Jack Carr Breaks Down SPOILERS for The Fourth Option

[00:00:13] Well Jack, this has been great. We're gonna keep you just a few more minutes. Let's give that spoiler warning. So if you haven't read The Fourth Option, sign off now. Right now, alert, alert, alert. We got a torture scene. Tyler, I know you want to know a little bit more about some of this. Yeah, yeah. So the torture scene towards the end, well, so there's two torture scenes that I have questions about. First is Leanne's. And what made you decide, you know, going in with just the synopsis?

[00:00:42] I kind of figured she would be in it to see some closure. Clearly does not. And it was a good surprise. I was like, oh man, I cannot believe that this is how this is about to play out. You know, I thought he'd make it there in time. So if that was your intent, success for sure. Yes, yes. So that's the first one. And then there's a much more brutal one towards the end that has to do with the telephone and a 1960s style torture. And I was curious, you know, we talked,

[00:01:12] in the past about some of the James Reese books and you somehow getting away with Googling different torture methods and not, you know, having people watch your Google searches. But, you know, how do you research some of your torture methods, I guess, that you're not already previously aware of? You know, obviously you have your vast library.

[00:01:32] So I'm guessing somewhere in there you run into some of those. But I was curious about mainly making the decision to kill off Leanne and her torture scene and making it as brutal as it was. And then with Chris Walker's, the device and the method. Yeah. So there's another one in there, too. There's one between those two and with Walt Kimball and that gets some of his own medicine, I guess is a good way to. Yeah, for sure.

[00:01:59] So, you know, that one, I'll start with that one because that one was I had to have someone of the bad guys go down from their own from their own product type of thing. So that was that was going to be in there. And old Walt was just the right guy to meet his end that way. But for early and yeah, you know, I didn't I didn't describe it in great detail. It's more like the aftermath type of a thing. Yeah. Yeah. It's like Chris gets there too late.

[00:02:25] Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, the thought behind that was I don't know if there was much thought behind that. I guess the son, the son, knowing that the son is dead. OK, we got got that. And now most people are going to think that that Chris Walker is going to come to town and and save the day and all that stuff. And like you said, the wife will get get closure. That's not the case. And I think that was just natural. That was just a natural from the beginning.

[00:02:53] I got to remember if it was in my 40 page PowerPoint or not. But regardless, it wasn't really a point of debate, contention or anything like that. It was just, hey, she's got to die because Chris Walker is going to have to go through a lot of these other guys. And they had to earn it and they earned it through her torture and death. So it's more like that. I do that in the other, you know, the James Reese Terminalist novels as well.

[00:03:19] Like you like you mentioned, those guys, you have to make the reader really want them to meet their end. So when it comes in a gruesome way, it's not gratuitous. It's like that's what you have happen. Yeah, it's what they have coming to them. Exactly. But Dark Wolf subverts that in a sense with Tom Hopper when he's torturing a friendly in the end. Spoiler for that as well. I mean, that was kind of like a typical Jack Hart torture scene, but then totally subverted expectations. So that was fun. Yep, exactly.

[00:03:48] That was to differentiate it also from the Terminalist series and to help develop Rafe's character and lead him towards the decision that he makes in that second to last episode. Yeah, when he realizes that guy's German police, it's like, oh my God, you're one of us. Like, crap. Yeah. Tell me a little bit about the Tucker telephone from the 1960s. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, so there's some analog to this, and I wanted Chris Walker, I wanted him to be an analog guy.

[00:04:18] You probably noticed in the beginning that he's built three levels of essentially foam into his weapons case that's part of his Volkswagen van. And at the beginning, there's the traditional bow is at the top of that thing. And then you go a layer down, and there's like the .30-30 and the shotgun and the 1911. And then you go a level down, and he hasn't touched that in a while. And that's the tools of his former trade. That's the Glock 19 and his AR. And so that's the one he's been hiding. He hasn't touched since he got back from Afghanistan.

[00:04:47] And then he has to move them, and he can take those foam plates, foam out, and he can reorder them. And so he moves that to the top. So he does that fairly early on in the book. And I got excited about the van. Sorry, give me the question again. Oh, it was the Tucker telephone. And you were talking about him being an analog guy. So I wanted that analog side of it. He has the typewriter in the van. He has that old clock in the van. He has the old watch.

[00:05:16] You know, he likes those who get the watch into the spoiler. But so I wanted him to be an analog type of a guy. Also makes him harder to track and that sort of thing. And then I wanted him to share that with Connor, with the son who gets killed. You don't see it. Just, you know, gets a telephone call. But I wanted him to be an analog guy, too. So even though they didn't know each other. But Chris Walker feels responsible for the death of Connor's father in Afghanistan. I wanted him to share that. I wanted him to share something.

[00:05:45] Because Connor wasn't in the military. He wasn't on that path. He wasn't following in his father's footsteps. But he was an analog guy, too. And he wrote down these notes. And so I wanted them to share that trait. And then when you get near the end, then there's that torture scene with the Tucker telephone. And I can't remember if I think I read about it being used in Vietnam. I don't think I read about it actually being used in Afghanistan. I'm not 100% sure on that. I should have taken a note. Sometimes I find, you know, I'll do that research.

[00:06:15] And then I won't be able to find it again. Which is why I probably should be using Scrivener. Where you can pull in websites and pull in into your actual document. So there are all those things that you referenced are right there. And it's all organized. I did that for Savage Son. And then I thought I'd go back to it. And I never used it again just because everything got so crazy. And I'm using the Word document. But so I think, and this is, you know, a little foggy now. But I think I read about it being used in Vietnam.

[00:06:43] And, of course, it comes from the prison system in the, I think it was the 60s, 70s. And this Tucker telephone thing that you kind of crank up. And it puts this electricity through prisoners. And they did that in Vietnam. And they may have done it. And I might have read about someone using it in Afghanistan. But I'm not positive. But for sure, I read about it in Vietnam. And so I just pushed that forward and said in the book, fictionalized version, that they used it in Afghanistan. In this place called the Salt Pit.

[00:07:11] And so one of the guys that is actually part of those units, the zero units working for the CIA that are Afghan, he did that back there. And so he revisits that on Chris Walker in present day, just outside of New Orleans. So that's where that came from. And also they were in an off-the-grid type of a cabin. And I thought, well, okay, this guy built this thing. What years did he build it? Okay. What would they have? Would they have communication back then? Oh, they may not have them be an old telephone.

[00:07:39] And I gave that guy an old typewriter as well. So I had him a little bit older. So it really worked with what was available to that Afghan to use. And there was that touchpoint with both the CIA, Vietnam, and Tucker's telephone being used against prisoners here in the United States. So that's where that came from. Yeah. So up to – I wrote down like some of my favorite like little action set pieces. So the trap house and preparation to go into the trap house.

[00:08:06] I absolutely loved him trying to disguise himself as homeless and jumping into the driver's side of the Cadillac with no door. I don't know why your description of that was easy to visualize. I loved it, especially with him with the mono nod and hitting and getting the IR beam on the guys on the porch. I also loved in this book, you described a couple of simpler bad guys, kind of goons with no name tag as just their descriptors. So there's a guy sitting on a cooler. You reference him as cooler. There's a guy with a flat rim hat. You reference his as flat rim.

[00:08:36] So I really like that as a couple descriptors when you have just a couple of like goons around. I don't recall maybe like someone's physical description really being like their name title in some of your other books. So in here, I don't know. It was just kind of a fun little descriptor. Yeah. I remember – Because in the other books, the James Reese Terminal, usually you know the bad guys. You've gotten to know them, the thing.

[00:08:58] And if they're kind of a nondescript guy and it's part of a group, you don't really need to differentiate them because whenever it's at night, there's three guys behind this tree, whatever it is. Henchman number one, henchman number two. Yeah. I really needed to describe them somewhere without having them giving them a huge backstory. So they got physical descriptors. And it started with the van. Are they getting robbed in the van with those two guys that show up? So I started there and I was like, oh, this works. And then I got to that other section and I just kept doing it.

[00:09:28] And I capitalized not the guy with the flat rim but capital F, capital B flat rim. Would you do that in real life? Would you do that downrange? Would you do it downrange like in real life if you saw a guy like – You call him hairy because he's hairy. Yeah, calling out descriptors. I didn't think about that when I did this book. And everyone just kind of picks up on it and it just becomes the jargon. Gosh. You know, it's kind of triggering a memory but I'm not 100% sure if I'm just conflating it now or not. I don't know.

[00:09:57] A lot of time has passed. It just seems so authentic to something that you would have like been through. Let's go with that. Yeah, let's go with that. Well done. It came out that I didn't even know it was coming out. Yeah. Yeah. I like – Anytime you did it throughout the book, I immediately thought in Austin Powers, whenever Michael Caine goes, look at you. You haven't even got a name tag. And he ends up just like falling down. He's just a goon with no name tag. So it just made me chuckle every time you did it because I immediately thought of that. Not worth a name.

[00:10:26] A couple of other things was the pier. I love the pier scene and that interrogation is pretty solid. And I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about him doing that interrogation with the squad car on the pier and then, you know, being interrupted and him setting off some surprises for those interrupters. Yeah.

[00:10:47] No, it was – so he is pushed into the Mississippi River earlier by another bad guy and he disposes of that guy as well, which I like writing that scene as well and then takes his guns, takes his badge, that sort of a thing, gets rid of the evidence into the Mississippi the same way they were trying to get rid of him. But the guy of a senior level detective that was there and kind of gave the order to do that got out of there.

[00:11:12] And so I was – I didn't really – I did go back and forth in my head about, hey, this is similar to how this other guy in the Mississippi, but I was like, it's such a – that guy was already dead, so it's really just getting rid of evidence. And I'm like, oh, this is a good way to torture somebody. I'm like, I can't not use this pier and put this bad cop in the back of the car, lock him in there like a suspect, and then inch this thing closer to the edge of this pier and have Chris Walker like revving it and then gets a little closer, gets a little closer as the guy's sweating.

[00:11:41] And he's already – up to that point, he's already nervous about this guy, Chris Walker, and who he is and how is he – like he's the guy that's getting nervous and sweating. There's a great line on that page where you put in there his recognition, once he realizes it's Walker, his recognition turns to terror because he realizes what's about to happen. Yeah, he's in conversation with Bates before that, and Bates is more kind of cool collected.

[00:12:08] And then this detective is the one that's just getting – he's nervous. He's like, not feeling right about this. And then sure enough, he goes to do his weekly collection, and Chris Walker is there to ask him a few questions. And then – so it's kind of like what's available, you know? And in this case, there was a pier, there was a car, there was a way to lock somebody in the back of the car because it's usually for a suspect, you know, caged in the back. And so I'm like, hey, I can't not make use of that here. And he had some visitors.

[00:12:38] You know, he had some visitors from this drug cartel, and I got to use some of that EOD knowledge that he has, that Chris Walker has. He's been now to stop by Home Depot and a couple other places. Cabela's. Cabela's, yeah, to build out his arsenal with some dual-use technology. And so I didn't describe what he was building it for up to that point. But now, you know, I mentioned that he's going to prep the battle space ahead of time.

[00:13:07] And then he collects these things off and then finishes everybody off. And for me, it's like, you know, the human body can take, like, you see these things on the news. You see these missiles come in and hitting vehicles and hitting, you know, buildings. And then people crawl out or walk out. And you're like, how on earth did someone survive that? And we saw that in real life down the right street. Like, how is this possible that someone just walked out or crawled out of this building that I just, that just collapsed because we called it an airstrike on it?

[00:13:35] So I have these IEDs go off, boom. Boom. And they're, they're, uh, IED type, uh, you know, claymores that you can make yourself that we made in the SEAL teams actually. So I had those things set up. Boom. So it, you know, peppers the vehicles and all that stuff. But it's not just like the vehicles explode like in Hollywood or something like that. You know, it throws those, those, those nails and, you know, whatever else is in there, ball bearings, you know, whatever, because they're not up armored. And, uh, they, they slide through, they wound people.

[00:14:01] Um, and, uh, sure they can kill you, but you know, there's, if you have a truck full of people, they're probably not going to kill everyone in there. And so that's the case here as well. So he has to go then and finish them off. I think, yeah, I think it's enough that the van wrecks and the truck keeps coming essentially. But yeah, it's like a central like bird, birdshot through there and, uh, into them. Um, I think one of my favorite lines, and this came up, this created my question of how do you keep it cool, but not cliche.

[00:14:27] One of my favorite, like quick lines between our two protagonists is, uh, who are you? And, and, uh, Chris Walker says just a guy with five rounds and a shotgun. Yeah. And, uh, I was like, damn it. How's he fucking make it so cool. And it doesn't come off as like cheesy cliche or corny. I was like, yeah, ridiculous. Yeah. Yeah. And it just, it fit, it, it fit the, uh, it fit the scene so well.

[00:14:49] Um, and I love the decision, um, at the very end to have both protagonists partake in the, uh, the final judgment. So I, I appreciate that. My editor put a smiley face next to that, uh, that line. If I'm, if I'm raised correct, uh, when she went, she goes through it with a red and then sends it back to me, um, mails it back. And I go through, through all her, her, her little notes in there. And I think she put a smiley face next to that one. Yeah. That's a good one for sure. Thank you. Yeah.

[00:15:19] The end piece was good. I wanted them to, yeah, I wanted to bring, you know, uh, Jarrett Stan closer to Walker and then Walker a little bit closer to Jarrett Stan and not have, instead of talking spoilers, I didn't want him to go through and kill everyone. So part of this is at the end, uh, there is a form of justice for, uh, for some of the bad guys. So he doesn't just go like kill everybody on his list. Like James Reese would, uh, James Reese novel. And maybe they're reading this, they might expect that, but I wanted him to get closer.

[00:15:45] I wanted him to be okay with seeing the law and see justice, uh, take its form in the form from, from the federal government, from the FBI going into, uh, arrest a couple of the last bad guys. So I really wanted that, that to be the thing that Chris Walker is okay with, um, and to see that happen. And then, uh, for Jarrett Stanton to have his family threatened very directly, uh, at the end and then him knowing that, okay, this is, this is my responsibility now.

[00:16:13] And this is, uh, sometimes, uh, uh, you have to uphold justice doesn't, you know, that is not, uh, you have to bring the law and together in that bonds and together as well. That was, uh, and to not killing everybody off is to have it, uh, to differentiate it from James Reese. And this is really an exploration of that justice and to bring those two characters from very different backgrounds together. Cause Jarrett Stanton family, man, college, uh, law school, FBI never pulled his gun and

[00:16:41] killed somebody in the line of duty data-driven guy, uh, building his cases, that sort of a thing and, uh, doing all the right things to make that next rank. And then essentially Chris Walker doing all the opposite, uh, things and have them together at the end. All right. Well, I think you covered most of my quick, quick questions for it. Ask now to go ahead. I thought you were going to ask me if, uh, if I ever thought about, uh, killing the dog off. No, I have a feeling that never crossed your mind.

[00:17:11] It did cross my mind. Wow. Yeah. Cause I thought people would think, Oh, he's never going to kill this dog off. Uh, so in the outline first dog survives and I was sleeping on it. I was sleeping on it. And then dog died for a moment. Uh, and, and then I actually, uh, read the part of that and people would send me that. And I was like, Nope. Paladin's living. And there was no way.

[00:17:39] Like it was only like a momentary lapse of judgment, more of like an exploration. Um, because, cause I did need a way to get, and it wasn't that I wanted the shock value of it. Um, didn't work. It was a part of the bad guys needing to earn it. No, it was more that I needed to remove that dog as a weapon from the story. So I couldn't want that dog to be the paladin. I need, I'm, I'm about to get shot. I knew, ah, the dog jumps out. Like, I didn't want that to be the whole story. Kind of like Alice. Yeah. Yeah. All this stuff.

[00:18:09] Um, and I introduced her in the blood and then I have to remove her for, uh, for a lot, most of only the dead type of thing was just a mention here or there. And then I have to bring her back cause she's now in the universe, but I didn't want next book after she's introduced to rely on that and have James Reese just be like, I need my facial recognition technology changed. Like I can walk through this thing. I didn't want to rely on it, um, as a tool. So I didn't want that to happen with the dog. So I had to think how, how do I remove the dog from this?

[00:18:35] And I thought, okay, the dog will be pretty beat up after what happens, uh, after the van gets pushed into the river. And, uh, that's a more natural and it felt better to, to do that, to remove the dog that way, like going to the vet, resting up, um, with, uh, with Belle and her grandmother, um, rather than, than killing the dog off. And so, um, so, and that was the right, for sure that felt, felt right. But I did consider it for a second, but it didn't feel, didn't feel right. Didn't read right. Um, and so, uh, so Paladin survives. Yes.

[00:19:05] Paladin survives. I thought for sure you never, yeah, I thought for sure you never, you never thought about it, but the fact that you did is super interesting, but I, okay. I thought of one, one more, um, the Volkswagen van is very closely described to this one that I follow on Instagram. It's a 1988 guy. I think in Germany, he has one, it has a wedge rooftop camper. He also has a dog. It's all black though. It's not blue. Um, it's similar generation, super, super cool little, little Instagram page.

[00:19:33] So I thought for sure, maybe you picked it up from, from there, but why, why in the name of all that is holy is the replacement vehicle and AMC Eagle? Can I please ask? I just love AMC Eagle when I was a kid. I remember when I was wondering why I like it. I liked the choice because nobody else would think of it. And I liked it. It's four wheel drive and it's a dog. Yeah. I was just curious why, what made you choose that? Yeah. I've never seen it in a television show or a movie or a, uh, or a book.

[00:20:01] Never read about it in a thriller before. But, uh, as a kid, I remember when those things came out and I was always like, oh man, look at that. There's a big tires on that station wagon. It says, you know, drive or whatever, you know, AMC Eagle. I'm a fan. That is so cool. It's like lifted, you know, from the factory. Yeah. They were lifted from the factory. They're awesome. So, uh, so yeah, this was a good time to do that. Cause I couldn't repeat anything from the terminal list. So, uh, but I still wanted, you know, the care just as a child of the eighties, you know, as we talked about before, like the Wicked Drive, you know, tells you something about,

[00:20:30] uh, about someone. And especially in these books, it's an opportunity to tell you a little bit about Chris Walker. And then, uh, the AMC tells a little bit about her, her grandmother, her generation, that sort of a thing. And then why they're, why they're using it. So, um, so yeah, the AMC Eagle makes an appearance, bringing them back, bringing them back. I'm like gear nerd in a car, especially a car nerd. I'm like a walking encyclopedia of useless knowledge, but I was curious, are there any runner were, were there any runner ups to either the van as the home base or the AMC Eagle,

[00:20:58] or were those just like dead set kind of similar to the, to the land cruiser? Yeah. Those were dead set. Yeah. All right. Good to know. Yeah. It was very, uh, very clear from the outset. Uh, the only thing that is, uh, is like, Hey, it can't be a land cruiser and can't be a Wagoneer. Uh, so, uh, so then what, what is, what's, what's, who is Chris Walker? What would he drive? Uh, it's that, that's one of the question. Yeah. I do enjoy, even though once we're in new Orleans, we stay there. I love that. And I love the contained story.

[00:21:26] I think the less is more like the less at risk, the more grounded it feels. And I think the less is more works really well. But one scene I do enjoy is the, uh, trek across America in the, in the van is awesome. Yeah. Had to have the estranged when comes to town. He had to come to town from somewhere. So I wanted him to see, and I wanted the reader to get to know Chris Walker because now he's, he's being introduced for the first time, but yet introduced to him, differentiate him from James Reese. And the opportunity to do that is this drive across country where he's introspective and

[00:21:54] he's thinking, uh, you learn a lot about him by what he does in the morning, um, and where he sleeps and where he stops and what he thinks about on this drive. And you learn a little bit about his education and, uh, uh, plays his guitar. So it plays the guitar, but not for anybody, anybody else except for Paladin. Uh, well, so yeah, so there was a, so I thought that was an opportunity for the, for the reader to get to know him. And then he gets to new Orleans and bam, things kick off. Mike, I'm sorry. Yeah. Yeah. I'm sorry.

[00:22:22] I dominated the spoiler section. Do you have any, any questions before we wrap up? No, no, no. What a good conversation. I mean, I was going to say the tagline of this book is justice is coming. You finish it. Justice has come. And now from this interview, we know justice will continue. So Jack, thanks for joining us. And, uh, it's just fantastic to see branching out into this another hit, another great success and, and good luck on the tour. And with all these future projects you've outlined with us. Thank you. Thank you. Really appreciate it. Always love talking to you.

[00:22:52] And, uh, yeah, I always love talking books, reading process, all the rest of it. So, um, yeah, looking forward to our next conversation already. Sounds good.