The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – Deadlock: A Thriller (A Dez Limerick Novel, 2) by James Byrne

Episode Date: July 29, 2023

Deadlock: A Thriller (A Dez Limerick Novel, 2) by James Byrne https://amzn.to/3YaFyiF In this sequel to the highly praised The Gatekeeper, Dez Limerick, one of the best new thriller heroes returns. Desmond Aloysius Limerick ("Dez" to his friends and close personal enemies) is a man with a shadowy past, certain useful hard-won skills, and, if one digs deep enough, a reputation as a good man to have at your back. Now retired from his previous life, Dez is just a bloke with a winning smile, a bass guitar, and bullet wounds that paint a road map of past lives. Jaleh Swann, a business journalist hot on the trail of an auditor who was mugged and killed, lands in the hospital just one day after her Portland apartment is ransacked. When Jaleh’s sister, Raziah, reaches out to an old friend for help, Dez has no choice but to answer. The Swann sisters have been pulled into a dizzying web of cover-ups and danger. At the center lies an insidious Oregon-based tech corporation, Clockjack, which has enough money and hired guns to silence just about anyone―including this rag-tag trio. Luckily, Dez’s speciality is not just to open doors, but keep them open―and protect those working to expose Clockjack’s secrets. More stands in the way of the truth than just one corporation. When hired thugs come to the finish the job and attack the Swann sisters at the hospital, Dez does what he does best. Now, the two captured men (and the corpse Dez left behind) attract the attention of not just Clockjack, but of the Portland police, the D.E.A, and the U.S. Marshalls. Dez and the Swann sisters are on the run from powers beyond their control and means. Outnumbered, under resourced and outgunned, Dez must use all his skills to keep his friends safe and stand up to corporate conniving. After all, the one thing Clockjack didn’t count on? A good man with a simple job to do. About the Author James Byrne lives and writes in one of the coolest cities on Earth: Portland, Oregon. Under various names, he has published nine other novels in the realm of thrillers and mysteries. Find out more about James and “The Gatekeeper” at jamesbyrnemystery.com.

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 rollercoaster with your brain. Now, here's your host, Chris Voss. Hi, folks. This is Voss here from thechrisvossshow.com, thechrisvossshow.com. Welcome to the big show, my family and friends. Welcome, welcome to the Big Show.

We certainly appreciate you guys being here today. As always, get ready for the brain bleed. The brain bleed, as they say in the show, or at least that's the billing. I don't know. I think the lawyers agreed that we could say that in some sort of way. Some of the guests are like, wait, we're going to make me brain bleed? What is this show like, that hot sauce thing where you drink the hot sauce and there's brain bleeding on the show i don't know maybe that's a whole new show format we can use i don't know it's probably not going to work out in the lawyers are never going to agree to it i'm surprised they agree to the hot sauce thing anyway without further ado we have an amazing author on the show as always and we're going to be getting into his latest hottest novel and this

is the second one in a series the first one was was really hot. It was so hot, like, I think Amazon had to regulate the reviews on it because there were so many reviews. They're like, maybe it's gotten too many. I don't know. We'll find out if that's true or if I'm just making that up, as it were, for comedy's sake. But in the meantime, refer to the show to your family, friends, and relatives without the guilting and shaming that we do in the plugs every time.

There's LinkedIn.com, 4chesschrisfoss, YouTube.com, 4chesschrisfoss,'s linkedin.com for chest christmas youtube.com for chest christmas goodreads.com for chest christmas and all the other places and if that doesn't keep you up at night living in shame and guilty you haven't subscribed to them all and retweet everything we do over there or wait it's re-x or whatever the hell it's called this week uh then uh i don't go be you man whatever man we love you. We always love our audience. He's the author of the latest book today that just came out or it's coming out. Let me see here. Let me reload this. August 8th, 2023. I had the Kindle edition up. Deadlock, a thriller. A Des Limerick novel part two is just coming out. James Byrne is on the show with us today. He'll be talking to us about his latest novel.

We'll be talking about some other things that go on in his life. James lives and writes in one of the coolest cities on earth, Portland, Oregon. We got that clear with the attorneys, and they said we could actually say that, although it's still up for debate. Under various names, he has published nine other novels in the realm of thrillers and mysteries and you can find out more about him at his website, jamesburnthriller.com.

Welcome to the show, James. How are you? I am good and I'm really glad to be here. And we're glad to have you. It's an honor as well, sir. Congratulations on the new book. Give us, well, I just got your, I just plugged your.com for you in the bio. Any other places on the internet that you want people to look you up?

That's primarily it. There you go. So this, tell us about this new book that you have out that is coming out and it's second in the series. Give us an idea what's up with this and why you decided to write it, please. Yeah, this is the second book

starring Desmond Limerick, who's the protagonist of these stories. And in this one, a mate calls Des. He's in L.A. A friend calls and says that her sister's in trouble. Her sister's been hospitalized. She was mugged up in Portland, Oregon. Des being Des, he jumps on a plane and hauls up there to see if he can help.

And there they run into a conspiracy that involves the Drug Enforcement Administration, the U.S. Marshals, the Witness Protection Program, and an international mega conglomerate that is based here in the Oregon area. Des being Des, again, he gets involved in things he shouldn't ought to. And hilarity ensues. There you go. And so it's a thriller. And you named the gentleman our lead protagonist in the book.

He's not our lead protagonist. He's your lead protagonist. But, you know, we're sharing him, I guess, in reading your novel. You named him Desmond. And then what's the pronunciation of this middle name? Aloysius. Aloysius. Doshi Aloysius.

Isn't there a song of that? Alioeta. Alioeta Doshi Aloysius. You were in the ballpark. Doshialoish. Isn't there a song of that? Alioeta. Alioeta, Doshialoish. You were in the whole part. And then Limerick. Yeah, I mean, it's like that Jimi Hendrix song, Excuse Me While I Kiss This Guy. It doesn't say that, folks.

It's just a joke. So why did you name him that? That's a really complex name. You know, I know he's referred to Des through the novel, but was there a reason behind choosing that name? Yep. When I decided to create this character, I was going to do a single male protagonist action thriller,

and I love those books. I mean, everybody who writes that stuff, Mark Graney, Greg Hurwitz, Lee Child, love that stuff. And I wanted to do some, I wanted to do that, but I wanted to have my own voice and do something different, I couldn't replicate what those guys did, so amongst other things I created him as an Englishman

and he is absolutely lacking completely lacking in dourness or gloom or anything he's kind of a happy-go-lucky cheerful dude Are you sure he's English then? Yeah, well he's Irish he's English then? Yeah. Well, he's Irish.

Oh. He's from the UK. And I also wanted to give him an uncool name. So, I mean, I'm not dissing any other writers here, but I run into a whole lot of Jacks and Jakes. I think you just throw shade at like half the novels we've had on the show. Yeah. I think you just throw shade at half the novels we've had on the show. There are a lot of characters who have names that are

quintessentially cool. So, Edmund is quintessentially not cool. And Aloysius is just downright stupid. And Limerick is just a fun word. Yeah, does Limerick end up just... There's a Rumpelstiltskin thing. When you're trying to create a character and the name isn't quite right,

you know it. It's something isn't, you know, and so he had a bunch of different names in earlier drafts, whole bunch of names and all of them weren't quite there. And then finally it settled on Des because it's short, it's tight. It's got that Zed.

It just, I just loved it. So we ended up. There you go. Bernard, was that on the table at any point in time? Barnard, with the British pronunciation. Barnard, yeah.

Yeah, Barnard was definitely on the table. I'm getting emails from the five people that are Barnard in our audience. So give us a 30,000 overview. What's the details in this? And is it a standalone or is it a carryover from the first book? Do we need to read the first book to understand it, et cetera, et cetera? Well, my hope is that you can read them in any order, although I do introduce characters who then affect the plot in the second book.

But you don't really need to read The Gatekeeper first. The basic idea is that Desmond is 35 years old and has retired from a military. I don't say which military, this is an international military organization. And his job there was as a breach expert. He's the term, the gatekeeper. Basically his job was to open any door, keep it open as long as it needs to be opened and control who does and does not get through it. So if his unit was involved in any kind of breaching operation, he is the guy who did that. Now he's 35 years old and he's in the States for the first time and he's got a guitar, traveling around, picking up musical gigs, did a little small engine repair that supplemented his income while he was in L.A.

He's just having a good time, really enjoys life a great deal. But he does have all of this military background and science background in order to do what he does he has uh higher education degrees in electronics and engineering he's with he's a good hacker all those things are necessary if you need to know how to open any door so he's a highly educated guy who's making a living playing musical gigs and stumbling into stuff he ought not to first place in la and second up here in portland and the third one will take place in Washington, D.C. Oh, so are you working on the third one now? You got plans for it?

Yeah. St. Martin's Press bought four books. The third one is written with my editor, Keith Kala, who is a bit of a legend in the mystery thriller realm. He's probably the best editor of his kind on Earth. And then the fourth one I haven't started yet. So we'll see where that goes. There you go.

A guy who plays guitar and is stumbling around. I think that's how they found a fuck. I just screwed up the joke. I think that's how they found Neil Young on the side of the road. Didn't he? I don't know. Don't sue me, Neil.

He still looks like he's a poem on the side of the road i just saw him in concert the other day uh but he's got great music so uh what do you feel uh how do you feel your character is developing in the second book do you feel like things are getting better you've written a lot of other books too and uh how do you feel writing is maybe getting different or improved or you know maybe it's not maybe you're just just fucking on the second book. You're just phoning in a Hollywood sequel. I got to tell you, honestly, every writer I know, when they're drinking, worries

about the second book. It's called The Sophomore Slump, and we all panic. Lightning struck. Can I make it strike again? You never know. Yeah, I mean, I really worked hard on this book because I was very worried about that. The good news is the reviews are in and the reviews are saying this is as good or better than the first one.

Getting lots of real positive feedback from folks. So that's very, very exciting. I think I am of the opinion that there's two exactly two ways to become a better writer. Read a lot and write a lot. And there ain't no other ways. That's it. And so everything I write makes me slightly better writer. and i've been writing since i was a college student um you can tell by the color of my hair that was some time ago uh every time i write even when i write crap when you write something it's terrible it's like when you drive an older car and you blow all the gunk out of the transmission um that writing bad is a good habit to get into. I think I get better all the time.

But I will say this. Desmond is the easiest character to write. I love Des. He's super easy to write. He writes his own dialogue. If I'm smart enough to shut up and sit down, he writes many of his own scenes. I'll just give him a look.

So I'm having a blast with him. 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, training courses that we offer, and coaching for leadership, management, entrepreneurism, podcasting, corporate stuff, with over 35 years of experience in business and running companies as a CEO. And be sure to check out chrisvossleadershipinstitute.com. Now back to the show. That's really awesome to have that flow. Have you had that flow with any of your other books that you've written? I am quite fast as a writer. And the reason I'm quite fast is because I'm a newspaper journalist. We don't have writer's block in journalism. We call it unemployment.

If you went to the school board meeting and came back and told your editor, the Muse is an old twit with me today, they'd just replace you with a 20-year-old. Or AI nowadays. That's right, yeah. We put it in ChatGPT. You'll be fine. Here's your check. We don't ever have writer's block. And I write every single day.

I write longhand and and stenopad for my first drafts and then translate it in the computer and i can write a novel in about three months first draft so i am pretty darn fast but i and i work and i i put my ass in the chair and work wow there you go i mean that's really the key what do you think uh or what do you i mean usually a writer at your point gets a lot of feedback from his readers. In fact, some of you are just like, seriously? And sometimes it's kind of interesting.

Like I've had novelists on the show and they're like, some people have written me and gone, you know, your character's an alcoholic. And they're like, really? Oh, yeah. My character is an alcoholic. You know, stuff like that. What are some of the feedback you've gotten and why do you think readers really identify with the protagonists your characters

your books des cares a great deal about people who express loyalty one of his character traits is he's loyal to his friends and he really, really likes people who are loyal in general. So there's a woman in the first book who is a member of a city council in a small town in California, a fictional town. And the town has fallen apart and all but destroyed, but she's still on the city council running these meetings in the town

that is literally falling apart. And Des just loves her because she's that person. He wants to support people who express loyalty. I also have a lot, a lot of very strong female protagonists. And one thing I hear from my readers is, I got a guy who's got some hefty muscles and he's good in a fight and good with weapons and all that. And yet I don't give the women characters short shrift.

And in fact, in the first book, we're introduced to Des because he rescues a woman who is the chief legal counsel for a multinational corporation. And he saves her in Act One. But it's really important to me that Petra saves Petra in Act Three. So she ends up being the primary protagonist who saves her own life in the end of the book. Because Des can save you to get the plot going but she had to save herself at the end of the book so i get a lot of comments from people who say they like strong female protagonists and they find that in my book and i find a lot of people write in to say des is not cranky and he's not unhappy and he's not dour and he has no

he's a happy guy and people say i i enjoy reading about a guy who doesn't have a lot of angst so it's a different thing there you go well you know people need more positive stuff in this world you know we don't have negative stuff going on and negative nature and stuff um and so this should be a fun romp and so uh are you it sounds like you're going to kind of keep the same sort of lock theme, if you will. Are you, the first book was called the gatekeeper and then are you, are you going to keep moving to different cities?

Are you going to. Yes. He's going to keep moving to different cities in every book. I wanted to do all the titles with the word lock or key or gate or door or something in them. And St. Martin's press told me I'm simply not creative enough to do that. And they're afraid that by the fifth book,

I'll be calling it the door jam or something like that. Door jam. Yeah. Cold here will run out of clever titles. So I think by the third one, we're going to call it something else. I'm not sure. Chain Reaction is one of the things we've talked about. I like that.

That's a good name. Lock Smith. I don't know. Maybe not. The Key. What do they call that movie? Who's that guy in The Matrix? The Keymaster? I forgot't know. Maybe not. Yeah. Yeah. The, the key, what do they call that movie? Who's that guy in the matrix? The key master.

Uh, I forgot. Yeah. It was, it was called the key master, I think, or maybe, wait,

wasn't that, wasn't the one with the, the ghostbusters. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Ghostbusters matrix. I mean,

they're really just the same movie. Just, they changed the names really, uh, let you guys think about that one for a second. But you could do the Keymaster, you know, without that whole one guy. Or, I don't know, there's probably some good names for keys and gates and keys. Why do you like that analogy of deadlocks and gatekeepers and in the whole unlocking of stuff and is it the

puzzle nature of it is the solving of the riddle and the thriller of it it is um i was trying to find a unique skill set that this guy had that i didn't read in all the other novels of this kind and the idea of a breach expert or a guy who controls doors seemed really exciting to me i just hadn't seen that before so i went online and did some research um that roman god of doors is uh either janice or you don't know depending on how you want to pronounce it really and he's actually the uh the roman god of doors yes but also of of uh beginnings and endings and transitions in time and i thought oh that's a lot of stuff you can play with there. So then it dawned on me, if you're good at opening a door,

well, websites are doors, right? So that would be one of the things he's really good with. And so it just struck me as a fun, unusual, I hadn't seen it before, it lends itself to tons and tons of opportunities. It just,

it ended up being that little bit of business that made him slightly different, I think, than all the other single male protagonist, action adventure protagonists are out there. Name Jack. Piss off half the novelists on the show. No, it'll be fine. It'll be fine. They're probably in on the joke as well, knowing them.

There's a lot of masculine things, but Dez is a good name. It's a cool name and it's unique. I don't think there's a lot of other novelists looking around and pick Dez. They might pick Bernard, but you don't have to worry about anybody going,

another Jack or John. I don't know. I don't know what it is. Maybe there should be like a law that we need to regulate how many Jack novels there are. Well, I got to tell you that so far in two books, at least one of the American people in the book has made fun of his name. So the fact that he's got this goofy name, Desmanella, which is limerick, the other protagonists or the antagonists in the book are fully aware that that's a dopey name. And they bring that to his attention a lot. It's just one of those things that made him different.

The other thing that made him different, I got to say this really quick, if I could, that I really wanted to try, because I hadn't seen it before in any other mystery thriller, is that this guy is breathtakingly uncool when it comes to women and sex. Oh, really?

He's instantly 14 years old. And so anytime there's an opportunity to have sex, he's like, really? That's awesome. Let's do that. Yes. And he just completely lacks any cool whatsoever. I've never seen that in one of these. Usually, there's James Bond-y and they're very

Martini. Yeah. So he's kind of like the opposite James Bond. He has no he has no game no dating no no no whatsoever he's just super thrilled about the opportunity of getting the love scenes are about 15 seconds long i get it i have to be really careful not right love scenes because my mom still reads my books oh that's therapy so yeah that that might not be uh a good thing to do but yeah yeah the uh Yeah, that's probably appropriate because, I don't know.

You know, everyone asks me, so you have a lot of book writers on the show, Chris? I'm like, yeah, except for romance novels. And they're always like, why don't you have romance novels on the show? I'm like, look, hey, they're great authors. But, you know, there's only so many, how many times can I have a conversation in a half an hour on the show saying, so they had sex on the beach again? He took off his

shirt again? Look, I'm not making fun of you. You guys are great writers, but I'm not doing that. I can't fill in a half an hour with that. I can't do it. Especially the breadth that they produce their books. They do such a do such a great job and there's so many great novels that write romance novels but i just can't do it it's just like and and so and so his nipples show

up in chapter 5 8 10 and 20 wow i saw that coming i did not know anyway enough of making fun of romance novels but uh uh anything more you want to tease out of the book? Any scenarios that you think people like to see? One thing about novels, we can never give away the middle and ending because, you know, that's part of the gig. Anything you want to tease out before you go? Yeah, you know, it was really fun setting a story in Portland, Oregon, because I've lived here since I was in college, a community college. And I love this town a great deal. And it was awfully fun to set a book here and then sort of try and see it

through the eyes of somebody who isn't from here and see the town through the newcomer's eyes. And, you know, during the pandemic, our town got beat up a little bit. I think that's true of most every city in America. We had Black Lives Matter protests, and we had the economic downturn, and we had wildfires here in the West, etc. My town's looking a little rough, to be honest with you.

Katie King and I just adore this town, so it was really fun setting this book here and letting me re-see the city I love through the eyes of a newcomer. I had a blast with that. There you go. Do you guys

still have those crazy donut places there isn't it your eyes it's the town that's got the crazy donuts the great coffee voodoo donuts voodoo donuts that's what i'm thinking of yeah incredibly good coffee that's on my bucket list micro brew beers a really vibrant wine scene i mean if you like to imbibe we got we got good stuff going on here. Someone told me there's a better donut shop than Voodoo. Yes. Nobody who lives in Portland eats Voodoo donuts. Voodoo donuts is entirely

for the tourists. There are blue stars better. Now I'm going to get in trouble. Now I'm going to be in trouble. Do we need to consult with lawyers first to approve a donut shop? I won't piss off anybody who has got the word voodoo in their title. I mean, that's...

They might make a donut of Dahlavir and the likeness and stick pins in it. That's just my luck. There you go. It sounds like my first 9XYs. Well, James, it's been wonderful to have you on the show. I think they either took donuts or they took

burgers since I've eaten too many of them across my life. I'm wearing most of them and suck them with pins. That was my voodoo dolls. James, it's been wonderful to have you on the show and exciting to have you. We're looking forward to your next book. When's the next book going to come out? Let's get a plug in for that. Do you have a date

on that yet? It'll be August of next year. I'm coming out in August of 2023, 2024, and 2025. There you go. It's built in there, folks, but read the books now so that you're up on when the new ones come out. Thanks, James. Give us your.com so people can find you on the interviews, please. JamesBurnThriller.com

and burn is B-Y-R-N-E. There you go. Order up the folks, folks. Order up the folks, folks. What? Okay. You know what? No more drinks for me. Turn the coffee spigot off. Order up the folks.

What the fuck? Order up the book wherever fine books are sold. Deadlock, a thriller, a Des Limerick novel. Number two out. Get number one, too, or them both. August 8th, 2023 is out by James Byrne. As always, go to

goodreads.com. You can see everything we're reading and reviewing over there. Go to youtube.com, linkedin.com, and every place around the internet. Be good to each other. Stay safe, and we'll see you guys next time. Thank you.