The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – What Goes Around by Michael Wendroff

Episode Date: October 30, 2025

What Goes Around by Michael Wendroff https://www.amazon.com/What-Goes-Around-Michael-Wendroff/dp/1035918935 Michaelwendroff.com 'Relentless and gritty, Wendroff expertly weaves a narrative that begs, "just one more page".' J.D. Barker, New York Times bestselling author EVIL HAS MANY FACES Chilling murders terrorize a town and bring together two detectives to face the hardest tasks of their lives. Jack Ludlum, who relies on his brawn to get things done, is now paired with his archenemy, Jill Jarred, a brilliant investigator with keen intuition. As they delve into the secret world of incels and white supremacists, and conflict between local authorities and the FBI rages, a media frenzy further complicates the mission. Is there a serial killer on the loose? Or something entirely different? Will the detectives' clashing personalities be their undoing, or can they unite to stop the killer before they kill each other? What Goes Around is a dynamic thriller that examines the intricacies of love, loss, and the unbreakable bonds that transcend time. With its pulse-pounding pace, captivating characters, and a revelatory twist that challenges the boundaries of life and death, this novel will keep you hooked from the first page to the last, and thinking long afterwards. 'Starts off at a breakneck pace and doesn't let up until it reaches its unexpected conclusion.' Lisa Black, New York Times bestselling author of the Locard Institute thrillers 'An adrenaline-fueled novel, the action breathlessly driven by two detectives relentlessly pursuing the bloody trails left by a serial killer with a dark sense of justice, deadly groups of white supremacists, and one lonely, alienated boy caught up in the violence.' Kathleen Kent, New York Times bestselling author 'Fast-paced propulsive thriller that doesn't let up - highly recommended!' Lori Brand, author About the author I've always wanted to write a novel and am both lucky and happy to announce my dream has come true. What Goes Around is being published in September 2024. It was actually the pandemic that spurred this on--there was so much I couldn't do then, so took a shot at it. Prior to that it had been a journey-though books have always been in my background. My mother was an editor at Dell Publishing (she'd greeted me at birth with "Nice to see you again"), and I worked in a literary agency--Henry Morrison Inc. while going to college. At the agency I started by delivering manuscripts to publishers in New York City (plenty of subway rides and runs across town), and eventually handled foreign rights, selling on behalf of authors such as Robert Ludlum, David Morrell, Eric Van Lustbader, Justin Scott, Larry Block, and many others. I went to New York University for both undergraduate and graduate school (where I was inducted into their Hall of Fame), and I earned an MBA in marketing. My thesis, in fact, was on "Marketing in the Publishing Industry," and it was excerpted in the industry trade journal, Publishers Weekly. From there, I went into marketing with major companies, and eventually opened up my own marketing consultancy. While I still do consulting, I love being an author, and hope to be a novelist for the rest of my life. Besides writing, my loves are boating, travel, and playing tennis. Fun Fact: My great-grandfather was brought over from the University of Copenhagen, Denmark to work with Thomas Edison in his lab in West Orange, New Jersey. He held a number of patents, including innovating with plastic buttons (he eventually became known as "The Button King."

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We guarantee there's going to be a show tomorrow. He several, actually. Anyway, we have an amazing young man on the show, but before we get into it with him, we need to have you refer the show to family to your friends, neighbors, and relatives, and all those people on the place you can find us. Go to Facebook.com,

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but it's not an endorsement or review of any kind. Today we have an amazing young man on the show with his debut novels. These are always exciting. The birth of a new author and who should excel in his genre and bring us some interesting characters, especially in terms of political thrillers,

murder, thrillers, and police books. He's the author of the latest book that has just come out. What Goes Around Out on October 7, 2025, Michael Wendroff joins us in the show. We're going to get into with him. Find out what this exciting new novel is about and how it's going to blow up and sell 10 million copies by tomorrow. Michael Wendroff has an NBA, I'm sorry, an MBA in marketing from NYU and was inducted into their Hall of Fame. His MBA thesis was on marketing in the publishing industry. Boy, he lined that up perfectly.

And it was excerpted in the industry trade journal publishers weekly. So he actually got paid for his thesis. What a deal. Note to college students. While interviewing publishing executives for the thesis, he met Truman Capote. We've got a bunch of authors on the show talked about Truman. He has spent many years since as a global marketing consultant. It was a COVID pandemic that finally got him to write his novel as he was cooped up at home.

He got so many great books out of the COVID thing. We should do that again. Maybe not. The impetus of the story was that when his mother said to him the moment he was born, oh, how nice to see you again. Was that in the novel there or was that for you, Michael? That plays into the twist ending of my novel. You got to read the book to find out.

Tricky. See, he knows publishing industry marketing. Anyway, welcome the show, Michael. How are you? I'm doing great. Thanks for having me. I should probably add, you grew up in a publishing author, Milieu, I flunk second grade. Your mother was an editor at the New York City publishing houses. That must have been fun.

Yeah, it was. This is back in the day. And in fact, I distinctly remember her sitting on weekends, cross-legged on the couch, manuscript pages strewn about her, her red pen in hand. marking up all of those manuscript pages from the author. And, you know, you think that would have prepared me for when I got my editor's input. You know, it wasn't in red pen anymore, but those comments in the margins of the word document, well, they felt like they were in red pen.

They can hurt your feels. At least I wasn't surprised. You can hear your feels a little bit, those editors. You got to have a thick spin, but it's all for the good. Yeah. Sorry. I ended up 75,000 words, and they just sent me back a page, and they went, we threw away the rest.

Why don't you just, we do all of that? Anyway, so give us your dot-coms. Where do you want people to find out more about you on the inner web, sir? Michaelwendroff.com is where you can learn all about me. My thriller, what goes around, as you mentioned, it's my debut thriller. It was published actually a year ago in hardcover by a traditional publisher, Bloomsbury, and it's sold out, but the paperback just launched. this past week. It's also available in e-book and in audiobook. And I'm lucky in that my agent has

sold foreign translation rights in Hungarian, which is this one. This is my version that was sold in the U.S., UK, and Australia. And it has also been foreign rights sold in Italian and Japanese. So it's so far so good. Well, that's to be awesome. Give us 30,000 over you. What's inside your new book? Well, it's a thriller, a real page turner. And it's about mysterious shootings that are going on in this town.

These two detectors are paired together to investigate it. One is a guy, a big brawny guy, like a Jack Reacher type. And the other is a brainy and beautiful woman. And they hate each other based on things that happened in the police academy, though their relationship does evolve over time. Their journey, though, takes them into the mysterious secret worlds of these terrible hate groups like boogaloo boys and incels. There's a lot of twists and turns along the way. And that very ending with the major twist does harken back to what my mother said to me the second I was born, or so I'm told, which was mentioned, oh, how nice to see you again.

the again part I always wanted to do something with that and and with COVID I finally did do something with it which is to write my book and use that in the twist well you know there's an old saying most men once they leave the womb are trying to always get back so I'm trying to get back in it maybe somehow that happened I don't know maybe time transport teleportation I don't know you know whatever I know some it's an interesting way so that is that how the book starts out is that line no it does not That is actually, that comes into the very end of the book. The first line of the book is, I'll remember the day I died for the rest of my life. Wow.

Wow. The, uh, that's, I'll remember the day I died for the rest of my life. That's interesting. So can you expand on that or is that going to give away the novel a bit, maybe? That goes hand in hand with the twist ending, so I'm not going to say too much about it. I see what you've done here. You've given us some hooks and some tricks to the marketing trade to make us go. Well, now we're going to have to find out, damn it.

Actually, you know, with the hooks, I mean, the way I write my books are to provide real hooks because, you know, my style is very short chapters, which I do, you know, I do that because I think, you know, it makes the readers feel like they're progressing and makes a story move very quickly. And I'd like to end each of those short chapters with a hook. And that could be a physical hook or it could be an emotional hook or a psychological hook. And then with that first sentence of the very next chapter, I usually try and start it with a very intriguing sentence, which is, you know, it's why so many of the reviews, which, you know, I'm lucky they've been fantastic reviews. And they say, you know, we're up all night reading this thing because we couldn't stop. And I was lucky. J.D. Barker was a bestselling author, number one bestselling author. He was nice enough to read the book for me. And he gave me this quote that's on the cover. And he wrote, Relentless and Gritty. Windruff expertly weaves a narrative that begs just one more page. So those are the best books. I do like shorter chapters, even though sometimes, you know, you can burn through those books in like a day or on a beach read. And they're like, I wish I had more, but that's the beauty of, you know, setting more. And some people go back and read them over and over again, too.

You go back and check it what you missed. But those page turners, you know, we've had some authors in the show like yourself who have those little hook lines that they open chapters with or the books with. And, like, I remember one had, well, I know of one gentleman, every book is, and when he comes on, he'll pull out some of the lines or let me read the first line of the book and my hairs will stand on in. Yeah, that's what you want, for sure. And, you know, you mentioned, you know, reading it again.

And, you know, I don't think anyone's going to read my book a second time. Well, maybe my wife. They get pretty obsessive. But if you actually did read it a second time, then you'd see all of the little hints that I put in along the way for that ending, which, you know, people have said it's mind blowing. They said it's jaw dropping. But if you had read it again, you'd see there were hints all along the way, little crow. I put in there. A little M. Night Shalameen maybe

sort of production. Uh-huh. Awesome. Yes, exactly. And also, if you like the Sixth movie, you'd read this book, what goes around. Oh, there you go.

That was an amazing movie and a lot of his movies, too. You know, I love movies where, you know, I've seen so many movies and maybe I'm just good at this or something. I don't know. But I've seen so many movies where you go in, and within 10 minutes you go, I can tell you, I can tell you this thing's an end. An M. Night Shalameen's movie,

and a lot of great movies where you never see the end coming. What was that one movie, seven? What's in the box, man? You know, you don't see it coming. And, uh, and, uh, yeah. Oh, she's pregnant too? Oh, for hell's sake. You're just sitting there just going.

I remember, I remember that ending was so shogging me. My girlfriend got in the biggest breakup fight after because we were just, the movie was just so rattling and disturbing. And then especially at the end, we eventually got back together. But yeah, it was, it was, uh, you didn't leave that movie in a good you're like gee life is great good

good people win all the time I hope you don't break up after you read my book I won't read it with a girlfriend so I don't know maybe I'll maybe I'll send it to the one I want to break up with me and it's easier if you make your breakup their idea I found what you want to leave okay

bye man I was just testing you no I know I really want to make you happy I really believe in making people happy So you go. You are bad. I have anything I can do to get freedom. I'm one of those people as soon as you lock me down, I'm like, where's the door?

Anyway, so on your book, this is your debut novel. And do you think that maybe growing up in the presence of great authors and your mother doing a lot of editorial and, you know, seeing that there was this business trade and this art of writing books, you think that maybe helped influence you and get you down the pathway there? Yeah, definitely. In fact, my mother actually remarried a literary agent. And a literary agent is really the key intermediary between authors and publishers. You know, publishers will not, publishers will not look at an author's manuscript unless it comes through a literary agent. And literary agents have a lot of functions. You know, first, a lot of literary agents will actually

be your first editor and they'll make suggestions before they'll even show it to a publisher. And then, you know, literary agents will know just the right people, publishing firms, editors, to send your type of book. Like, mine's a thriller. So they, my agent knew who to, the agents know who to send it to. You know, there's a three martini lunch and all that. So they know these editors pretty well. Only three? Back in the day.

Only three. And then, you know, if you're lucky enough to get published, you know, then your agent will obviously negotiate the terms of the deal and will, you know, handle the contract. and they review those with you. And so my mother remarried an agent, and he actually had a lot of mystery and thriller authors. So I grew up reading all of those books since they were free. And I kind of got to know what I liked and what seemed to be selling. And in fact, there was this one author, Robert Ludlum,

who a lot of people know these days from the Born Identity, Matt Damon, movies. Well, he was a bestselling author. many, many times over. And I remember staying over at his winter home where he went to the Caribbean, to St. Thomas for the winter. And we were there. And I remember getting up early one morning, tiptoeing into the living room. And he was sitting there on the couch with a yellow legal pan and a number two Dixon Ticconderoga pencil in hand. And he was writing his books. And that's how he wrote his 450-page novels by hand. Now, you know, I admired Ludlam's, you know, plotting and his prose, but I was not going to write a novel by hand. Thankfully,

when it came time to write what goes around, I had a PC. We've had Brian Freeman on the show, who I think took over Robert's books. Oh, that's right. At least in one case. We have all the folks that come on from the Clancy Division. I think we've had all the Clancy authors, except of the main. Yeah, good stuff. He won't return our calls when we send them an email, so evidently something happened to. But, yeah, the Robert Lovenin books, the born identity and all that sort of good stuff. It's crazy, all that stuff. In fact, I need to follow up, see what's going on if we need to get another.

Those guys are prolific, man. They pump out books like every six months, three to six months. Well, the thing that's amazing about a lot of those guys is they continue to write after they're dead. Yeah, that's what we always joking. about how we've had everybody on the show, except for Tom Clancy himself. I guess there's a reason for that. But God bless him, wherever he is. He's avoiding our calls, clearly.

But I would too. But no, I mean, and all the guys who write Tom Clancy, they have their own series of books that they're writing for, right? Yes. And so they're just, I mean, they're just crazy. They're on the show, like about every three months for their book, Tom Clancy books. I think there's no one coming up, but fun is fun.

Uh, was that where you first kind of got bitten by the, a mystery novel bug, or was there anyone else growing up that maybe had an influence on you? I mean, that was it. I mean, it was also interesting that, you know, you talked about my experience writing my MBA on marketing and publishing. And, you know, the incident you referred to was when I was interviewing publishing executives for that thesis. And I was waiting outside Michael Cordy's office one day.

He at that point was the editor-in-chief at Simon & Schuster. and you know we had an appointment and it's way past that appointment and I'm waiting and waiting and then finally the door opens up and he says come on over here I want to you to meet someone and of course the guy that was in his office was Truman Capote who looked exactly like you think with a big hat the white suit the pink shirt the whole nine yards so you know meeting like one of the all-time best thriller writers in cold blood that was that was pretty cool so that you know just continued to reinforce what I wanted to do. I did go into business, into marketing for many years. And then, as you mentioned, it was really the pandemic where, you know, you couldn't do

anything else. In my town, you couldn't even go to the beach. I couldn't play tennis. Nothing. So I was out of excuses for not writing the novel I always wanted to do. And I got lucky and it became what goes around. But, you know, a lot of people ask me, what's your writing process like. So once I finally got to it, I mean, my process is really three parts to it. The first part is the thinking part, you know, trying to figure out what the plot is, what the subplot is. And, you know, there are actually two types of writers. One is called a pancer. And that type of writer literally writes by the seat of his or her pants. So they don't know where the story is going. They just sit down at the PC and wherever

it goes, it goes. And, you know, it's amazing. There's, you know, a lot of bestsellers come out of that type of writing, but that's not me. I'm what's called a plotter. So I need to have a detailed outline of what's going to happen in my book, where I'm going to put those red herrings, where, you know, where's the subplot, where all the twists along the way. And of course, where the major twist ending is going to be. But, you know, it's not like that doesn't change. It could evolve. I mean, there was one time when, you know, You know, I fell in love with one of my characters. And I tell you, these characters, they talk to you.

And, you know, am I crazy? Well, maybe a little. But, uh, are we all? Yeah, there was one character, though, that, you know, I really liked my plot calls for him to be killed off, but I couldn't do it. I couldn't kill him off. So how to change the plot. But in fact, there was another time when same kind of deal where I really like this

character, a really good buddy, got a nice guy. And then had to kill him off. And, you know, I listened to my plot outline and I killed him off. And I tell you, the whole next week, my wife's yelling at me, why are you so depressed? He's not real. But, you know, to an author, these characters really, they're real. Yeah. They are real.

I'm really jealous because, you know, the only people talk to me are people that, my schizophrenia kicks in when I take my, whatever that is. I can't pull the rest of that joke. I'm going on the reference point of the drug. The lore tab, no, it's not lore tab, it's lithium. Yeah, when I remember my lithium runs out. I got that joke around too. So that's, you know, the first part of my writing. And the second part of my writing is actually doing the research.

And, you know, these days I'm writing my second book, and there's chat GPT, which for research, I find to be so much more efficient than Googling. I mean, you do have to be careful. But, you know, using AI for research saves so much time. I don't have to Google something 30 times and figure out what's the right stuff. And I tell you, though, I mean, the best type of research, I believe, an author should do is really, you know, talking to the type of people who are going to be in your novel. So for me, you know, I was lucky enough I got to talk to FBI agents. I got to talk to chiefs of police.

I got to talk to detectives. And, you know, importantly, I spoke to a female detective since, you know, I have a lead as a female detective in my story. And she was great. She gave me all these insights and anecdotes, which made their way into the book. It was great. So, you know, talking to the people who are going to be in your book is key. Now, I don't think I spoke to any serial killers. You don't think, but we have to find out.

And I imagine, you know, we've kind of talked about the, what was it? good to see you again, and I remember the last time I died or something out of effect, I think, was line, was it? But the title of your book is called What Goes Around. Yes. Can you expand on that some more, or is I don't want to give away the book, of course. Well, I mean, you know, at its heart, the book is really about love, loss, and the unbreakable bonds that transcend time.

So, you know, there could be perhaps people that you know in this, lifetime that you had a bond with in a prior lifetime. I know my mother believe that, and that's why she said, how nice to see you again, because she thought we had a relationship in a past life. Do I believe that? I don't know, maybe, but, you know, I'm keeping an open mind and, you know, wouldn't it be nice to know that, you know, you'll see a loved one and interact with them on this earth again in the future? Yeah. I mean, I just want to make sure that, you know, make sure that we knew that we were related and we know whether we have that cousins thing in case there's on your romance that takes place you know what I mean right don't want to do that

wait were you my sister in a previous life oh this is bad this is not gonna this is yeah sounds like you're heading for another breakup yeah sounds like that's what that's what happens when you live in Alabama I'm just kidding folks it's Arkansas anyway it's always it's good to pull deliverance joke. Those are my favorite. You've got some pretty mouth, boy. Anyway, does any of the character say that in the book? No, I'm just kidding. You got a purdy mouth, boy, again. Deliverance too. So what do you see going on with the book is, do you see this maybe as a series, much like the other series, Tom Clancy and we talked about? Yeah, I do. You know, because of the great reviews and the really great sales on the hardcover, et cetera,

my publisher has given me a contract for another book, which I'm writing right now. And, yeah, series in terms of it will, it does include the two main characters from the first book. And, you know, publishers like when you do series because you have a little bit of a built-in audience from your first book, if the readers liked it. And, you know, they got to like the characters. So they're coming back in your style and all of that. And also, you know, from the marketing hat, in a lot of ways, you're building your brand. So your readers, consumers will come to expect a certain thing from your book.

So they'll expect them to be thrillers. They'll expect them to have certain elements. You know, that's why I feel it's important to do what I've done now with the second book that's in progress. Oh, and so you're bringing the character back then? Yeah. Yeah. Two main characters are back. Do you see this as a, you know, lifelong sort of run of characters and books and all that sort?

stuff? So that I'm not sure yet. I mean, I'll always write, you know, page turning thrillers, but I don't know if I'll always have these characters. That's still TBD depends on what they say to me, right? Yeah, well, yeah, you've got to keep smacking them out of the park. Otherwise, they go, hey, man, that's right. That last book didn't sell well. Is there a line? You're gone. You probably know that from your, from your experiences with what you call it there, maybe. um the uh your mom yeah yeah yeah she's like ah this guy we're not giving him a contract again yeah you got you got to keep proving yourself in in publishing and um you know it's also interesting that you know what i learned in publishing today is that you know being an author is very different

than being an author years ago today even with uh you know a big publisher like i have you're really half the time you're expected to be writing and half the time you're expecting to be out there promoting your book. So, you know, you've got to do things like get on great podcasts like your show. And you got to, you know, get out there, bookstores, book signings, all social media. I mean, you really got to put the effort in these days being an author. It's very different from years ago. There you go.

So any final thoughts as we go out? Any more tease-outs you want to tell people about the book to get them to pick it up? well i would just say that you know for any in your audience that are aspiring authors that you know what they should do is a start you know getting your social media going in a more expanded way based on what i just said be you know if you're writing right every day i try and do that even if it's 10 minutes because if i take two weeks off it's like the whole rhythm and flow is gone it's uh you lose it all but you know even more important is learn your craft i mean there's a real craft to writing.

And there's a lot of different ways you can learn your craft. You know, for example, you can learn it online. I mean, there's courses. I took a couple from, I think it was BBC Maestro, that, you know, one was Lee Child on writing. The other one was Harlan Cobain on writing. And, you know, they don't always give you the same exact advice, but that's good, you know, pick what would work for you.

And also, you know, go to conferences. Like for me as a thriller writer, I go to Thriller Fest, which is the big annual conference in New York City. And, you know, there's all sorts of seminars at these conferences on different aspects of writing. So really important to learn your craft and to keep at it. If you have local writers groups, you can get together for feedback, that's great. But if you want to do it, I'd be a decent writer, you know, work on that craft. And then, you know, the last thing I would say is that, remember, What goes around comes around, so be nice.

Yeah, be nice to people. You know, you just never know where, you know, one thing or another is going to happen. And you never know, you know, there's always somebody who might refer something. And they were like, yeah, well, this isn't for me, but, you know, I can refer it to somebody who might be interested in what you're doing. Good point. Yeah, you never know.

It's all networking, you know, kind of. So thank you very much for coming on the show. Give us your dot coms one last time as we. Michael Wendroff.com. Thank you, Michael, for coming the show. We're excited to see the next book coming out, so please come back for that, sir. Sure thing.

Thank you. It's been fun. All right. Thank you. Take care. Thanks, my honest, for coming in the show. Go to Goodreads.com, Fortress, Chris Foss. LinkedIn.com, Fortress, Chris Foss.

Chris Foss won the TikTok and he all is a crazy place on the internet. Be good to each other. Stay safe. We'll see you next time. My brain.