The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – Shadows Of Justice by David Hasty

Episode Date: August 13, 2026

Shadows Of Justice by David Hasty https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0G8KQNKRG “There’s a fine line between saving lives and losing your own in the process.” Eighteen-year-old Evan Drake has always lived in two worlds. By day, he’s a struggling student trying to keep up with grades, track practice, and a family still healing from loss. By night, he becomes Shadow-the masked apprentice of Vanguard, Crescent City’s legendary vigilante. But every lesson comes with a cost. Every victory leaves a scar. And as the Syndicate’s criminal network tightens its grip on the city, Evan’s double life begins to unravel. His relationships fracture, his body breaks, and his conscience fades under the weight of “justice.” When a mysterious voice on the comms warns him that Vanguard’s mission isn’t what it seems, Evan must choose between loyalty and truth-between being the weapon his mentor forged, or the hero his city truly needs. Shadows of Justice is a gripping, character-driven vigilante thriller that explores how far one boy will go to protect others before the darkness consumes him. Fans of Batman: Year One, Daredevil, and Nightwing will find a hauntingly human take on heroism, sacrifice, and the cost of wearing the mask. About the author David Hasty was born on September 15, 1971, in Ahoskie, North Carolina. David has always been drawn to the mysteries of life—both seen and unseen. A lifelong learner and natural storyteller, he has built a career that bridges science, humanity, and quiet spirituality. A graduate of North Carolina State University, he later earned his Master’s degree in Education Administration from East Carolina University. For over 15 years, he has served as a high school science teacher, where his passion for discovery, curiosity, and connection has inspired countless students. Before his time in education, he worked in 911 emergency services and as a Quality Control Chemist, roles that gave him a unique understanding of people, precision, and the delicate balance between chaos and order. Outside the classroom, David Hasty is a proud father of three children—Jenna, his oldest daughter; Alex, his middle son; and Hannah, his youngest. Though divorced, he cherishes the close bond he shares with his children and finds joy in simple, grounding routines—cooking, singing, reading, and enjoying a quiet cup of coffee. Writing has always been his creative refuge. From his earliest years, he found comfort in books and storytelling, often imagining new worlds while reading survival stories or exploring nature. Today, his fiction reflects the same curiosity and wonder that have defined his life—a blend of imagination, empathy, and a subtle spiritual awareness that guides his characters and themes. While his stories are fictional, they are deeply influenced by his belief that there’s a greater design in life—something spiritual that shapes every experience and connection. Through his writing, he hopes to remind readers that there is always light to be found, meaning to be discovered, and hope to be shared in the stories we tell.

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They're only synonymous show podcast. And it's named after me. Isn't that really cool? What a nice thing they did to honor me by doing that in 2009. Anyway, guys, we are the oldest living podcast out there that still does one to two no shows daily. Nobody else is doing it at that frequency because we're, just insane or we love our audience or both. So refer the show to your family friends,

your relatives, go to Goodreads.com, Fortress, Scribes, YouTube.com, Fortress,chus, YouTube.com, Fortress,chus Christfuss, on all the crazy places in the net. Sometimes they just make shit up and it just comes out perfect. So I'll try not to fuck up the rest of the show. Opinions expressed by guests on the podcast are solely their own and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the host or the Chris Foss show. Some guests of the show may be advertising on the podcast, but it's not endorsement or review of any kind. We have an amazing young man on this show. We're going to be talking about his book, his insights, and some of the things that he talks about and loves to do,

and we'll also be joined by his epic mountain man beard, which will also interview on the show as well. We have on the show with us today, David Hastie, I'm a little jealous of his beard. His book is entitled, Shadows of Justice, and it's a series that we're going to get into called The Shadows Saga. I feel like I should read that differently, like, The Shadow Saga, or something.

There should be some music comes up. So we can't do with him, find all the deeds. David was born in North Carolina and spent his career combining a passion for science, education, and storytelling. He graduated from North Carolina State University and later earned a master's degree in education administration from East Carolina University. From one of the 15 years, he has worked as a high school science teacher after previous careers in 9-11 emergency services and as a quality control chemist. A lifelong reader and storyteller, he draws inspiration from life's mysteries, human resilience, and the belief that every experience carries deeper

meeting. His novels blend suspense, imagination, and emotional depth while exploring themes of hope, purpose, and the human spirit. Welcome the show. David, how are you doing, sir? I'm doing good. How are you, Chris? I'm doing excellent. Welcome you and your epic Mountain Man Beard. Yes, sir. We're happy to be here. There was an old show that I grew up with, and there was a Mountain Man. I forget his name, but he lived up the mountains, and a donkey and a bear. He had a bear as a friend. Do you remember that TV show?

Grizzly Adams. Grizzly Adams. Thank you. And he had an epic beard like yours, and I've always kind of had this thing. So I would like I would like to have an epic beard. But alas, yeah, it's a nice place to keep food. It's nice place to keep food. Yeah, I realize that.

You get a little flavor you can have later after some ice cream. So, David, give us your dot-com's websites. Where do you want people to find you on the interwebs? Right now, I don't really have any, any, I'm working on those right now. They're working in progress. Okay. So we don't have anything set up.

I'm on Facebook. I'm on all social media for the most part. Yeah. So let's give that out. You're on Facebook.com at David. Dot hasty. So people can look that up. And when you get that website, Bill, go ahead and send it into us and we'll add it to the post so people can find it there.

Absolutely. So, Davis, give us an overview of what? in this first book in the series The Shadow Saga, Shadows of Justice. Okay. I like to tell people it's a superhero story, but it's not just a superhero story. It's like I tell people, it's a Batman and Robin's story, but it's told from Robin's perspective. I always said that the story is told from the sidekick's point of view. And the main character is Evan Drake, who is basically the sidekick Shadow, who is the

sidekick to the main hero of Vanguard, who is the epic. Hero that's been there for the duration, and Vanguard is basically training Evan the shadow. These are all the things that Evan has to go through, like just all the sacrifices and things realizing, is this life really worth what is doing to me? Oh. And you were telling you to me before the show that it's a flip on,

I don't know if it's a full flip, but you can correct me from wrong, flip on the heroin story where it's told from the, the essence of the sidekick, Robin to Batman, for example. Exactly. Yeah. Which is going to be kind of good. Robin's like, man, why don't always have to be the, does Robin complain a lot? Why don't always have to be second fiddle, man?

Why the fuck can I believe? Some of that. And some, he doesn't like being told what to do, right? Like any other young person. That's true. As a psychic, you're like, hey, man, when do I get to make the big decisions around this place? I want to run some stuff. I have a plan. I don't care.

Now, you were mentioning that the heroin he's a sidekick to is maybe not quite perfect. Give us some expansion on you. That's part of the idea of giving the story through the sidekick's eyes. You always have to wonder, what's that guy thinking? He's always got me in training. Why is he not giving me all the information? Is it because of trying to learn or is it because he wants to keep things to himself? It's like, am I really?

getting trained the way I should or should I maybe strike out on my own? And that's part of the decisions he's making in the book. At the same time, he's making decisions about, is this really worth what is doing to my family? Trying to keep this secret from the world. It's hurting my mom, my sister,

people like that. And it's just, basically the, I like to make the point that the action in the story is important, but so is the kitchen table. Everything is, everything is, how it affects his entire life. Yeah.

Evan is an 18-year-old man who's just coming into manhood. Bobbitt doesn't quite have that maturity he should have yet. Oh. And trying to make those decisions that are really life-changing and important. Yeah. You're out there killing the bad guys and taking them down and you got to make sure you get the right bad guys, right? Yeah.

Don't knock over grandma. Don't get into grandma. caught in the background of guns and stuff like that. Yeah, it's, it's an interesting take. Now, how did you come up with this idea? What was the aha moment that made you go, I should write this down and make a book. It's an idea I've honestly had since I was in college. And the idea was, what if we tell it from this guy's perspective? And then this happens and this happens. And to be honest, I spent a long time where I just never had time to sit down and write at a.

and I had a little bit of time in the past year or two where I stepped away from a position I've been in for a long time and just had time. I said, I'm going to get this done. Get her done. Yeah. Yeah. That's a good place to be because a lot of people put stuff off.

A lot of people are like, but sitting down and taking it on the chin and starting to write stuff, that'll get you on the road at getting stuff done. So did you know it was going to be a, series when you first envisioned it or did it develop as you were writing? My original idea was a trilogy. It was going to happen in the first book, the second book, and the third book. And since then I've had ideas.

Oh, now this could be a fourth one and then a fifth one and then a sixth one and so on and so on and so on. So do you? I've got, I've got four written. Oh. But I actually have outlines set up where I know what's going to happen up through number 13 at this point. Whoa. You got a master plan there, buddy. Oh, yeah.

And so through the shadow saga, you're going to be covering all the things. And of course, there's the second book, Shattered Mass, in there. And it sounds like you built some really complex characters and some of the things that they have to complications, they have to deal with. Life isn't perfect. Sometimes our dreams are what we think would, what we think we should do, what we think things should be, we wish for stuff. And I want to, I want this.

And if I get this, I'll be happy. And then they get it and they find that maybe it's not as fun as, or easy as we thought it would be, right? Exactly. Yeah. Everybody thinks being a superhero would be fun, right? Yeah. I don't think my main character's seeing it that way at this point.

So you give them plenty of challenges and discussions to the story. When did you start writing and know you had a knack for it? Do you start writing in your youth? I did a lot of storytelling. See, I was a high school science teacher. Okay. I still am actually a high school science teacher. I know how to tell a story.

Yeah. I can keep a class interested in what I'm talking about. So then I started writing it down. You knew how to entertain an audience and inform them and stuff. You're probably used to writing and recruiting stuff as a teacher and stuff. You've got to be able to communicate if you're a teacher, that's for sure. Exactly. And then you know how the superhero thing works because sometimes you've got to take out the bad kids in the school.

No, I'm just kidding. You put them in the corner, send them to the principal. But yeah, it's, have you shared it with any of the kids maybe that you teach and stuff? None of the kids that I know of have read it. I've made it known to them that it's there. I know of it's read it. I will say this. The first person that I thought about, I said, I'm going to, when I was trying to decide whether to actually pursue this or not,

the first person I sent it to as a friend, I said, can you just read this and tell me if I've got something here? And I will tell you, she finished the first one and immediately messaged me and said, you have to send me the second one now. That's a really good sign. That made me feel really good about it. Oh, yeah. That's a really good sign because if people, people love books that they can really binge too.

They're bingers. That's why we give one or two new shows every day. So people can binge all they want. They can listen to whatever they want. They're all good to go. But yeah, that's a really good sign. You know how you could fix that? You could just say,

hey, if you want an A in this class, then you need to read my book or something. That's true. Yeah. That might get in trouble with the principle, but what's that old? What's that old line? If you don't ask, if you just assume, then you can always apologize or something.

Yeah, don't lose your job. Ask the forgiveness, not permission. That's it. Yeah. See, I forget just to even think about it. Wow, you've got this planned out for a 13 books series. Oh, yeah. And you probably go a long ways.

We have people on the show. They've got 50 or 60 in a series and, you know, we've got multiple series and stuff like that down the line. That's a great vision. How do you approach your rights? Do you do a, some people do a layout or a map of what they're going to talk about or some sort of vision of, okay, here's kind of what's going to take place in this book. How do you approach that? I've learned that I have to do that. When I first started writing, you didn't have a direction.

It's like, you write and write and write. This book is going nowhere. But eventually when I learned to start writing out chapter outlines where I want to get here in this chapter, I want to do this. That really helped me out a lot, and I do that night. that's what I've got. There's 13 books. I've got chapter eyelions for every one of them. Oh, wow.

That's pretty well. That's quite the map out to take and try and accomplish. Really is. Yeah. Now, the second book in the series is published right now. It's called Shattered Mess. Tell us a little bit about that. It's basically a little more.

Evan is really getting to the point where the stress is really becoming a lot. He's been through some major moments. in life that he's had to deal with. And he's really wondering, okay, is this superhero thing really all this cut out to be? Do I want to keep doing this? What do I need to do here? And Vanguard is pretty much just staying on the same lines

as far as you need to do what I say all the time. Don't question anything and things like that. And Evan is just like, I'm not sure this is the right. Yeah. Sometimes you got a question where you're going and maybe do something different. Oh, yeah. And then new characters come along in the second book, and they'll step in and have their opinions,

and they have their places in his life, and they grow. Those situations all grow. And I'm really a character-driven guy. One of my favorite series of all time is Star Trek Deep Space Nine, where I'll be honest with you, every character is really important. It's more important, almost, than the story sometimes.

Yeah. Did you get some of your inspiration for character development through stuff like that? Oh, sure. A lot of times I'm thinking what character needs to step into this story and do something, sometimes do something unexpected. Oh. That's pretty smart.

That gives you a lot to play with and a lot of scenarios you can do. And then, like you say, making every character important, some characters in some show, sometimes they just seem like filler. And, of course, sometimes there's a undercurrent plot or multiple undercurrent plots of them. So they kind of keep the story. move along. Yeah, make sure everyone's an active thing in the story. Kind of like on Star Trek, where the red guy

is the guy that goes down to the planet. The red shirt guy. And you know he's never going to make it back because he's got the red shirt on and he's the spare that no one knows and cares about. Yeah, I'm the kind of guy too that I write about somebody in the first book and you'll forget all about them. Then I'll sit in the fifth book.

There he is again. Oh, so you got to read the books to keep up then. Oh, yeah. All right. Yeah, that's important. But people love books that they can binge. Some of the women call them beach reads, the ones they like. They can go sit on the beach and while the kids are playing and they're tanning. They can squeeze in a book. And people love that stuff. I remember binging Amazon shows that I really liked and they're like a half an hour or something. And so you're just like, it's only, it's only 20 minutes between

the end cut and the beginning intro and all that crap and sometimes the catch up that they do what happened last prior episode. So it's 20 minutes. And you just, just go, eh, just eat another one. And then you eat another one. It's kind of like tacos. And then you're bursting at the seams after about 20 of them. Maybe that's just me. It depends on if you eat at Taco Bell or not.

Oh, yeah. If you do Taco Bell, they're going to be coming out pretty soon. Anyway, it's 20, 26 people. You can go back to 59, 79.99 menu. Hey, you go up to Michigan where they're having a great outbreak of. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, the Taco Bell outbreak.

I love how at first they were like, this seems to be having a lot with Taco Bell people. Could be Taco Bell. Really? You question that? Taco Bell. That's where I go for all my food poisoning. Anyway, we're not going to have them as a sponsor.

How soon before the third book gets released? To be honestly, I have done the writing. It's in my producer's hands at this point. And we're kind of just looking for when the best time is. Ah. So just to launch at any time? Do you have a timetable that you're using to put out the books, like maybe every six months or once a year or something? That's kind of when I can get a rhyme to it,

because I did pretty well there for a while. And now that I've gone back to teaching high school again, the time's not quite there like it was. But I'm trying to find time to spend on it. I did a lot this summer. Yeah. You know what you do? You just get all those high school students to write it for you,

help write it. Just give them different pieces and be like, Hey, Phil. That's an idea. Yeah. You may want to check with the school board before that. You don't want to follow in my ideas. I might get you in trouble there.

You don't want to be doing it. So this is really interesting. And do you see, do you have any interest to write any other side channels? That's possible. We'll see here it goes. Just right now, every time I finish one of Evan's stories, I get another idea for Evan. Oh, there you go. I really had there for a while.

I was going, okay, 13 is going to be it. That's going to be just in the end of the story. I'm going to move on to something else. And by the time I finished the outline for 13, I've got an idea for 14 now. There you go. That's awesome. How do your characters and your storylines come to you? Do they haunt you?

Do your characters bug you to write about them or maybe just the plot line come to you out of the blue? It's kind of interesting. It's just kind of the plot line. A lot of times you need somebody in this position in life. Okay, let's make somebody. Ah. You need a father figure? Let's get one.

You need a friend. You get one. You need a romantic interest. What sort of topics you like to address or maybe cathartic challenges that the folks in the books have to overcome? So a balance of the action, of course. There's always the hero and villain dealing with things. But I deal a lot in mysteries, too. There's a lot of times when you're going, who's doing this?

And why are they doing it? And I like delving into that kind of thing, too. Yeah, mysteries, a little bit of. shaping and shifting and maybe some surprises along the way. You got to love a good cliffhanger. Got to love a good cliffhanger. What else about the books should we be asking you to find out more about what you're doing, how you do it? Like I said, they're very character-driven.

I have, like I said, a lot of friends of mine that are female have read these books. And to be honest, females don't do a lot of the superhero books as far as compared to the males, but the females that I've had reading and are going, I can really read this. And I feel like I know how your characters feel. Wow. So that's an honor to me that they say that, that I'm writing in a way that they feel like we can relate to this. Yeah.

That's pretty amazing because if you can relate to it, then you can really enjoy it. And, yeah, it's hard to write texts and make people feel with it. So you're definitely drawing some good pictures there in people's minds and images. and feelings. And I have one little tool that I kind of used that has just been worked out for me to start with and I've stuck with this idea. Most of the first book is written in first person from Evan's point of view. So what I started doing is every chapter that Evan is in is in first person his point

of view. He's not there. It's in third person, which there's only in the first book, there isn't very much of that. But as you move on to the other characters start developing. you start having more third person chapters involving the characters and not necessarily everyone right there in the in the moment. Oh, it's pretty darn good. That's pretty during good.

So you see this going on and do you think it's more appealing to females over males or what are the response you get so far? I think it can travel around as far as between males and females. I do see it. I intentionally wrote it. Like I said, I teach high school. I dealt with youth and church situations and things like that. I wrote it so young people could read it and I would not be embarrassed by it.

So there's no gratuitous sex, no anything like that, but still got an edge to it. So what is, is there a targeted age audience maybe? I'm about from 17 to 77. Oh. That's a good target then. You're not leaving anybody out at that point. 17 might be a little old. Let's go 15 to 70.

Kids have a lot of imagination. They love superheroes, right? Oh, yeah. So I can see. I remember when I was growing up, I thought superheroes were awesome. And we read all the Superman comics and get involved with all that stuff. But, yeah, it's quite interesting. And I can see they have such great imaginations at that age because they haven't become jaded, old, old disillusioned old men like me.

Believe me, I understand. Oh, yeah. The beard shows. The beard shows. That is quite an epic beard. How long have you had that beard? Maybe it's like the past year. Oh, wow.

Yeah, I tried to grow. There's an Orson Welles beard that I saw that it just looked really cool. Oh, yeah. And he, I think he put a, it was all mostly black and gray. And then he put a little white thing right here, a little white little line or something in the hair. Right. And it looked really classic. And I was like, I want to, I tried to, I'm like, I'm going to start, I'm going to get an epic beard, one of those alpha beards.

I think I'd seen a guy at the gym who had an alpha beard too. It looked like you could cut glass because it was like really big, but also sharp in the way it was shaped. And I was like, I'm going to, I'm going to do the beard thing because I'm an old man. I don't care anymore. Oh, yeah. Oh, this one, God did it for me. Ah, yeah, you just, you just quit shaving. That was a nice thing I enjoyed about.

I didn't have to think about shaving all the time. place. And you're always like, oh, God, I'm going to shave. But yeah, so I grew it out. And I even went to a beard place, like an official beard barber place. Okay. You ever go to one of those? I have not. I don't know if there's any right here. My own one. Beard places. And then they got beard oil. You ever use the beard oil? Yeah. That's supposed to help keep you from getting the ingrown hairs and pimples like I would get. Oh, okay. But yeah, it wasn't, it just didn't work for me in my skin after a while. And the chicks didn't like it either. I just look really older than I really am.

And I'm already too old enough for the chicks. So they're like, yeah, grandpa, no, I was going on dates with you. What I did with this one. I was trimming them pretty close there for a while. And once in a while, every time I'd trim it, I'll be like, whoops, I got a little too much. Now I'm going to shave it all off. Ah. And after I was, let's just stop trimming it.

I can grow a hair faster out of my ears and my nose than I can. out of any other part of my body. That's one of the lovely things about age. Isn't it though? Why is their hair there? I have my grandfather's curse. We used to tease him when we were young and be like, hey, grandpa, you got a shrubbery in your nose and your ear.

And he'd be like, do you just wait until you get old? And he cursed us. Oh, yeah. We shouldn't have made fun of him. And now we all have ear here. I can probably grow you a toupee from Bosley or from for Bosley. that two-pay company or whatever they do now they've been growing hair or whatever they yeah how they work implanted hair i could probably grow you a whole new tope in a in a month

if i just let me hear how hair go oh yeah and think really i got the other stuff going on so that helps but yeah it was kind of nice having an epic beard there for a while people stay away from me they look like he looks angry he's he's a beard guy but yeah i always love that show grisly adams That was my favorite show. I thought I did I do was a master mountain man. He is friends with a bear. Yeah. You've hit peak human when your best buds with a bear that doesn't kill you in the middle of the night.

That's true. Yeah. You know, my nickname actually was. I guess my nickname is bear. Is it really? As long as the girls love you. Then I was not working with youth in church, so I became Mr. Bear. Mr. Bear.

In some circles, you might find some interesting folks that allowed to be called Bear. I found that out when I had my beard. So they thought I was with them. And I was like, no, I, you know, whichever you guys want to do is okay with me, but not really my thing. But yeah, they have some epic beards over in that group, too. Oh, yeah. If you could find a woman or maybe who enjoys your beard and there's a lot of women they like beards, they get turned on. I find there are a few.

Yeah. Yeah, they like that whole testosterone man, beard, mountain man, beard thing going on. As we go out, give people a fun. final pitch out to pick up your book and where they can find it.coms, etc., etc. Okay. I'd love for you guys to read the Shadows Saga as it comes out. The first book is Shadows of Justice and Shattered Mass. The rest will be coming.

Please check them out. I hope you'll enjoy them. You can find them on Amazon. You can find them in Barnes & Noble and soon to be in other places. All right. Sounds good then. Well, thank you very much for coming the show. We really appreciate it, David.

You and your beard, I should say. Oh, yes, sir. Enjoyed it very much. We both did it. I'm kind of jealous now. I'm thinking about growing it. Well, thank you, David. To my audience, order up his book wherever fine books are sold. Check out the Shadows Saga. Two books are out now and watch for more to come.

Shadows of Justice is the first book in the series that we profiled there, along with Shattered Mass, the second book in the series. Thanks to my audience for tuning in. Go to goodreads.com, forechestchristch, Chris Foss, LinkedIn.com, Fortressch, Christfoss, YouTube.com, I'm Fortress Chris Voss and Chris Voss 1 on the TikTokity, all those crazy places to the net. Beg into each other.

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