Thomas Perry, Author of The Old Man

Can you tell us what the premise is or just a teaser about it? There is a teenager whose mother is married to a con man. She doesn't know what he figures it out. Thomas Perry is the best-selling author of 31 novels. His book, The Old Man, inspired a television show starring Jeff Bridges and John Lithgow. In a sense, it's kind of irresponsible, you know, telling lives for a living. They're good lies, though, right? As viewers, as readers, as audience members of any kind, we want to be emotionally manipulated by someone we can trust. When we die, if anybody remembers that our existence at all or thinks it's all about our books, what they will remember is...

I wanted to ask about The Old Man because that was how I discovered your books and the second season is coming out, so I thought that would be a nice place to start. What was the genesis of that book and that character? Each time that I start a book or want to basically want to tell a story, it's... I don't want to repeat myself. I'm one of the people that believes that when we die, if anybody remembers that our existence at all or thinks it's all about our books, what they will remember is that part of our work that never would have existed if you hadn't written that. In other words, it's original.

I guess whatever it is that's original about your work is going to be the only part that anybody remembers. And essentially, that's a kind of story I hadn't told before. I usually keep everything in this country first place, most of it's local entirely. But this is something that's been on my mind for maybe 40 years or 50 years. It's really about the way we treat the people who protect us from harm, 22 million American veterans who are alive today. Essentially what happens to them afterwards and what are their lives like and so on. I decided to write about an extreme case, which is always the most fun to read about us.

Yes, yes it is. With so many books in that suspense thriller genre, there has to be a temptation sometimes when you're writing to fall back on an old trick, right? A way that a character escapes a certain situation, more solved a certain problem. And I'm just curious what that process is like for you, with all this experience, all these successful books, how do you force yourself to keep solving things in new ways and keep it so fresh and original? Well, it's like having a conversation with somebody. In a way what we do when we meet each other and we get old, each of us essentially tells a story about who we are.

I tell you a story and then when that's over you tell me your story. And in a way that's sort of what we do, that's what communication is. And I think that, well, after a while you get to the point where you're just kind of addicted to telling stories. And in this case, I like to surprise, by now I have an audience that has read a few of my books and some of it was some people who actually I can't even believe it read all of them. But I kind of feel as though I have an obligation to that. I'm sitting down and I'm saying, I'm going to tell you a story. The only thing that I can guarantee about it is that you won't have heard it before.

And that's what makes you want to look for new ways of doing things. You know, also there's a sort of wish to do better. You know, each time, you know, it's funny like with sunsets, I've noticed that I've had to describe sunsets a number of times in books with sometimes 10 years apart or 12 years apart or something like that. And each time I notice something different about sunsets, I try to put it in the book. Yeah, that's part of what's fun. You know, we're supposed to be having fun with these books. They're not science. Right. Right. And I think that comes across in your writing. There is an element of fun to it, right?

They're fun to read. And I imagine it sounds like you're having fun when you're writing that. Now, tell me about the experience. I mean, speaking of fun. So you, what was the, how much time passed between releasing the old man and then getting a call that someone was interested in adapting it? I think it was about two years before, you know, between having it come out. And it takes a while for these things to kind of get around and people, you know, somebody reads it and then takes it to their boss and then somebody, that kind of thing. This was an interesting situation because there were several production companies and people that had some interest in them and optioning the books for, you know, television or movies or something.

And I had some telephone conversations with the people that were doing and one of the people, what is Warren Littlefield? And so I listened to some other people and then I said William and next I'll hear from, you know, Owen Littlefield. I told my agent and, you know, he called up and I have to explain to Warren Littlefield Warren Littlefield, when I was writing television, was the head of NBC. And the show that I was working on with my wife, which is always my writing partner and television, was on CBS. And he was just going into that period of what used to be called must see TV, you know, and Warren was, you know, essentially, I don't know, one of the most powerful and most, I don't know, astute people in the television world at that time.

And so he called up and he was on a phone and he said, you know, I'm in Toronto. And, you know, I just ran into, say, I'm not going to help with, you know, and she was down the street and I was, anyway, and he was, you know, sort of telling me what his day was like and stuff. And, you know, everything that he's ever done, I've liked, you know, I've liked the Fargo television series. I've liked the hand that he had made, got it in serious. You know, lots and lots of things. So, you know, essentially after he was running this huge network, he has since then been, you know, a producer and his company consists of about four people, you know, that's it.

And it just manages to find people that he wants to work with and to find material that he wants to present. You know, the fact that he was interested at all was a big, big thing for me. I really felt, you know, I was saying, go at that. That's it. Yeah. Good luck. Yeah. You know, right. Work your magic. Right. Whenever you're going to say, yes. Right. But, you know, and then he did. The problem, of course, was that the world slowed down right at that point. You know, they had there was sort of in the process of doing things like old casting and working on, you know, various parts of it. And they had hired writers and so on.

And it was really getting going when then then called it and things sort of stopped for a couple of years. You know, so it was by the time anything happened, that actually that this show was on the air that had been five years since the book had been published. OK. You know, but I mean, it's everything. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I was going to say, what's that feel like when you're one of your heroes calls you and says, I love your book. I want to turn it into a TV show. And it's someone that you know and respect so much. Well, what feelings were running through you at that moment? Well, I didn't know. But I did.

You know, I was just happy. I mean, what happens? You know, I have to sort of give a cynical background to all of this. OK. The time, the first time anybody, you know, was interested in an optioning book for a movie on a book of mine. It was in 1982. And OK, what happens is, you know, they start out with some, you know, I love it. I love it. I love it. Here's what we do to fix it. So they go on and, you know, basically, they go through the whole process. And what I actually thought when I first had my first novel, Butchers Boy, was an option. You know, I thought, OK, well, maybe what's it going to be like three months, four months, and it'll be, you know, in movies theaters or whatever.

And you know, it just doesn't work that way. What happens is, you know, you have options for a period of a year or a year and a half and then gets renewed or whatever or doesn't. And meanwhile, this producer is going around and trying to get, you know, funding, you know, distribution, all kinds of things that are difficult in a way. And it finally came to learn that the way a movie gets made is or a television show, this probably quite even even harder, is that about five people have to spend a whole year or more without ever saying anything stupid in a meeting. Yeah, it's much better. It's kind of throw you out.

It's right. And that project is dead. So, and it's gone for a really long time. You know, this was happening in the room. And also, they have a kind of a situation in which the enthusiasm for this book is gone, you know, whenever it is, whenever the book is, that you just had an option. And then a couple of years later, somebody else reads it and discovers it. And, you know, all of a sudden these waves of bogus enthusiasm wash over you again, you know, the specific things happens. And this has been going on for me for over 40 years. And nothing ever would get made, you know, it would just be option.

And then I'd go through the whole option process and so on. And the next book would come out and that would be optioned by somebody else. And there's always kind of over, and it was turning over a whole time. And, but this is the first time that it was successfully done. And I really, I really loved it because, you know, I mean, I had written television years ago with my wife, as I said, and, you know, I knew what was going to happen. And that was that there were, you know, one going to make changes. They had to, you know, a television show is not a book. And its purpose is not to do an audio visual version of your novel.

So the purpose is to get a hold with a lot of different things, including art directors and, you know, all of everything, all about 200 people and so on. And you sort of put all that together, like you're making an army or something. And the purpose is to get a good television show. And most of the time people watch something like that. And they say, there's a book, you know, they don't know the book. Right. I learned that very early on when I happened to walk up to a major, a actor, and who was in a movie that was based on a book of person who, a friend of mine, had written, you know, and I said, you know, what, you know, what is it a lot?

There's a movie going to be a lot like the book. And he said, this book, you know, right. And he's starring in it. Yeah. Yeah. So it was years and years ago, but I think a lot of times it's still true. Yeah, as I mentioned, I did find the show first, then discovered that it was based on a book from some Googling and and I thought, Oh, I want to read. The source material, because I found that that's really interesting because they're always the other a little different or a lot different. And this was one of those great instances where I really enjoyed the book. I really enjoyed the show and they were in for different reasons because they do diverge quite a bit.

What's that experience like for you to see someone reimagine these characters that that came from your mind? It's a pleasure, actually. You know, for me, it was all pleasant. It was all, you know, number one. I had essentially told the story I wanted to tell and I would not have under any circumstances made any kind of a change to it. But somebody else handing, you know, handing it over as it turned out to John Steinberg, who, you know, was sort of the head writer and one of the executive research. It was an interesting experience. It's like, you know, you've got these characters. You know what this is like.

You know what we're talking about here. And, you know, you tell the best story that you can with that. And, you know, he did. They did. They told a really good story. It just wasn't the same story, really. And so we had this sort of strange experience, my wife and me sitting there watching the show week by week and knowing the characters and being really surprised by secrets about them that we didn't know or doing something that we didn't expect them to do because they don't do it in the book. And it was that was fun. It was, you know, and I expect that, you know, season two is going to be probably twice as fun because we, you know, we have no idea at this point where it's going.

So, right. A pleasure. You know, it's, it's one of those things where, you know, your ego can drive you a hell of a lot of fun. But you worry about your sort of possessive of, you know, no, this is the, you know, the only version that can be true. And, you know, you can't be full with my work. Instead, it was really a pleasure. Let's see what they did with that. Right. Well, it's got to be a great feeling when you see your characters doing something different, making different decisions, but it still tracks with what that character would do. It might be a different decision than they made in the book, but it's still true to that character because I, yeah, I mean, having, yeah, having read and watched both of them.

Yeah. Go ahead. So we've got a little audio lag. Oh, you know, sorry. You know, what, when I got the, well, I said, had the experience of of being on sets before, you know, when shooting was being done. And I accepted an invitation to, you know, show up on the set and see both you know, days when let's go was working and when bridges was working. So there were two, there were different days because, you know, part of the way the book works and the series works is that for a really long time, there's sort of one of them's looking for the other and they don't come together. So you have these, these things where, you know, these two people are in the same series, a series and they don't, you know, the actors don't meet until they finally have a scene together.

So anyway, even two different days. And, you know, I watched Jen Lisko do a, like a six page scene, you know, pretty much continuously by himself, you know, while he was supposedly talking to someone else. And then another day, I went to, to, well, bridges working and it was one of those early, you know, first scenes and it was exactly like that particular one is, you know, the beginning, he's with his dogs and he's in the house and in turn that and you know, that the person comes to kill him, you know, and all of that was exactly alike. And I thought, my God, what first it casting, what are and watching, watching these guys work was was, I was at a revelation.

I mean, they were so, so good. And I was, I was so pleased just to watch. Well, in fact, even, even things that were, that were, had nothing to do with the acting or anything was just the direction and art work made the house. Exactly the way I imagined that, you know, the interior of the house, you know, was, it was a sad, it was, and you know, I thought, my God, this is, you know, I never imagined that this was going to be so good. And so, I was that what I, what I do, but I, you know, watching how hard they worked and so on. And then later on, I realized that that the week that I went to see each of them, they had each of them a best-selling book on the New York Times bestseller list.

Rydiot is a, you know, is an amateur photographer. And, you know, he's taken a lot of pictures and, you know, around sets and things like that. And that book was at bestseller. And John Let's Go had written a short so parody of, but a candidate Trump, it was, OK. But in time, that was on the bestseller list. You know, so of the three of us, they were, they were the ones that had the bestsellers up there. Right. Please, right. I mean, that is, that is. So you mentioned you were a TV writer. How did you transition out of that into book writing? Or were they both going on simultaneously? I mean, what was that?

What was that writing career trajectory look like? Oh, I started out as a person writing books. But then we have to add a couple of books out. My wife and I were both working at USC. And I actually, I had a, there was a, I don't know, four faculty members in my office at the time. And it was a sort of informal meeting, setting up for the next meeting about something else. And the phone rings and it's Jim Corus, who was at that time, an executive at Universal. And he said, you know, I just read a couple of your books. And then, you know, I think you could write television and, you know, would you like to wait to do it?

You know, and then I said, gee, I'm sorry. You know, I'm really busy in this meeting right now. And I, and also I don't know how to do that. I've never even seen a script. So, you know, thanks, but no thanks. Yeah. And he said, well, you don't have to quit your job or anything. You know, right away or whatever. And just, but, you know, think about it. Ask people that you know, you know, what they think. And, and I'll call you, I think it was, you know, next day or a couple of days, you know. And so I did my method of thinking, which is to walk down all the middle office and say, what do you think?

Yeah. We talked about having, and we thought, you know, and she said, you know, this is, this sounds like an interesting idea in your board and this job. You know, try it. And if you run into trouble, I'll help you. You know, and in her case, yeah, she had a PhD in English also, but she, you know, had seeing scripts and things, you know, her father was a comedy writer. So, you know, 40 or some years, maybe longer. And, you know, so she includes, it wasn't his alien to her as it was to me. And so, you know, and I did accept the script assignment. And I did start working on it and did run into trouble and she did help me.

So after that, we were writing partners in television for 11 years. And what shows did you guys work on? Well, most of the time, we started on Simon and Simon and we stayed essentially, Simon and Simon was, I don't know if you remember that, you know, but it's a show on CBS, two brothers who are essentially two aspects of one personality, you know, when it's kind of, and I'll lay back and casual and stuff. And the other one is kind of a future lawyer kind of guy, you know, and that was, you know, it was a comic adventure kind of show. And when it was, and it lasted for quite a while. And so we were an after, I don't know, a couple of years, three years, maybe.

And then the people who were our bosses were originally hired us left and they went to Disney. And so we worked another year at Universal at the on that show. And they said, you know, when you please come Disney and work with us, you know, so we did. And we, you know, that was, we worked on a couple of different shows. One was outside kicks. That was the first one. And that was about a, a police officer whose son is a karate champ. So yeah, there was there was any race junior who later became a ninja turtle. OK, but but at this time it was it was kind of a limited plot because what it was was obviously, you know, you have this great tough top and he gets into these situations where he's with, you know, he picks up earning at school, his son.

And, you know, they suddenly see that somebody's being robbed and and cops says, you know, stay in the car or any. And he goes to take care of it or as he gets hit over that or something. And Ernie comes and beats the hell out of the bad guys. And and, you know, it was a very, it was a real karate. You know, he actually was the national karate champion for a, you know, for his age and his father was in senior national karate champ. Ernie Rick Jr. was, you know, so it was interesting to see people breaking a lot of boards and fishing. Yeah, anyway, it was fun. But, you know, after that, we worked on a show that was called the oldest routine with calls or, you know, and he was, you know, basically the plot was that he had been a police officer who had worked his by through the sort of schmosing part of the police department, the part where, you know, you're going around and kind of, you know, being in parties and and talking to lobbyists and, you know, things like that.

He spent more time basically wearing tuxedo than a then a police uniform. And then his old partner from when he was a rookie has killed in the line of duty and he decides he wants to be a police officer again, a street cop and goes back to doing we wrote that for a year. And that was, that was kind of fun too, because hardly because listening, you know, Paul Servino was was so experienced and so good at what he did that he would explain things to you when you're going over a script with them, you know, because learn from him, he was really good. So great actor, great actor. And then how did you find your way back to just writing books?

Oh, I never stopped. I always always always knew what I was just okay. You know, they were they were a little slower. I think, you know, for the last, I don't know, 20 years or so. I've been doing one a year, but I didn't, you know, I couldn't keep up that pace at the time when I was writing television because, you know, when you're on a series, you know, once once that ship sales, you've got ideas, you know, an hour or so that he every week, no matter what, you know, right. And so we were, we were busy. Now we've had a number of of nonfiction authors on podcast before. And that has led to, I've just noticed from the comments and what not a number of aspiring writers taking an interest in, in authors discussing their books and their process.

And one question I think that they would like to know the answer to. So for a aspiring writer today, right, the process has completely changed with all these self published books. And the my limited understanding of it is that the publishing industry is shrinking a bit. Do you have any advice, any thoughts for those new writers that want to get their book out there and reach more people? How do they, how do they tackle this in this new landscape of publishing? Well, you know, it is tricky in a way because, you know, you're in a situation when you're publishing or, you know, writing to live, you know, you usually start from a place where I started, which is, you know, I wrote for fun and I had a lot of fun.

And somebody I considered myself satisfied and lucky. And then at a certain point, I finally wrote something I thought maybe somebody wasn't related to me by blood or marriage, I'd actually want to read. And I started trying to, to sell it, you know, and, but what I realized pretty early on is that the very best thing you can have is a is an agent. You know, if you're getting an agent is harder than getting something published today, you know, which is kind of a tricky situation. But I mean, it was that was was the big lucky break in a way was getting was what I did was I got the, there's a little blue pamphlet that they used to produce at the writer, the authors Guild in New York.

And it would had a list of the names and addresses and so on. The agents that sort of agreed to, you know, be honest and, you know, take a limited amount of money out of your royalties and so on. It was like, I think 10% at the time, but I'm sure it's been raised to like 15. But anyway, I saw what I did was I, you know, I wrote a letter and a synopsis of the book that I was trying to sell. And I sent it to a bunch of agents, you know, and fortunately, as I went down the list, the one that answered first was a guy named, believe it or not, Learten Blessing game. I wish I had made that name up, but it was just, was it a name?

That's an amazing name. Yeah, it is. And, you know, he wrote to me and he said, you know, in those days, you didn't make a long distance phone call idly. So, you know, you would communicate by mail. And, you know, he said, the first question was, was, who are you? And so I sent him a letter, you know, answering, you know, basically, I am nobody is what I was saying. Yeah, he said, well, send me the book and I'll read it. And then about two weeks later, he wrote back to me and he said, I like it. I'll find a publisher. And he did. Which was a lady named Suzanne Kirk at the Scriveners. And she was a great editor of those people's work in the field of and also of mysteries and thrillers.

She was she was terrific. And, you know, so it all kind of went from there, you know, the first book, one in Edgar, so it gave me a chance to sort of be taken seriously. Right. And I was getting to zoom. I've been very lucky in these cases because, you know, one of the things that you know, it has you do this stuff is that there are thousands of people who are writing good books out there, you know, and really having a terrible time trying to get anybody to take a look at them. I mean, anybody with power to do anything about it. And, you know, and it's it's it's tough. And you know, you know, you feel all kinds of frustration.

And then you particularly when you see a book that's terrible, what, you know, is climbing a seller list. Yeah. You know, everybody has that experience of, you know, looking at something and going, Oh my God, what what happened here? What's going on? Why is the universe tilted like this? But you know, you just have to, you know, persevere and try and, and, you know, enjoy the rides and the extent that you came up. I don't know. Well, and it sounds like you were also lucky in that you married the right person because it sounds I'm getting the sense that your wife is very important to your writing and thinking process.

And I wanted to ask about that. How big of a role does she play in making decisions about your books? No, she is an novelist. She's a very golden novelist. And, you know, she's got, I believe seven books now. And then, you know, some of them are funny, some of them are, you know, tragic, trinity aspects, all kinds of things. She's a terrific writer and always was, you know, and she was a poet before that. We've been married for the 44 years in August. Oh, and we're together for a while before that. So, you know, she's been around a while and has been absolutely important to, to one aspect of this.

We don't read each other's work until we're ready. Okay, so done. So she reads first drafts of my books and, you know, she's the very first reader, first reader, whatever's the right. And she is merciless. She's absolutely merciless. Yeah. You know, Willow, she does the thing, which is the very hardest that you can do with a friend or a relative or whatever. And that is she tells the truth. If something is awful, she tells you it's awful, you know, and if yeah, you know, and it's it's it's been just incredibly good for me because you know, you really do you get used to an idea or you think you, you know, you've got it all worked out.

But you know, it's it's really important to have somebody who a truth teller is that you know, and and, you know, in her case, she's fortunate with each is brilliant. So that really helps. That helps a lot. And, you know, the room that I'm sitting in right now is where we both write every day. I have a desk here and she has a desk down there always. And, you know, we both sit here and refuse to answer the phone. Right. Well, since you mentioned the room, what is that daily process look like? Well, first to start with, how many days a year do you write? I mean, do you write every day? Are there breaks in there between books and then how many hours per day?

Typically, are you at the desk writing? You know, it's changed over the years. I've been at this a long time and, you know, I probably don't know the stamina that I used to. And I know my eyes don't take 12 hour, right? Things that sometimes you stay up. But we both essentially write every day just a little bit, maybe, and maybe a lot. That depends. You know, when you're doing this, you you sometimes have these situations where if you solve one thing or write some portion that that works well enough, you feel as though you've actually accomplished a day's work and there are other days when you will get into role and you realize that you're, you know, I write my first drafts by hand.

And so, you know, sometimes I'll have, you know, nine, 10, 12 pages, you know, but that's, that doesn't happen very often. Usually, you know, at certain points it does. And, you know, she does things at her pace and it's. Well, we work every day, but what that does is it frees our lives entirely. In other words, if there's a day or a week or something that we can't work or are giving something else or, you know, children want to come over and ask whatever yeah, whatever happens, you know, it's, it's we're completely free. I mean, we don't, we don't put in necessarily a full day every day. But, you know, I would say we probably were, I don't know, an image working these like five hours.

Yeah, sure. We're not really working. You can be good. I don't know. It's, it's well as things where. Gertrude Stein wrote something at one point that said she said that, you know, sometimes this you sit and stare at a blank page for eight hours and then write something for 15 minutes, you know, because you finally figured it out or whatever. And, you know, it's, it's your days like that. I think there are. Yeah. I mean, I don't have the patience to sit for eight hours anymore and do that. But, you know, I get up and walk around and stuff. And sometimes, you know, something that occurs to you and sometimes it does.

But, you know, the back of me, you know, with what Norman Mailer, I don't know why and all these people are coming back into my head right now. But at one point he said that when you plan that, you know, tomorrow you're going to, to write your, your subconscious mind begins to prepare the materials, you know, which is true. You, you know, you sort of wake up already ready to do business. Well, you know, that's an interesting thought. Is there, is there a process there for you where you are trying to prepare, like, to get your subconscious active? Are you thinking about characters before you fall asleep?

And then in the morning you pop up with new ideas. I mean, is there anything you're doing that's for the writing, but it's not during the writing process? Well, I think, you know, at a certain point, when you've been doing it for really long in time, you're always in that mode and you're, you know, everything you read, everything you see, every conversation that you have, you sometimes even overheard, you know, things that you, you know, I'm sure writers are all, you've been this terrible eavesdrop. And, you know, I remember at one point I was in a, I was doing a book tour and I was in a big hotel and there was this group of people, or they like a table for 12 for each right nearby, which is, you know, and then there was a young woman pulled, had apparently just graduated from medical school.

And, but she had been a pageant, quitting, I person, she was going through all this stuff. And she said, you know, I could probably do surgery every day in a, you know, a pageant gown. I would have, I would have enough of them. I could still do it. And I, you know, I thought, God, you know, that's, that always stuck with me. I think it's the image of this, this person in a gown and a mask to doing surgery. Anyway, did you ever use that image? No. In a, okay. But yeah, it's just, you know, it's just one of those things that that sticks with you. I mean, you're in other words, you're aware, you're always, you're always engaged.

And each the world, when you're, when you're writing, I mean, you know, it's, it's, it's just another way of storing your thoughts and observations and, you know, the images that you, you get coming into you get on a fun, you know, that's really a pleasant way to live, you know, because it's, in a sense, it's kind of irresponsible, you know, telling lies for a living. Yeah. So yeah, they're good lies though, right? I mean, I think storytelling, it's funny. I mean, we as, as viewers, as readers, as audience members of any kind, we want to be emotionally manipulated by someone we can trust in a good way.

Yeah. Because the people that are fun to read are people who are pretty much like us and and you know, we have the same reaction, like, when I read somebody else's book, I, I know, I'm absolutely like any other reader. I mean, I'm really interested. I, you know, I sometimes get worried about the characters, you know, I think, oh my God, you know, I hope that's, I hope they get through this. And, you know, it's, it's really a, I think just a fundamental human thing, you know, we communicate how it feels and what, what things we admire and what, what things we be test and so on. And you know, there's certainly green that I'm all about making.

You, Stephen King expressed something similar about as a reader. He said, well, when I'm not writing, I spend a lot of my downtime reading because I just love stories. And he said, I can't imagine someone wanting to be a writer that doesn't just love to ingest stories. Yeah. Who are some of your favorite writers, movies, TV shows, just anything that comes to mind right now, what's, what's gotten you excited recently? I sometimes get requests from, you know, editors to. Yeah, read whoever the latest person is that they're pushing and maybe give them a blurb or whatever. And, you know, I always have a, I've seen that are, you know, really that favorites.

And, you know, right now actually just recently I, I read a book by what's his name? Oh, Robert Rothstein, who wrote a book which came out in June called The Auto Town Lawyer. I really admired that and also learned a lot of lost stuff, which is so nice one because it was about it actually is about a complicated court case and, you know, which somebody is being prosecuted from murder, essentially. Also, there was a new book which I read this year called Blood Rubies by Meylon Dokan, which, you know, I, that kind of excited about because it was so strange and interesting. A young woman whose family is a jewel, you know, I was their, you know, expert, the jewelers and so on, it becomes a jewel.

And, you know, it has gets herself into some terrible trouble doing that. And, you know, it's very fast paced and a lot of most of it takes, takes place in Thailand, which near us is pretty fun because I didn't know very much about Thailand. But anyway, you know, I read a lot of things like that that excite me. There, there is, I don't know, some interesting things going on. What have I liked in movies? Things. Offhand, I can't think of, can't think of any favorites at the moment. But, you know, it's every once in a while, there'll be something I really love. But, you know, moment, you know, there are certain things about about the series and the bear that's, you know, FX Hulu that I have.

It's funny you mentioned that because I was, I was just going to say, if you haven't seen the bear, it's such a unique show and it feels, it feels more like a book than most TV shows do. I don't know how else to describe it. Obviously, it's very rich visually. So it's different than a book, but it's, it's a different kind of writing for that show. Yeah, they're doing something special. Yeah, it's interesting and different. And, you know, I can't say I've liked all of it. I have liked some of it a lot, you know, and there's a particular, particular favorite characters and things. But, you know, I also think that one of the things that we, that I miss in the current situations that, you know, almost everything is now seven or eight episodes.

You know, while I was writing for television, our first year we got, we got 26 episodes and that's a great, you know, so it was kind of a different, different world. And then you have to forget about it for, you know, what is it? Like, you know, 40 weeks before you get to see the next years. Right. So that's, that's kind of frustrating, but, you know, it's good. But, you know, I also, you know, as I said, I do, you know, I really liked. From, you know, the Fargo episodes that I've that I've seen, you know, the different years and so on. I know I've got things like that. Those seem to me to be the height point of what I, I, I see lately.

Tenons. But yeah, yeah, another excellent show for sure. A hero is is out now. Are, are you at Liberty to say what you are currently working on or what might be in the in the pipeline? I've finished the, and I think I'm through all the others. And I was on the next book, which is going to be called Pro bono. And that will be out in out of January, probably. You know, that's it was a. After the last. I don't know. The last that I spoke with the editors that that seemed like it was like it was done and it was there. They were sending it off for artwork. So I guess it's that's a sure thing. OK. What's the, what's the bother to do that?

It's the same. Once we get through the copy editor. Yeah. Yeah. If you've got a new book coming out each year, is that how much of that time is writing it and how much is editing that book or going through the editing process with all the different people involved? Well, the people that I've been dealing with for the last few years are very fast. So even if I kind of miss a deadline, that will, you know, work fast enough to make up for whatever that, whatever is necessary, but it always seems to end up in the winter catalog. And I've always, you know, accused the most, you know, doing the putting my stuff out in January because they don't want to lose anybody important in a plane crash.

OK. Oh, I was to let the sea handle. Yes. Yeah. And pro bono is that that's another stand alone book. Yeah. Yeah. It's not connected to anything else. OK. Now, and it's, you know, it's interesting. And it's it's one of those things that's again, it's different, very different from anything else that I've done. So it's kind of kind of fun to four round west. Can you tell us what the premise of pro bono is or just a teaser about it? Let's see. There is a teenager whose mother is married to a con man. She doesn't know what he figures it out. And just as, you know, having having done that, he kind of triggers the process that was going to happen anyway.

That is that this guy is going to steal all of her money and disappear. Right. But let's say what he learns in this experience will actually make him very good at a future career, which is to be a lawyer that is able to find and prosecute. Situations where where someone is is stealing money from other people. Well, you piqued my interest right at the the the teenagers mother is married to a con man. She doesn't know it, but he's figured it out. I was like, oh, oh, what's going to happen next? Yeah. I'm sure it's going to be fantastic. I am excited to read that one as well. Well, well, thank you.

Thanks. So that'll be one one sale. There we go. Yes. Yes. Single. Same here. Right. Right. I'm just excited for the new book and it's really been a pleasure talking to you. Right. Pleasure. Thank you. OK, everybody until next time, ask questions. Don't accept the status quo and be curious.