next jack ryan

so it was out of the blue. Hi, folks. Chris Voss here with a little station break. Hope you're enjoying the show so far. We'll resume here in a second. I'd like to invite you to come to my coaching, speaking, and training courses website. You can also see our new podcast over there

at chrisvossleadershipinstitute.com. Over there, you can find all the different stuff that we do for speaking engagements if you'd like to hire me uh training courses that we offer and coaching for leadership management entrepreneur ism uh podcasting corporate stuff uh with over 35 years of experience in business and running companies as ceo and be sure to check out chrisfossleadershipinstitute.com. Now back to the show. We're getting all the Tom Clancy authors on.

We had Mark Rainey on in February. And then we had Don Bentley on actually in April for the Matt Drake novel. And now we've got you. Now we just need to get Tom Clancy on the show himself. So we'll see if we can work that out.

So this has been awesome. And your new novel, this is in your Arliss Cutter series, Breakneck, a captivating novel of suspense. How many are in this series? So that's the fifth. So that's the fifth one. These books tend to, so as you mentioned, I'm retired from the U.S. Marshal Service and I live in Alaska. My wife and I have lived in Alaska for 25 years. So the very first book in that series takes place

on an island down in Southeast Alaska called Prince of Wales Island. It's actually the second or third largest island in the United States, but very few people know about it. But it's down close to Ketchikan, probably about 800 miles of logging roads, but very few paved roads, and a lot of Tlingit and Haida indigenous folks. And so the cultures there are just phenomenal. They're very small, mostly logging and fishing. Uh, I was sent down there as a tracker. So as part of the fugitive task force, when I first moved to Alaska and I was sent down there as a man tracker, when,

when another man chopped a guy's head off with a splitting mall and then fled into the woods. Oh, wow wow so he was hiding and so they sent us down to track him and i spent about three days three and a half days tracking him through the woods finally found him uh arrested him but during that time in these old growth forests with you know like i said totem poles and these quiet almost haunted coves you know the ocean coves and salmon everywhere and bears and deer. I just knew that I was going to set a book down there someday. And so the first book in the Arliss Cutter series, Open Carry, is a murder mystery set down there.

And then each book in the series, I'm able to draw on the real life experiences I've had. I don't base them on any people or, or anyone experienced, but I, they certainly inspire the books. My experience with the martial service and the assignments I've been on. And at the same time, the native cultures that I've been able to work with and meet and, and then the different geographies of Alaska and the weather. And, you know, my, one of my editors said, I don't know, two books ago, he said, you got another storm moving into this book. There's always a storm. Can't you, you know, what's the deal with these storms?

And I said, well, we call that Tuesday here in Alaska. That's just the way it goes. Well, it probably creates some pressure and some anxiety and, you know, a window that you've got to operate in without, you know, kind of creates some suspense or some stress to the situation of whatever's going on in the book, right? Oh, absolutely. that have performed what we would consider major surgery on the cafeteria table of a high school. Holy crap. Talking to a doctor via, you know, web link because there was no way to get anybody else there. And that's one of the beautiful things about out in the bush is people do what they have to do. And, you know, some of these villages, there's a kind of a joke that's a truism. And

some of the bush villages of Alaska, we call it the bush when you can't get there by car. You have to either take a plane or a boat. And we say to get to Southeast Alaska or some of the other places, there's only three ways to get there, either plane, boat, or birth canal. And so the people that are born there they have a different way of thinking than the rest of us where we'd say that's impossible they say well it might be impossible we're gonna have to try so i had a young deputy uh we were doing a big prisoner sweep in western alaska where we had i think we brought up like 20 out of district deputies from all across the northwest and they were teamed with troopers we had, I think we brought up like 20 out of district deputies from all across the Northwest.

And they were teamed with troopers. We had snow machines and we were out in far Western Alaska, way out close to the Bering Sea. And they were going to these different villages. And we had, you know, targeted basically what we would call village terrorists, people that are really causing troubles. And the villages are the ones that gave us these people with warrants. They're like, these people are causing us trouble. There's not enough law enforcement out of here.

They get drunk. They shoot up the village, you know, help us. And so we went out there on this big sweep. And one of the deputies from, I can't remember which town, somewhere in Oregon, I think, he got there to this small village on the western coast of Alaska, around 800 people. And the trooper that was supposed to meet him there was a little bit late on another flight.

Big storm moving in. The trooper was not able to get there. So here's this 27, 28-year-old deputy with a few years in law enforcement, but it's been federal stuff certainly not in a native community in western alaska where he's the literally the only badge carrier out there at the time because the trooper hadn't gotten there yet and he called me and he said hey chief and i made a command post in bethel alaska about 300 miles away from where this young man is and he said hey chief there's been a double murder suicide i've got this lady who found her husband with his girlfriend she killed them both and killed herself holy what do i do i'm here in this house with him and the this tribal police officer who's a 19 year old kid who's trying who's, you know, he's a tribal police officer, but he's not certified by the state at that point.

And he doesn't know what to do. And I said, well, the troopers should be there. And he goes, no, they can't get in. There's a storm. There's a storm coming. Exactly. So he ended up, we worked with the troopers and Alaska Bureau of Investigation to figure out what to do. And basically, he turned the heat off in the house so that it would keep everything frozen and not, you know, the bodies would stay frozen and all the evidence would stay frozen. And then they sat in the living room and parkas and ate MREs

and, you know, for a couple of days until investigators could get there. So it's definitely a very unique kind of law enforcement here, which lends itself to the Arliss Cutter books. And it's fun for me to write because I can show off the agency that I feel like raised me, the Marshal Service, and then the state that I feel like raised me, which is Alaska. So they're great fun to write. There you go.

We were talking about the show, about how I asked you if you did some of that the fugitive stuff the tommy lee jones uh sort of things and you uh did a bit of that uh tell us about the protagonist in here who is this arliss cutter for those who aren't familiar so we can open up the door to more readers and uh you know what's he up to yeah so arliss cutter is a guy that the best way to describe him is he's a man who will not accept a bully. He, something's happened in his past that you find out as you read the books, but some terrible situations happen. He's a former army ranger turned deputy marshal, which is very common in the marshal service to have folks from the military or law enforcement come aboard because we are such a boots on the ground kind of a law enforcement agency.

We always describe the FBI as the premier investigative agency for the Department of Justice. The marshal service, we would like to consider ourselves the premier enforcement agency. So we make things happen. We're the ones that are the muscle for the judiciary, the executive branch as well. So anyway, so he's the deputy marshal who draws a very bright line between good behavior and bad behavior. And he draws it very close, as my wife said, so he doesn't have to across to very far to slap someone that that you know

steps over it so he's that kind of guy very if you ever heard the old marty robbins song the big iron on his hip think of him like that he's come to town with a big iron on his hip gonna arrest the bad guy right so very much of that that kind of cowboy ethos he's from florida raised by his grandfather who's the florida marine patrol that old-timey uh cowboy ethos his brother with his best friend growing up was an engineer who moved to alaska with his artist's sister-in-law who by the way arliss has had a crush on from the time they met so he's he's in love with his sister-in-law okay can't do anything about that because it's like Jesse's girl swoop his brother swooped in yeah his brother swooped in and took her when they were both teenagers and he's had to live with that

but now his brother's dead his brother's been killed up on the north slope of Alaska in a tragic accident. Or was it an accident? We don't know. Or was it? Right. So now Arliss has gone from Florida, moved out of where he's used to. He's a water guy. He's a swamp guy.

He's a surfer, hot weather guy. Doesn't like coats, as you mentioned. Yeah, that was me as a kid in California. And now he's moved to take care of his widowed sister-in-law figure out what happened to his brother and help the sister-in-law with her two sons and daughter so he's now living in the house with the woman he's loved his whole life but it's inappropriate for him to do anything about it because his brother just died. Yeah. That tension there.

And he's a good guy. Artists is a, he's got, like I say, a very clear line between right and wrong. So that's all in the background. That's not the main part of the story, but that's what he's living on.

And so, but he's, he runs the Alaska fugitive task force, tries not to get in trouble because he's very heavy-handed because he will not put up with with bad behavior and he's got a really quirky smart aggressive uh partner named lola tariki who's a polynesian deputy marshal and she's kind of his jiminy cricket if you will his conscience with you know kind of keeps him calm as he tries to anyway while he teaches her tracking and wood stuff she teaches him about alaska and what you

know because she's even though she's polynesian she's been in alaska for a few more years longer than him there you go makes a really cool backdrop there you go and some tension some maybe some sexual tension there a little bit or love oh yeah tension there lots lots a lot and uh i you know people can never tell us the middle or the end of novels they're very different when we have you know historical novel books on because we we all kind of all know how they turned out you know especially those amraham lincoln ones you know somebody gets a bullet somebody dies yeah they. To kind of warn you. Too soon. But I guess we maybe see how it plays out in the novel there, huh? With the two of them.

Yeah, so it takes a while. You never want to end up the conflict too soon. So there's always something that gets in the way. But by book five things get things are thawing out a bit and uh book six which is next year we'll see what happens but uh lots of lots of fun interaction between the two and again i mean they're not gonna you know run off into the sunset together because his brother just died and that's her husband so and he was married as well he's been married four times so and his wife just passed away not long before his brother

but she died of natural causes so it's a you know it's life it's the stuff that happens and oftentimes in police procedurals or or thrillers we only get a tiny glimpse of the background of what these people are dealing with and i want to i really want to fold that in so that they become a part of because my wife is you know she's been married to a copper deputy marshal for 30 years of our you know for 30 of our 40-year marriage and so wow i in fact when our youngest was going through the police academy here in Anchorage several years ago, and, you know, I was kind of nervous because, well, if anything happens to him, they're going to all blame me because now he's following me into this line of work and his wife's going to be mad. My wife's going to be mad. I'm going to be heartbroken because he's my, you know, he's my bud.

My kids are all my my dear friends but so our youngest is going through the academy he goes through training and so it's like a long process like a year of training and the very first night he's on he's on his own so he's gone through the field training program where he's got an officer with him all the time now it's been a year. It's midnight shift in Alaska in the winter, so no light. It's cold, and my baby boy is by himself in the mean streets of Alaska. I'm fit to be tied. I'm just a nervous wreck. I'm making deals with God. Please watch over my kid, whatever I can do. And I look over and my wife is just calm. She's just absolutely calm. He's her baby too. And I can't, I just can't understand it. And I, her name's Vicki. And I said, I said, Vicki, what's the matter with you? This, this is our kid. How could you be so calm about this? And she looked at me very, very sweetly sweetly and said mark this is new to you i've been feeling this way for 30 years

wow okay i better shut up now she's got it she's got it handled so i want to show some of that and the the significant others whether it's a husband or wife or whatever, that watches us put on our vest and strap down our vest and lace up our boots and put on a gun and go to work not knowing whether we're going to come back every day. I want them to be characters in these books as well. Yeah. I mean, it's hard to be a wife of a law enforcement officer, to my understanding. Yeah, you never know. There's anything that can happen, you know.

You see guys that, unfortunately, you know, they've done a whole career without firing their gun, and they're close to retirement, and all of a sudden, you know, whatever. There's plenty of stories in that thing. So that's definitely a suspense thing. Do you, what's on the future radar for you? Do you see, are you going to go back to the jericho series or yeah no that's a good question so i i as i said i'm turning in my

seventh and final effort in the the jack ryan senior series this week as a matter of fact just finishing that up um and then i'll go back and write the next finish up the last um or the next the second i mean sorry the sixth arliss cutter it's going to be called uh bad river so that's the sixth one in this series we've already you know it's already plotted it's already well down the road um i think they'll be putting a cover out pretty soon on Amazon if they haven't already. And then when I finish that, then I'll work on another Jericho. I get emails every day from people asking me to write another Jericho, and I miss him. I miss – Jericho is an absolutely incredibly fun series to write. Jericho Quinn, his gigantic Cajun Marine Gunnery Sergeant sidekick partner named Jacques Thibodeau.

So Jericho Quinn, Jacques Thibodeau, and they're Jericho's buxom CIA girlfriend named Veronica Garcia, who's Cuban-Russian in the background. You know, when I first started writing these in like 2009, 2010, I think the first one came out in 2011, but I envisioned them. The covers look like modern day covers, but I envisioned them with those old time Matt Helm, James Bond kind of covers with the guy with the gun and the scantily clad girl in the

background and machine guns and sports cars. And so that's the way these books are. They're very Jason Bourne, James Bond, over the top kind of book. So they're lots of fun to write. There you go. There you go. Well, we'll be excited to see him. Do you have a title for the new Clancy book out?

The new Clancy that's coming out is's called command and control command and control it's already up on amazon and it's a little bit terrifying when you're writing a book and it's up on amazon and ticking up the starts and the charts and you haven't turned it into the editor yet so it's like oh better live up to these expectations but last year's last year's book called red winter I mean, I like the one I'm working on, but last year's book was Red Winter, and it was a throwback set back in 1985, kind of when the early Clancy's were set. So that's probably going to be one of my all-time favorite books. There you go.

November 21st, 23, it appears, is the future release date. Yep. There you go. I love it, man. I love you guys who can really do these books well and pump them out and just give a theater base. We have so many authors like yourself that come on the show, and they have these multi, I don't know what you call them, multi-threads of characters and books. And they'll move from one to the other other and it kind of helps keep things very fresh for them yeah that's good it's it's fun it does take up a lot of bandwidth though and my my older

my oldest grandson is 12 now and when he was probably about five or six and i he came they were stationed in japan and i was over there doing some research and visiting grandkids and he came tearing into the room all sweaty he'skids. And he came tearing into the room, all sweaty. He's a big sports kid. And he came tearing into the room and I was, you know, at the table writing. And he came skidding to his stop in his socks and he looked up at me. He called me Papa. And he goes, Papa, what are you writing another book?

Who'd have thought? And then he turned around and walked away. I better rejigger my life here so i can spend some time just cut him out of the will no he's inspiring he's inspired me to slow down there you go well give him an extra kind of the action there you go uh well mark it's been wonderful to have you on the show anything more you want to tease out before we go no i appreciate it this is great just uh i do enjoy hearing from readers so if you like the jerichos or the the cutters or the jack ryan shoot me an email i'm i'm super easy to find

just google mark cameron and my ugly mugs there of course it's pictures online are prettier i had hair and my beard was red back in the day but for some reason they won't put this ugly mug on online like they should. That's what people bug me about my book. They're like, why isn't your picture on it? I'm like, I want to sell the books. I don't want to scare people off. I mean, have you seen me lately? I have radio face.

I accept it. So there you go, Mark. So thanks for coming on. Give us your.com so people can find you on the airwaves again. I think you slid one in, but let's just make sure. Yeah, just markcameronbooks.com. There you go. That will link you to everything, Twitter and Instagram and all of that.

All that good stuff. Well, thank you very much, Mark, for coming on the show. Thanks for tuning in. Go to goodreads.com, Fortress Chris Voss. See everything we're doing over there. Go to youtube.com, Fortress Chris Voss. LinkedIn.com, Fortress Chris Voss. The big LinkedIn newsletter is huge. The we're doing over there. Go to youtube.com, 4chesschrisfoss. LinkedIn.com, 4chesschrisfoss. The big LinkedIn newsletter is huge.

The big LinkedIn groups over there. And TikTok. We're starting to put clips on TikTok, and I try and do some funny stuff over there. It doesn't work. It dies more than it kills. But sometimes when you die and you can kill and make people laugh, it's funny. So there you go. Anyway, guys, thanks for tuning in. Be good to

each other. Stay safe, and we'll see you guys next time. That should have some, Mark.