The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – Unthinkable by Brad Parks

Episode Date: August 2, 2021

Unthinkable by Brad Parks From international bestselling author Brad Parks comes a new thriller about an ordinary man who may be able to save the world as we know it―but to do so, he must make an impossible choice. Nate Lovejoy is a self-proclaimed nobody, a stay-at-home dad who doesn’t believe he’s important to anyone but his wife and their two daughters. So it’s a shock when members of a powerful secret society kidnap and spirit Nate away to a mansion at the behest of their leader, Vanslow DeGange, who claims to know the future. He’s foreseen that a billion people could die―unless Nate acts. It seems improbable, especially given what DeGange says will set this mass casualty incident in motion: a lawsuit against the biggest power company in Virginia, being brought by Nate’s wife, Jenny. Nate quickly smells a scam being perpetrated by the power company. But at every turn, it becomes apparent there’s more to DeGange’s gift than Nate wants to acknowledge. A billion people really could die, and Nate might be the only one who can save them. All he has to do is the unthinkable.

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. 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 response here from the chris voss show.com the chris voss show.com hey we're coming with another great podcast we certainly appreciate you guys tuning in thanks for being here for the show to your friends neighbors relatives go to youtube.com for has Chris Foss, and hit that bell notification.

Really ask yourself. I say that at the beginning of every show to remind you because I know you're busy. But, like, at this point, there should be some guilt that's starting to set in if you haven't done it. And I'm going to lean on the little guilt shovel here a little bit. So make sure you go to YouTube and hit the bell notification because I wouldn't have to say it anymore on the show if you just would. So just go do it now. Anyway, guys, go to goodreads.com forward slash Chris Voss. Go to Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, all those different places that Chris Voss shows at. And you can see all the wonderful things we're

doing. Today we have an amazing author. He is a former journalist. He is on the show. He's been talking to about his amazing book that came out July 27, 2021, Unthinkable by Brad Parks. Brad's an amazing mind and the only writer to have won the Seamus, Nero, and Lefty Awards, three of the American crime fiction's most prestigious awards. His novels have been published in 15 languages and won critical acclaim across the globe, including stars from every major pre-publication review outlet. He's a graduate of Dartmouth College. Clearly, I flunk college. Parks is a former journalist with The Washington Post and the Star-Ledger in Newark, New Jersey. He is now a full-time novice living in Virginia with his wife and two school-age children.

Welcome to the show, Brad. How are you? Chris, I'm doing great. Good to be here. And that was a quite—do you always sing your name on the show? Yeah. Because you hit—I think that was about an A-flat or something like that. They're very nice. We were talking in the show about how you were a former college capella singer.

So I hear. So when you go to Chris Foss show, I hear that. That kind of minor discordant thing you have going on, it's pleasing to my acapella sensibilities. Oh, well, thank you. Thank you. Wow, compliments already from the show. They will get you everywhere. What's funny is, I'll tell you just a quick story

on that. Howard Stern was doing this bit about the WNBC. Right, right. And he was on a bit for a while on a show where he was talking about a lot. And he would do that like 50 times, the WNBC from the movie. And I decided to just do an homage to him. And for a week, I started seeing the Chris Voss show. And then I quit. It was a bit.

It was done. I did it. It was over. Put it back move on and i started getting calls from canada which look at the problems they have up there they sent us a nickelback but it's just a beaver but i got calls from everywhere like calls like done emails not messages like calls they go why aren't you doing that anymore and i go because it's stupid i think it's dumb and they go no man that's the greatest thing you've ever done on the show.

That's just become your signature. Right. Yeah. Yeah. And I'm like, are you guys on drugs? Is there like a conspiracy going on that I don't know about? Like that?

It's dumb. It's really dumb. It's just a bit, this is show business. You got to have a thing. Yeah. Yeah. And so they're like,

no, you have to keep doing that. That's the show. And I'm like, seriously. And so then I just started doing it. And now when I tour, like I go to events and speak or go out or whatever, people run up to me and they scream that at me. My friends do it too.

They run up to you and they go, it's the Chris Voss show. And you're like, yeah, you. Give me a restraining order. Anyway, back to you. I hope you modulated a restraining order anyway back to you so but i hope you i hope you modulated a little bit because i so believe it or not long long time ago i had this like summer job that bled into the school year at this am radio station in richfield connecticut and the main dj sat me down one time and lectured me of i couldn't say the name of the station the same way every time. It can't be AMA 50 WREF.

No, you have to like AMA 50 WREF. You have to do it slightly different every time. Yeah, you got to give the folks at home something new. Yeah, that's what I do. And so I sing it differently every time. It comes out. Okay, got it. So it's like your own Nickelback song.

Yeah, sometimes I'll go low. I'll be like, the gross vase showed up. But they love it and they come up to me, and they're just – it's really scary, though, when they run up to you, and they sing it in your face, and you're just like – you're not sure if you're going to be assaulted or robbed. And especially these days that they're singing in your face. Yeah, that's true.

Okay, yeah, sing again for sure. Let's talk about your amazing book. Give us your plug so people can find you on the interwebs. Yeah, so it's called Unthinkable. And the premise is this, Chris, it is about an ordinary stay at home dad who is faced with an absolutely unthinkable choice. Basically, he either has to allow a series of events that will lead to the death of a billion people, or he has to murder his own wife. So you remember, yeah, hey, these are high stakes thrillers, Chris. So I figured let's amp up the stakes as much as we possibly can.

So you remember, I know you said you flunked out of college, but maybe some ethics class somewhere where there's the trolley problem. Yeah, I was going to say. Yeah, you have the trolley problem heading for five people. It's going to flatten and kill them unless you pull the switch. But that diverts the trolley and where it kills one person. And yes, you've saved four lives, but you're also directly responsible for the person that you've killed. And what do you do? So it's basically it's the trolley problem, but on hyperdrive. Wow.

And it's that one person or a billion, huh? Five is kind of like, most people like their wives enough that five people, hey, sorry to those five people. Are we talking pre-divorce or post-divorce? Well, so that was one of the decisions I made very early on in the storytelling process of, I have to make this a really good marriage. I can't make it, the marriage is on the right. Nate Lovejoy, the protagonist, he's not sure how he really feels about Jenny anyway. So maybe this is just a nice out. No, it's not a perfect marriage because I write fiction, Chris, but not complete fantasy because there is no such thing as a perfect marriage, but it's a very strong marriage. It's a good marriage. It's a loving marriage.

So I at least have to give him pause. What's he going to do? Yes, he is still deeply in love with his wife and nowhere near divorce court. I'm sorry. Tell him it gets better. No, I'm just kidding. But no, this is quite the train to run on. So what made you want to decide to write this book? Do you have an issue with your wife or what's going on? Yes, I really, I have to, I should clarify the reason that I wrote this book is because I love my wife so much. Oh, there you go. Well, follow me here. So with a thriller, what makes these things really go is what we in the business call stakes, right? What's at stake?

And if you have a book where what's at stake is the professor's feelings about Proust and whether or not he's going to sleep with his grad student. Frankly, it's just not that interesting a book. Versus if you put some... So I really, as I was considering this book, I figured I'm going to start with the stakes because we know the stakes are the most important thing. And what is the worst thing I could possibly ask a character to do? And because I love my wife so much, the first thing that popped into my head was, I'm going to make him kill his wife. And bang, there we go. What does your wife feel about this?

You know, it's strange, Chris. She's read all of my books except this one. What's going on with that? Is she just keeping tabs on you because she wants to know? It's like when you have that wife who always watches CSI and she's really obsessed with it and you're just like, you're planning something, aren't you? I'm just kidding. It's like when you have that wife who always watches CSI and she's really obsessed with it. You're just like, you're planning something, aren't you?

I'm just kidding. Yeah, no. She keeps me at arm's length lately. I'm not sure why. I don't know. Why am I sleeping in the other room all of a sudden? I don't get it. We have a very loving marriage as well. All is fine. I'm not working out my repressed fantasies about... What's the word

for killing your wife? I think it's weird. It's like exoricide or something like that. Yeah. Hopefully you didn't run a lot of research and questions by her for the book. What's the best way to kill your wife? Honey. Right. You got any ideas there? Watch the CSI. No. Anyway, so give us an arching overview of the book, what it entails, and give us a little bit more if you would. Yeah. So basically it starts with Nate. Again, this just ordinary guy. All of of my thrillers chris are people that you can meet in the grocery store they're just like you and i they are they do not have any special talents or skills they're ordinary folks not like x special forces anything like that so ordinary guy and it

begins with him being drugged and kidnapped off of his backport by these people. It's a rough afternoon when that happens. And he awakens and he is being held hostage in this incredibly opulent mansion. And he is told that he is the guest of a secret society whose leader can see the future,

Chris. Well, of course. And what he has foreseen is that Nate's wife, Jenny, is the linchpin to a future global warming catastrophe that will result in the death of a billion people. Wow. And this is why Nate has to kill her. You follow so far?

Now, will she do this in divorce court? So it actually, it's one of these, you always have to add layers and make it twistier as you go. So Jenny is a lawyer who is suing a power company whose coal-fired power plant is killing. And you would think, so wait, doesn't this kind of make her the good guy? This will be killing less people. But no, because of the law of unintended consequences, she's going to win the lawsuit. But because of this, the power companies will develop this powerful new scrubbing mechanism that will involve a chemical called sodium hexafluoride, which is a real thing.

It is the most dangerous and deadly global warming gas out there. It is 24,000 times more powerful than CO2, and it stays in the atmosphere for 3,000 years. And this increased use of sodium hexafluoride is what will trigger this global warming catastrophe. So basically, Jenny's lawsuit cannot be allowed to succeed. And the only way to get the lawsuit to go away, she has been the champion for this lawsuit, this kind of Erin Brockovich style lawyer, is if Nate kills her, not only will that really bring the lawsuit to a halt, but Jenny's law firm will not want to continue the lawsuit because the scandal, because Nate is actually a former associate at the law firm and Jenny is a partner there. And so they'll want to distance themselves from this awful weird thing that happened and

they'll just drop the lawsuit. And that's the only way to make the lawsuit go away and this is what the man who can see the future has foreseen now i imagine there's also a negative interest for him if he kills his wife going to jail losing his wife so the secret society has this taken care of i love secret societies they are secret societies are awesome this way, right? Especially the Kool-Aid. The Kool-Aid's the best. They have given Nate a gun. A special gun. It is a silver-plated gun that has a bullet in it that they have rigged so that

it will look like the bullet was fired by a different gun. And this will create the reasonable doubt that will allow Nate to get away with it. I think I have a few married friends that would like to know. You're pulling the trigger on me. This is not even a hard one for you. Like, Chris, this is supposed to be a dilemma for people.

This is supposed to be, what do I do? What would Nate do? I have a lot of married friends. You're just like, you're getting the itchies. Okay, wait. When do I have to, when do I get to pull the trigger? You ever see those TikTok videos where they go, if you press this button, you'll kill a person.

Click. They go, wait, I didn't tell you what the deal was. Then click, click again. They're like, no, no, stop that. Yeah, actually, another interview I was on, he brought up the Stanford prisoner experiments where these kids from Stanford were just willing to zap the hell out of anybody they could just because somebody told them to.

And then some people would give them even more juice than they were supposed to. People are, we are sick little monkeys, Chris. We really are. This is why I write crime fiction. I love kind of, you know, peeling the lid back on the human soul and taking a look at the dark, scary stuff inside. If you've ever seen people's browser histories, that's very true. Mine could get me indicted in a heartbeat. You know, and I can say, well, it's research.

Like, I have to know how fast will a body decompose in a pine forest? And by the way, with the right acidity in the soil, it only takes about two months, Chris. Really? Just a little pro tip. Now, is that burial or just covering it? No, you've got to get it down in the soil and some extra rain helps with that process. Hang on, I've got to make some notes really quick. Yeah, I'm trying to help you out here.

Yeah, because my freezer's full. What other things can you tease out about the book? One of the issues with novels is it can't tell us the ending and what's in the middle. Right, right. So it's all right. So yeah, there's some geeky stuff. I have this character who can see the future, which of course gets a little, whoo, I'm not so sure. So I felt the need to ground it in science.

And here, scientifically, is how I have created the real possibility that a character could see the future. Did you know, Chris, that the laws of physics work equally whether you're running time forwards or backwards? I told you earlier I flunked college. Yeah, so then I'm telling you, they don't care. Laws of physics doesn't matter. Furthermore, there is this elemental particle called a positron. And there's a theory out there that a positron is essentially an electron moving backwards. Now, this theory has never been fully proven, but it's also never been disproven.

And again, the math works either way. So what we've created in the novel is this concept, or not, it's not even a concept. It is real. It is very possible that we are getting positrons coming at us from the future all the time. And the, what if now this is the fictional part. What if there were a person who had evolved the ability to sense that matter coming at him from the future? Just as half a billion years ago, there was the first organism that could see. And this is basically becoming able to sense photons.

Here is somebody who is able to sense this matter coming at us from the future. And that is how we get a guy who can tell the future. I usually sense stuff coming at me, but usually it's like a pan from one of my ex-wives. This is getting to be a theme. So this actually might be the killing their wife. It might be a how-to guide. I want this to be ultimately useful for you. Are we just accessories now and some sort of future act? Is that how this is working? It could work out that way. Can we be in Vegas for it? I'm not sure. I can see us at a trial now. So did you come up with this stay at home dad thing during the, I don't know if you came up with this book during the coronavirus thing. Cause that was a, you know, stay at home dad time, right? No, so actually I was a stay at

home dad. And so I always thought it was a kind of a cool character to put in a novel because you don't actually find them a lot in books or even in movies. And I developed this sensitivity to this when I was a stay-at-home dad. First of all, you get the crap of somebody will see you with your kid and you're walking along with your baby. And they'll be like, oh, is daddy babysitting today? So actually I'm parenting. Or where's mom. It's like, who cares?

All that kind of stuff. I have was like the whole thing of like in movies, like the, one of the most famous stay at home dad movies is Mr. Mom, right? Alex Keaton or no, Michael Keaton.

Sorry. Alex Keaton is that other guy. Anyhow, Michael Keaton. And the only reason he's a stay at home-home dad is he lost his job, right? Or there's Adam Sandler in Daddy Daycare. The only reason he's a stay-at-home dad is somebody literally dropped a kid on his porch. So it's not guys doing what actually, frankly, most stay-at-home dads do.

Like, we make a choice. Like, I could have had a job. It just worked out best for my family, for me to be at home and my wife to be working. And that's what we did. And it's something I embraced. It was my job for a while, basically. And I didn't feel like there were a lot of those kinds of dads being represented in the broader media world. So I wanted what felt to me like a true to life stay at home dad. The other thing is, and again, this is a thriller and inevitably this involves a character who's saving the world. And I always like to make things as difficult as i can for my characters and how much more difficult can you

make it then you have to save the world and you have to do it with two toddlers in tow yeah you got to save the world jack ryan style and change diapers at the same time now that is a that's a thriller right you're like uh you're like john wick shooting the bad guys while you're holding a baby and you're trying to get the devil in his mouth yeah and how is jack reacher like mixing a bottle let's really talk about your skills here let's really talk about heroics i mean come on come on it's time we it's time we took care of the real heroes of the world you the setting for unthinkable is in richmond right the capital of your adopted home state in Virginia. Why'd you choose Virginia and Richmond? So Virginia, because I'm lazy and I like to

have the research guy all around me. Richmond, really for the real estate porn. I'll be honest, Chris, because I love Zillow. I love going. So this is again, ex-journalist. I'm very nosy. I love just going on Zillow and looking at houses and especially when people's stuff is still in it. And yeah, I know they've printed and made it nice, but I still just love peering into random people's homes. And every once in a while on Zillow, you get that, that one person who's like still has somehow like they're in the mirror and they're taking the shot. It's like, Oh yeah, that kind of thing. But I just, I love looking at houses. So Richmond has like a lot of, especially in the mirror and they're taking the shot. It's like, oh yeah, that kind of thing. But I just, I love looking at houses. So Richmond has like a lot, especially in what's

known as the fan section of Richmond, just like a lot of cool, older, late 19th century, early 20th century kind of homes. And I just wanted to go home shopping for a while. So I did the hell where I pick out, oh, my character could live here, the kids would go here, that

kind of stuff. And then I also, I made the shadowy secret society one County North of where I actually live. This being all about, of course, plausible deniability because I'd be like, no, I didn't, I didn't put it in my county.

It's there. You're going to have trouble getting to the frosty free store. And they look at you going, you wrote some bad stuff about us, buddy. I love using real places too. Like whenever, as long as it won't get me in trouble with the libel laws or anything like that, because it's fun. I think I love reading a book and recognizing the places in it. It just, it helps you get into it.

There you go. This is what I was going to do when you said you were just being lazy. I was just going to be like, Oh, I'm out of here. You might as well. But I needed part of the PR sheet. So I did the other thing, but no, that's really cool. As long as you're looking into other people's houses on Zillow, it's okay. But yeah, it's like Chris, like the whole, the question, like if you had a superpower, what superpower would it be? I am straight up an invisibility guy. Like I want to be able to be in the room and nobody knows I'm there. And I get to listen into what's said and I get to really see what's going on behind the scenes of people's lives.

Again, ex-journalist, just nosy. Yeah. We need to get you out more, Brad. Anyway, no, it's funny. In fact, I had a friend who was a realtor. I still have her as a friend. And I'm just losing my friends. I had a friend who was a realtor and now she's in the forest and I'm have her as a friend. I'm just losing my friends. I had a friend who was a

realtor and now she's in the forest and I'm using her decomposed. Anyway, just kidding. On the call back there. You are darker than I am, Chris. I'm supposed to be the twisted one here. I write thrillers and kill people and stuff. My browser is whatever. It's actually been a weird day today. It's been like the stupid people collection day this morning. But it's been nice to have you guys on because you guys give me me a break from uh the people that really suck the they're trying to lower my iq it's a plot i know but i was gonna say i have a real estate friend and she posts like all these pictures this beautiful home and then the master bedroom she posts this on facebook and the master bedroom was just a weird master bedroom with just lots of bottles of lotion and like this weird dining

table thing, TV dinner stands that you have. And you're like, so what it appeared to do was they, yeah, they took the whole home and they got it ready to show. And so the person's basically living in their master bedroom. And I wrote them privately. I go, what's the whole lotion on the thing? I'm surprised there's not some other things on there. And she goes, yeah, I had to move them for the picture. So it's really, it's like a silence of the lambs thing. It puts the lotion in the bucket. The lotion in the bucket. There were some different battery operator products you had to hide. So then you have to go in and like house shop and ask, so does this convey with the house? Yeah.

For some people that adds value. I'm not judging. We are not here to judge. I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings. That's what we do on the show. So there's some scientific underpinnings of the book that you've carefully researched. Tell us a little bit about those. Yeah.

So again, there is this physics principle of time being able to move backwards or forwards. And then the global warming stuff is, of course, a lot of fun. Now, I don't want to get in any way political. As soon as you say global warming, people go, oh, and I actually have a thing in the acknowledgments of the book where I really beg people, like, please spare me your one star review on Amazon about how political I'm getting because the observation that the planet is getting warmer is not political. It is observable fact. What you do about it is political, right? What policy we should implement, all that stuff. And so I try to make it very clear. I'm not taking sides in this book, so like like lay off with the one star you're awful amazon marjorie marjorie leave my office get out of my marjorie taylor

green just showed up get out you crazy see but yeah but i'm trying to stay on the right side of okay maybe not sure okay we'll leave her out she's pretty out there she's pretty wacky but for most people who are again reasonable enough to say yes if the data suggests that four of the five warmest years on record have been the last four years. Yes, we know the planet's getting warmer. Again, it's what you do about it. And that's where I stay at. warming of what again because we were this is the the monster under the bed if you will if this lawsuit succeeds then it will trigger this global warming catastrophe that we are trying to avoid sounds like oh i hope he's i hope he's got a good political affiliation because there is a party trying to do that anyway i'm just kidding i was on me brad i'll take the arrows on that one one of the characters in the novel is called mar Sakey. Tell us a little bit about

that. It's named after a very talented real-life author. Yes, Marcus Sakey is a terrific author. He writes wonderful books, and he's a buddy of mine. Early on in this novel, I called him up, and we were bouncing around plot points, and he helped me think through some of the aspects of this. I thanked him in the only way that a thriller author knows how to thank someone, which is I made him a stumbling drunk and then had him killed by a hit and run driver in the book. I know. I was reading this on the sheet.

It's like he makes him an alcoholic. His best friend, he makes an alcoholic and dies a brutal death. That's love where I come from. Note to self, never make friends with Brad. Okay, I just want to... Well, yeah, Chris, I'm not sure I want to make friends with you because, yeah, you've been, you know, dismembered bodies, things in the trunk.

I don't know if I've laughed very long. I live in Vegas. It's mostly dead hookers, so... It's a big desert outside that city. A lot of room. Yeah, plus there's Lake Mead. You just sink people in it. You don't ever want to drink the water in Las Vegas

after you talk to police officers and what they pull. As the thing's been dropping, they're like finding stuff from like way back. Several of the characters in the novel were named after people who gave generosity to charities for the right to name a character. You had people, wait, hold on. I'm doing a book right now that's in editing. You had people that gave generosity generosity charities to be the characters in your book names. Yeah. So it's one of the most, not most unique, because you can't be most unique. Sorry. I want to take that back. It is a unique gift, right? That for the person who has everything,

get them a character name in a book. And anytime I get approached by a charity saying, oh, would you like to raffle off signed books? Nobody wants a damn signed book. But a character name in a future novel will generally go for, even for a small local charity, that'll fetch a thousand bucks at an auction, no problem.

I don't know, man. The one guy who evidently did get his name in your book that I know of, you made him an alcoholic, gave him a brutal death. People very much enjoy that. Buck McBride is one of the characters. This is a gentleman who made a fine donation to a local charity.

And let me see what I did to him. I put him in a mental hospital. I had him have a mental breakdown and then hang himself with an electrical. Again, like this is me showing my love. Are most of these people masochists or what's going on? No! It is funny, though. The number of people who when you explain to them that there's

a pretty good chance if I put you in the book, you're going to die. They just want a good job. Yeah, they can always hold the book and be like, hey, I died. And like, the number of people who they ask to be the villain, nobody wants to be the good guy they all want to be the villain there's dark stuff out there there is some dark they must be friends of mine

but yeah hey do you want to give brad some money so he can put you in the the fargo tree shredder scene at the end there you go man that sounds like a riot but that's brilliant actually we are looking for sponsors for the book and my friend had sold sponsors but this is even better i love this idea in a sly nod to fans of brad's early work the law firm jenny works for is carter morgan and ross tell us a little bit about what that is about so i had a six book series with featuring an investigative newspaper reporter for a fictional newark new jersey newspaper whose name was Carter Morgan Ross. So it's just, I always try to put in one of these sly little nods to readers of my previous books. And oftentimes, I think in the previous book, like in a book I wrote called The Last Act,

I had a character saying, I was reading a book called Say Nothing by an author I'd never heard of named Brad Parks. You put those kind of little references in or just like little pieces to your past books, or you have somebody walk in who's a character from a previous novel. And people who've read all my books, they just, they enjoy that kind of stuff. It's just that little way of being able to say to your readers, hey, I see you. What I would have done with carter morgan and ross has written a book on moronic parents who reverse engineer the first and last names can't get well i mean for carter morgan ross dude has three last names yeah or three first names or three first names i know

it's really and he does bemoan this in the novel so carter ross is a suspended disbelief i know you can't see me like situ, but I'm about six foot one. I have brown hair, blue eyes. So Carter Ross is six foot one, brown hair, blue eyes. Yeah, basically. He's me. Yeah, I know.

I know. It's crazy. So anytime I do something to Carter, most of my readers know it's probably something I've done, frankly, or it's maybe something I've dreamed of doing. There is a lot of this, except for the part about killing your wife, Chris. A lot of this is wish fulfillment, for sure. Normally, I'd fill in the joke, there's still time, but I won't because I think that would make me an... Can we have the lawyers ring in on that, please? Thank you.

So this is pretty interesting. Maybe, Brad, you're coming up with the new genre of Hollywood film, the superhero Jack jack ryan jack reacher who's that guy referenced earlier the jack anyway the new superhero who's a baby daddy stay at home dad and he's killing villains while he's changing diapers yeah okay let's see if you could defuse the bomb while wearing your child in the baby right here and then you have to cut the red wire yeah because that makes it an element because you're not gonna die just you're not just you're gonna die the baby's gonna die exactly like every every mom in that audience is freaking the you know out you better cut the red wire dude and uh yeah that's i think it'd be an interesting genre you like you're all out of

ammo or something your guns you're and you're like oh crap and the something and your guns, and you're like, oh, crap. And the guy's holding a gun and you just pull the poopy baby diaper off and throw it at the dude. Perfect. There's a lot of great stuff. Everybody gets freaked out by that a little bit. Can somebody get a screenplay going on that topic? I think I just set the basis for the whole thing. But no, maybe there's a new thing. I wouldn't go see the movie, but maybe say, oh, I'm Dad's Wood.

I don't have any kids. Yeah, so in the first novel I wrote, I didn't have any kids yet. And it showed in this one particular scene. So this was a Carter Ross novel. It's called Faces of the Gone. This was my debut novel. And so again, it's a Newark, New Jersey investigative newspaper reporter. And he is doing an interview with a grandmother who has just lost her daughter and the baby. So that her granddaughter is in the crib. So this is now this orphaned child. And Carter's interviewing the grandma.

They're looking at baby in the crib. And then they go into the next room. And they finish the interview. And then they go straight to the funeral home. Leaving the baby in the crib in the next room, which is a mistake that, again, I was childless at the time. I think my editor didn't have kids and man, we totally missed it. So it completely appears in the novel. Every year or so, I still get an email from somebody saying, hey, you left the kid in the room. It's like, I know, I know.

So you got to be careful with this kind of stuff. That's true. This is why there'll never be any kids in any books I write. Mostly because mine are business books. So there's never any children. There are plenty of children in business books. They're called CEOs, Chris. That's true, too.

And I was going to say, actually, there was one point when I had all my companies that I could have written four books about all the employee stories that happen every day. And I've had single mothers that I've dated say, how come you're so good with kids? I'm like, I've had thousands of employees. So I used to that. Who would play some of these characters in the book if you, this went to film? Oh gosh. Or when this goes to film, let's be positive. So it is being shopped in Hollywood right now now so any of you who have production companies uh go ahead call my agent her name is alice martel she's in new york she'll hook you up anyhow i it's a funny thing i don't think a lot about that that the kind of film aspect even though i'm certainly very eager every time i i hear from my agent and yeah about how it's shopping everything like that when i'm writing the book i'm just i'm all about the book

so first of all one of the problems is Nate Lovejoy, the protagonist of this particular novel, is six foot four. Not a lot of six foot four actors out there. So the famous example being like the Jack Reacher, the first Jack Reacher movie. Jack Reacher, I don't know if you've read those books, dude is six foot five, 250 pounds. And who got cast as Jack Reacher? Tom Cruise, like five foot seven. Yeah, three foot eight. I don't know what he is. And so Lee Child, who writes the Jack Reacher movies, of course, got just an endless amount of grief over this. But first of all, he did point out that it's not like they passed a lot of six foot five, 250 pound actors on their way to Tom Cruise. These guys are all really small. And secondly, as he put it to me, and he's a Brit, he says, Brad,

when Tom Cruise wants to play the lead part in your book, you say yes. Yeah. Okay. Good point. I don't honestly get that a lot of thought because the other thing is I have had some of my work optioned. Like a book that came out two years ago called The Last Act is now in production with Dreamscape. We'll see how it goes. And I have seen just how much, Chris, they value my input in the project.

I think that's overstating it quite a bit. Like basically you have this first conversation with them where they're very excited. Hollywood people are all lovely. And they'll tell you how wonderful your book is and how blah, blah, blah, blah. And then you will never, ever hear from them again. But it's always, there's this great, I think it was Ernest Hemingway who talked about the line in the sand in Nevada, probably not far from where you are actually. And how the movie people rushed up from the California side and throw a bag of money over.

And the book people rush up from the other side and throw the manuscript over. And then they both take off in opposite directions. Because Hollywood is going to take your book and they're going to do whatever they want with it. Tess Gerritsen had a great line about, I think it was something like, having your book made by Hollywood is sending your child to a daycare center run by Jeffrey because they will just completely destroy it. Sorry, was that a little bit graphic for you, Chris? You've been making references to body parts this whole...

No, not really. I was just, I don't know, I'm hungry right now. So it kind of... I understand. You're just going to tuck in. No, it's. I was just, I don't know. I'm hungry right now. So it kind of. I understand. You're just going to tuck in. No, it's always funny to me that there are authors who have famously refused to sell their stuff to Hollywood because they know that once Hollywood gets a hold of it, it's going to be obliterated. Right? Certainly.

Gosh. Stephen King. Stephen. No, but he has all this stuff. The woman who wrote the alpha books, A is for Alibi, B is, why am I blanking on her name? Did it make it into movies? No, exactly. Her protagonist is Kinsey Milhoun and Sue Grafton. Gosh, I don't know how that was. Sue Grafton came from Hollywood, right? Writing books was her escape from Hollywood. And so she saw what Hollywood did to a lot of really worthy projects. And I actually, I interviewed Sue on

stage once. She has since passed, which is very sad. But so she has became a huge bestselling author, many millions of books sold. And I said, all right, Sue, what if I gave you $10 million for the rights to Kinsey Mill Home? And God bless her because she said, Brad, I already have $10 million. It was like, mic drop. So that's a wonderful attitude for somebody like Sue Grafton to have. For me, my children are not yet through college. And unfortunately, they're very smart like their mother. They're going to want to go to good ones. I can't quite stand on such ceremony. So I am, yes, open to offers for sure. There you go. There you go. I'm thinking I can see Tom Cruise in Diaper Impossible. Diaper Change Impossible. Again, fine with me. Dude can open up a movie. Yeah. That's a whole new level of, I have no jokes.

I'm not even going to do diaper jokes in the show. We'll do Jeffrey Dahmer jokes, no diaper jokes, or the content they're in. Anything more you want to plug out on the book, Brad, or tease out on the book to get people to go? Yeah, hopefully the man who has to kill his wife for a billion people will die. If that's not a good enough hook for you, I'm sorry. It's the best I got for this book. I guess I'll do better next time. It might be better if you threw in the kids,

and then he gets a really nice Corvette and then meets a high girl. If you spice it up a little bit for me. All the other divorced guys out there, I lost all of the mom crowd. But meanwhile, yes, my, my median reader is probably a 65 year old woman.

So I'm really not going to do that to her. No. Yeah, there you go. So give us your plugs. If you're going to find you on the interwebs. Yeah, for sure.

So my website is www.bradparksbooks.com. On Facebook, I'm facebook.com slash bradparksbooks. And on Twitter, I am brad underscore parks. Or you can just send me, if you're like 40 minutes into the show, however deep we are, and you're still with me at this point, send me an email. You deserve like a purple heart or something. My email is brad at bradparksbooks.com. Yeah. I think at this point in the interview, you're going to get like that box from that dude in the movie Seven at the end. That's probably what's going to get mailed to you. Anyway, I'm just kidding. Just kidding. We do the jokes here, kids. Thank you

very much, Brad, for coming on the show. It's been a wonderful delight and very interesting as well. Chris, really good to be here. Thanks for having me on. Thank you. Guys, go pick up the book wherever fine books are sold, but only where the fine books are sold. Unthinkable came out July 27, 2021 by Brad Parks. Thanks to him for being on the show. Thanks for being on us, for listening in. Go to youtube.com, 4chan's Chris Voss.

Hit the bell notification button. Go to goodreads.com, 4chan's Chris Voss. Go to Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, TikTok, Instagram, all those different places and see what we're doing over there as well. Thanks for being here. Be good to each other and we'll see.