September 18, 2023 • 29 mins
Ever wondered about the enigma surrounding Rudolph Diesel, the genius behind the diesel engine? Could his mysterious disappearance in 1913 from an overnight passenger ferry from Belgium to England been a suicide or a well-orchestrated murder? Prepare to be gripped as our guest, Douglas Brunt, takes us through the riveting journey of Diesel's life, his revolutionary invention, and the shadowy circumstances surrounding his death.
Make sure to check out Jason on IG @drjasonpiccolo
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
Hey, one thing we do is we always hit that record
button.
Welcome to the ProtectorsPodcast.
Excellent guest today and anexcellent co-host.
First I have to give Emma Adairthe kudos for coming back on a
show.
Every time we have the New YorkTimes bestselling authors on,
or just high class authors, justreally all the authors, because
all the authors are great We'vehad on Emma welcome, and then
(00:37):
Doug Brun.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
Doug welcome to the show, Thanks so much for having
me.
This is great.
I love having authors on, Ilove talking about it,
especially now that I'm jumpinginto the real rating world.
Listen, I love nonfiction, Ilove fiction.
I love everything.
I love coming up with the ideasand speaking to people who have
done it and have multiplereally mainstream books out
(00:59):
there.
It's kind of exciting.
Speaker 3 (01:02):
I loved.
As you know, we were justtalking about it offline, I have
a show talking to authors too.
Every conversation is different, it's dynamic.
It's so interesting to hear howthey come up with their ideas,
how they execute on it.
It's really really fun stuff.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
Yeah, dedicated with Doug Brun.
It's now on my playlist.
And another thing Listen,there's a lot of original
thoughts out there, but yours ispretty cool.
It's like you have a drink.
You have a drink for eachauthor and you're like, okay,
this is the drink they have.
Everybody kind of has a uniquespin on conversations and
interviews.
So I'm really excited to checkout your podcast because, hey,
(01:39):
you know what I like to learnfrom other people.
That's the same thing when wetalk to authors.
All of us like to learn fromother people, from their
experiences and their techniques.
Speaker 3 (01:47):
True, and I have to say the starting off the show
with the guest favorite drink ishelpful.
It's a nice lubricant.
We had Jack Carr on and he was.
We were just drinking bourbonon the rocks and by the end of
the show we were.
You know, we'd gone back forseconds and thirds, so we were
getting into it by the end ofthe show.
Speaker 1 (02:05):
I can only imagine.
You know, I stopped drinking onthe show a long time ago
because of that.
I'm like whoa, I don't knowwhat I'm going to say.
There's going to be like somestate secrets flowing out of
here, especially with Aiman.
We both be like oh you know,there's this top secret.
I'm just kidding.
Speaker 3 (02:18):
We'll have to have to redact those episodes a little
bit.
Speaker 1 (02:21):
Exactly, doug.
We're here to talk about a lotof things, and one of them is
your new book, the MysteriousCase of Rudolph Diesel.
And right before we hit therecord button, you're like oh,
you know, there's a lot ofespionage and mystery about it.
What is the premise?
I like it coming from theinvestigative realm of, like,
you know these books, but what'sthe premise of the book?
Speaker 3 (02:42):
Well, I'll take it to the very beginning.
In September 29, 1913, rudolphDiesel is traveling from Belgium
to England on an overnightpassenger ferry across the North
Sea.
And at this time, unlike today,his name has really been erased
from history and as you findout the reasons why in the book,
deliberately erased.
But at the time, in 1913, justbefore World War I, he's an
(03:03):
international celebrity.
The diesel engine which heinvented often misspelled with a
lowercase did because nobodyknows there was a Rudolph diesel
was taking over as the dominantpower source for inland use.
For rail they used to use steamengines, shoveling wood or coal
into this furnace to boil water, to drive a steam engine to
drive a train crazy, rudimentarytechnology.
(03:24):
But it also had taken over asthe only option for the
submarine.
Kerosene and gasoline enginesdid not work for the submarine.
So there would be no U-boat orsubmarine warfare in World War I
, but for diesel for World WarII.
So he's traveling across theNorth Sea and he disappears in
the middle of the night.
They get up in the morning.
He's supposed to have breakfastwith his traveling companions
at 6 am on the overnightpassenger ferry and he's gone.
(03:47):
They stopped the ship at sea.
They search it.
All they can find is his hatand his coat folded at the stern
of the ship by the rail on thepromenade deck, and he's gone.
So then this mystery explodes.
It's the front page headline ofnewspapers from the United
States all through WesternEurope to Russia about what
happened to diesel, and theprevailing theories at the time
(04:09):
are maybe suicide.
It seemed to mark where hemight have jumped off the ship.
But there are also two murdersuspects identified.
One is Kaiser Wilhelm II, theEmperor of Germany, and the
other is John Rockefeller, thefounder of Standard Oil and at
that time the richest man in theworld.
And the reason people arespeculating Kaiser Wilhelm may
have done it or sent agents todo it, of course is what I
(04:31):
already identified.
The submarine was anincreasingly important weapon at
that time and there was anAnglo-German naval arms race
happening, which was one of themain reasons we got into World
War I to begin with, thiscompetition between the two, and
everybody was scrambling fordiesel expertise and Rudolph
Diesel, because the engine wasstill so young he had just
(04:52):
released it in 1897 and wasstill getting figured out,
especially for the exactingrequirements of undersea use.
He was still the man.
You still needed, rudolph, tokind of get your submarine
program going.
And then the armies and thenavies of every major power were
looking for his help.
The other reason was diesel.
Imagined that the engine wouldnever run on petroleum.
(05:13):
That Rockefeller was pullingout of the ground.
His idea was that it could runon vegetable or nut oil and he
won the 1900 Paris World's Fairwith a diesel engine running on
peanut oil.
So he was saying I can breakthe fuel monopolies.
We don't need to live like this.
We can either make coal tarfrom coal or we can just grow
our own fuel.
So his idea was that everynation in the world could
(05:36):
produce its own fuel throughfarmers.
And of course this was not goodfor Rockefeller.
So there was speculation thatthe big oil trusts had sent
maybe a quote unquote Pinkertondetective over there to knock
him off.
So that sets up the mystery andI follow events, you know I
really sort of bring you up tospeed, up to 1913, about how
(05:56):
diesel managed the invention andwhat Wilhelm and Rockefeller
were doing in that time and whythe diesel engine became the
center of the focus of hisperiod of time.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
You know, investigating something like
this is, it's got to beinteresting because, like when
you said about what the world'sperception of World War One and
World War Two and like thatwhole era is really based at the
macro level, unless you look atit like you know, you really
dig deep into history, you'rereally not going to know what's
going on.
So when you brought up thediesel thing, I'm like I didn't
(06:30):
know.
There's a guy named Rudolphdiesel that made the diesel
engine.
I'm like you know, because it'sto me, it's like it's almost
like ancient history.
It's almost like diesel Cool, Iknow about it, big trucks etc.
But when you start bringing upall the other intricacies of it,
yeah, you can run on a peanutoil, you can do this, you can do
that.
Speaker 3 (06:49):
And it does pull into mystery in 2007.
Willie Nelson ran his tour busaround America on recycled
kitchen grease, basicallyvegetable.
Speaker 2 (06:58):
I remember that.
Speaker 3 (06:59):
We don't need to be running around fighting wars
over fuel.
We can grow our own fuel, whichwas always the vision of diesel
, going back more than 120 years.
Speaker 1 (07:07):
And then you think about an assassination
assassination and you're like,ah, okay, this makes sense.
And if you had no suicidalideations before, it's like
that's kind of interesting.
So when you're putting thisbook together and it's a, it's
an in depth book.
You know, I'm just going by theamount of pages are in this
book right now because I amgoing to read this.
You know, I get a ton of booksbut I'm actually going to read
this because of that, theinvestigative aspect of it.
(07:31):
How do you dive into this?
Speaker 3 (07:33):
And I had, you know, I had a lot of folks like you
two who were former CIA, formerFBI, as well as police
detectives, examine my evidencein my case that I put forward.
And so I was in archives aroundEurope and America delving
through old documents from thattime period, even doing, you
know, those old microfichenewspaper searches with
headlines, because now thatstuff is pretty strong.
(07:53):
Well, that stuff is prettysearchable.
So there was a crazy three weekperiod post the night of his
disappearance where everyreporter was on the beat, so it
was every every British,american, german, french
newspaper was following this.
And then, you know, as youdiscover in the book, it sort of
halted and then World War Onecame and just wiped everything
(08:15):
else off the front page.
But back in 1917 or 1920, itwould be very hard to go back
and investigate these.
It would be very hard to findall these newspaper articles
that had so many conflictingdetails.
But there was, there werepieces of hard evidence in there
.
Much of that now has beenscanned and because you can do a
keyword search or search aroundthis period, you can actually
(08:36):
you know from your chair is alibrary level research go find
all this stuff that's innewspaper archives that you can
access online now and theinvestigation and more and more
gets scanned and uploaded intoonline databases every day.
So the investigation is mucheasier now than it was even 20
years ago to pull that piece ofit together.
(08:57):
But I was on the groundthroughout Europe for a few
years pulling all this togetherand former UK special forces
folks looked at it who are inthe intelligence community and
and agree 100% with theconclusion of the book, because
every other theory but the one Iput forward has massive gaping
holes in it.
Even at the time in October1913, you could look at this and
(09:20):
say, clearly, it's not theseother things which is what got
me started on it.
I had a theory of the case andI was able to put it together.
All of that is just no, that'sit.
Speaker 2 (09:31):
It's fascinating to me.
So the level of detail, justyou even talking about having
the close folded when he wentmissing, it paints a picture and
it just draws you into thatstory.
But then the level of detailyou get into, because you said
there were conflicting bits ofdetail how did you route through
that and how did you decidewhat to use to create your
(09:51):
narrative and to come up withyour theory?
Speaker 3 (09:54):
Well, in order to tell the book.
It was a very complicated bookto organize because it is part
biography, it's part manybiographies of the suspects.
It's a true crime who done it?
It's a primer on Europeandiplomacy of turn of the century
that got us into this World WarI mess anyway which was the
motive for many of the playersinvolved, and it's sort of like
(10:15):
a combustion engines for dummiestoo, Like you got to understand
how the diesel engine works alittle bit and why it matters
and why the sources of fuelmattered and things like that.
There were certain facts youcould count on from archives and
primary research that had beendocumented.
And then it's sort oftriangulating in on the events
(10:36):
you could take to the bank basedon different sources of
information, and I actually wasable to get into archives that
had much of diesel's ownwritings, his letters, his
diaries, all in German, much ofit held either in the Deutsches
Museum in Germany or in the MannMuseum, mann being
(10:57):
Maschinen-Fabrik Augsburg,nuremberg, which was his partner
company back in the 1890s todevelop the engine, which still
exists today and is still one ofthe main diesel manufacturers
today, and they have a wholemuseum with much of his stuff.
And so I actually contacted myold high school, a buddy who's
working in the Englishdepartment there.
He put me in touch with the guywho runs the German language
(11:18):
department and he translated allthese reams of material that
were just gold.
I mean, it's like the geeky sideof Indiana Jones, you know, the
bookish one.
But when you find somethingthat if someone else came across
it it would be, oh well, that'skind of cool but meaningless to
me.
But in the context of thisstory you'll be like wait,
winston Churchill said what Daysafter diesel said this and
(11:40):
certain things.
It's just, you find it in thecontext of what you're putting
together as an investigator.
It's gold.
So those were really funmoments in the period of years
of doing the research.
Speaker 1 (11:52):
Well, you brought up a great word, one of my favorite
ones investigation.
Now, what is your background?
I mean to put this togetherlike to me, like if I'm gonna
run a case or a back one, that Iused to actually work and do
cases but I would do like a kindof like a timeline.
Okay, this is when thishappened.
This happened, this happenedand this is kind of where I
wanna go with the case.
What's your background?
Where you learn how to do Kindof you're basically an
(12:13):
investigator.
You're almost like ainvestigator reporting on
history.
Speaker 3 (12:16):
Well, I'm not naturally or maybe I'm naturally
an investigator, but I'm notprofessionally an investigator
and have not been prior to this.
But I am professionally awriter and have always done tons
of research for my fiction.
So this is my first nonfictionbook for listeners.
It's a narrative nonfiction inthe style of like an Eric Larson
or a David Gran.
My fiction has always beendeeply researched though, with
(12:39):
lots of interviews, primarysources as well as some
secondary research, and so I'vealways loved that piece.
I think it helps my fictionwhen I'm telling a story, and if
I've deeply researched it, Ican bring it to the page with
more force and credibility, andI've always loved the research
piece of it and the way thisbook got started.
(12:59):
I bought a boat years ago, sevenyears ago, and it was a bigger
boat but it had these twogasoline engines in it.
And I was talking to the guyyou know what?
I'm gonna fix the boat up.
It was old and needed some work.
And the guy said well, you know, the first thing you should do
is repower this boat with dieselengines.
And I, seven years ago, waslike most people are today why
(13:20):
diesel?
Why is that different from gas?
I don't understand.
I thought it was just acombustion engine.
What's the difference and hegoes through this list of
reasons which is, you know, on a200 gallon tank you'll get two,
three times the range.
Diesel is much more efficient.
100% of boat fires come fromgasoline engines.
Zero from diesel.
It's not flammable, the fuelunder normal conditions and
(13:40):
there are no fumes.
Gasoline is very fume-y fuel,diesel is not.
There are no fumes.
So I was like, well, this allsounds great.
So I repowered the boat withdiesel and then, a few years
later, was going through ideasfor a new novel.
I was kind of in between booksNow, just tinkering around
online looking at cool things.
Hopefully, you know, somethingmight stick or inspire me to do
(14:01):
something.
And I came across this list ofmysterious disappearances at sea
and on the list was RudolphDiesel 1913, this story I
mentioned to you to open thebook and I was like even now I
was like, oh, I wonder if thisis connected to my diesel
engines.
You know, like still notknowing and of course took a
deep dive and then didn't comeout of the rabbit hole for five
years until the book was done,but had an early theory of what
(14:25):
might have been.
It's almost like you know, whenyou look at those paintings
that are all dots and then like,if you stare at it for long
enough, it turns into like amermaid or whatever is in there.
It was like that I just hadread about this, just being
curious and fascinated by it,and then suddenly, like the dots
showed up, I'm like this mustbe what happened.
Nothing else makes sense.
And the more I got into it andfound little pieces of
(14:47):
information, everythingsupported that.
And, as you guys know, likemurder, cases are almost always
solved on circumstantialevidence.
You know it's rare to say tohave some eyewitness that said I
saw the knife go in.
Here's how it happened.
And, by the way, eyewitnesstestimony is Some of the least
reliable stuff out there.
(15:08):
It's generally thecircumstantial stuff that does
it.
So it's a circumstantial casewhen it's rock solid.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
Just say I love that you use multiple sources.
Through this I, like, Icompletely understand where
you're coming from when you kindof you get the thread of
something fascinating and youjust can't let go of it and you
just keep pulling and pulling,and pulling.
But the fact that you didn'tJust take the surface level and
went a little bit deeper isoutstanding, because you're
absolutely right, diesel is aterm that we throw out every
(15:37):
single day, but no one everthinks about where it came from
or what the history of that was.
Until I read the title of yourbook Zero clue of who invented
the diesel engine and why thatwas, you know, important or what
it could have been.
Speaker 3 (15:51):
Yeah, yeah.
And if you think about itsprevalence even today, like,
imagine a pineapple grown insome tropical region, all the
heavy farm equipment used to toGrow the pineapple is on diesel
and then gets loaded on a truckto go down to port Anything
larger than a passenger car isdiesel.
(16:12):
A crane puts it on the ship,the crane is diesel, the ship,
the 100% of cargo ships thattake things around the world.
Diesel goes across the ocean,goes into port, unloaded on a
truck onto a train all trainsare diesel and then it goes to
some refrigeration plant.
You know many of the Powerplants of power for duration,
electricity are diesel andnothing is happening, even today
(16:33):
, without diesel.
There's some stat of you knowglobal, it's like kilo Ton miles
or something like that that theamount of goods that are
shipped over a number of milesper year or something, and you
know many trillions, and 99.9%of it gets there by diesel.
A very small fraction is thesteep, the turbine engines of
(16:54):
jets, but diesel powers theglobal economy.
There's, the global economywould not exist, as it says,
without, without diesel, andthat's that's present day.
And the fundamental Technologyof the engine.
Engine is the same as whatRudolph put out in 1897.
Speaker 1 (17:09):
Enhancements of course, but it's basically the
same now backtrack and you thinkabout the automobile and then
you think, okay, why not get ridof someone?
Is going to knock out really atrillion dollar, eventually
going to be a trillion trillionsa dollar business.
So this guy was like kind oflike hey, you know what, if we
don't, it's almost like gettingrid of Elon Musk.
You never know what he's gonnado next.
Back then it was like where'sdiesel gonna go next?
(17:31):
Some must have been like youknow what, when you're, when you
start messing with people'spocketbooks, yeah, you know and
if you go back to 1913, it wasnot at all settled what the fuel
was gonna be.
Speaker 3 (17:42):
In 1905 New York City had a huge taxi cab fleet I
several thousand cars, allelectric.
There was a charging stationfor electric cars for New York
taxi fleet on Broadway in TimesSquare.
And then they had trouble.
You know, edison was trying tofigure out the battery for the
electric car.
Ford even made an attempt, inPartnership with Edison, to
build an electric car.
(18:03):
The battery technology was wasa little difficult so that
didn't come through.
But having an electric car orengines running on vegetable or
or peanut oil Were very much inplay and standard oil was really
on the ropes.
Because all that money,standard oil.
You know, in 1900 and 1905Rockefeller's the richest man in
the world.
All the money he'd made was onkerosene.
(18:24):
They were, they were in theillumination business and Then
the electric light bulb camealong and wiped that away and he
was scrambling.
He needed the combustion engineand the automobile to take off
in order to survive into the20th century.
So they were.
It was a very shaky time forRockefeller and standard oil and
it was not at all settled thatpetroleum was going to be the
(18:46):
way forward.
So he was.
He was a bit like a corneredanimal when the Edison light
bulb came along.
Speaker 1 (18:54):
When you bring up you know this whole story and doing
your research about it andknowing about it and looking at
the old newspaper clippings andmicrophesies and everything, it
kind of makes you wonder likeit's really a call for real
investigative journalism Because, like in our future, you know,
in the future of my kids futureand yours and everything, what
(19:15):
are they gonna research back andis they're gonna be like really
solid Investigative reportinggoing out there?
So it's like critical that ifsomething does happen, that
there's good records and notjust you know you need people
who have that critical eye, whocan dig up information and Hint
then also have solid andreliable information.
Speaker 3 (19:33):
Yeah, it's true this is slightly off topic, but I
think the decline of local newsis scary in that regard, because
they were our consumer watchdogthings.
You'd see John Stossel orArnold Diaz out there doing
those consumer watchdog-ysegments and that was the
purview of local news in someways.
Now the internet opens up newways for that sort of thing to
(19:54):
happen, but to your point, itneeds to happen.
Speaker 1 (19:59):
You've got to collect that information, right.
Speaker 2 (20:01):
Well, not just that but the timing that you have of
this.
It kind of lends itself to thecharacter.
But there's some comparisons tothis book about it being a
little bit Sherlock Holmes-like,with that kind of investigative
and the deductive reasoning andobservational discovery.
That's a hell of a comparison.
Speaker 3 (20:21):
I love that review.
Equal parts Walter Isaacson andSherlock Holmes.
That's exactly what I'm hopingfor.
I'm hoping that the reader willtake away.
Speaker 2 (20:34):
I would be framing that one if that were me.
Speaker 3 (20:37):
The other piece of it , along with that, is the era.
It's this late gilded age Irefer to it sometimes as Downton
Abbey, the early seasons priorto World War I and the cast of
characters in the book really isphenomenal.
You get to the point whereyou're reading it you start
forgetting that you're readingnonfiction.
The way the licensing schemeswould work back then is someone
(21:02):
would acquire the exclusiverights to market and manufacture
the diesel engine for anational territory In North
America.
It was Adolphus Bush, thefounder of Anheuser Bush.
He acquired the diesel engineinitially to provide the power
to pump water in his breweriesand energy for refrigeration.
He also developed a sidebusiness that was developing
(21:23):
diesel engines for the US Navyfor their submarine fleet In
Russia.
It was the Nobel family.
It is the same Nobel family asAlfred Nobel.
This is another fascinatingstory that you can.
This is like another five-yearrabbit hole to go down.
The Nobel family founded theRussian oil business at the turn
of the century.
Alfred Nobel was slightlyinvolved, but it was the two
(21:44):
older brothers who developedRussian oil and also had a
munitions manufacturing business.
They took the exclusive licensefor diesel in Russia and built
diesels for the Russian Navy.
The cast of characters is justso far and wide.
Churchill plays a big role, ofcourse.
Kaiser Wilhelm and his grandadmiral Terpitz plays an
(22:04):
enormous role.
Rockefeller, as we've discussed.
Edison, diesel and Edison havethis phenomenal meeting when
diesel comes to America in 1912.
His notes from his diary arejust hilarious about it.
In some ways, in a way theyclashed more than got along.
His observations about Edisonand also of America at that time
(22:27):
are fascinating because hecomes over with this very
scientific engineering point ofview.
He was also a humanitarian typeand slightly a poetic guy.
I think in that era inparticular, engineers felt a
dual role to be both a scientistand a social theorist.
He has really, reallyfascinating observations about a
(22:48):
turn of the century in Americafrom a European's take on things
.
Speaker 1 (22:57):
Talk about a cast of characters.
History is starting to comeback and you have Oppenheimer.
It just came out, oppenheimer.
Now you have this who, who, who.
It's like a real cast ofcharacters.
It's a real everything.
It's almost like the who doneit of who back then.
We're all about the same ages Alittle bit.
Amy is a little younger, I'm alittle younger, older, I don't
know.
Anyway, those names, I don'tthink they've ever been accused
(23:19):
of being the younger.
When you bring up theRockefellers and everybody, a
lot of people don't realize howvery important they were back
then and how significant theywere.
This is really cool, man.
Speaker 3 (23:31):
Yeah, Something like Rockefeller had the power to
shape wars, influence wars,start and stop wars.
It was incredible.
If you look at their net worth,just doing the inflation
calculation doesn't quitecapture it.
If you compare it to the moneysupply, there are other metrics
a little bit more accurate tocapture his financial influence
(23:53):
at the time.
If you just do it by inflation,then Musk is wealthier per his
time.
But if you do the more accuratemeasures as a percentage of
money applies, a percentage ofGDP, Rockefeller is a multiple
of Elon Musk's wealth today.
It's extraordinary the power heand a handful of others had at
that time.
Speaker 2 (24:14):
We often talk about setting being a key factor in
stories, and you couldn't havepicked a better one.
I mean, there is that bit of aromanticism around it, but that
era, you're right, it's like acrossroads of world history and
that in itself is going to drawpeople to the book.
You add in actual history and alittle bit of true crime, and
this has to be like catnip formultiple genres, just to come
(24:37):
and latch on to this.
Speaker 3 (24:39):
It was certainly catnip for me.
It kept me fascinated for fiveyears and I kind of miss working
on it.
You know, diesel's like myimaginary friend.
I tell my family I'm going togo hang out with Rudolph for a
little while.
But you're right about the erathat, and Dalton Abbey does
capture that sort of hinge ofhistory of what World War I
meant to the world.
Because prior to World War I,all of Europe, really lived in a
(25:02):
different way, more feudal, notbetter or worse, you might say.
It's slightly more romantic allthese sort of courts of Europe,
the monarchies of Europe.
But think about the number ofempires and monarchs that went
away before and after that war.
The Russian Empire goes andwe've got the Bolsheviks.
The German Empire goes, theAustria-Hungary Empire goes, the
Ottoman Empire goes.
(25:22):
All of these things turn intothen Turkey with a prime
minister, and Germany with theWeimar Republic and Austria, you
know, split into a number ofthings.
So Europe lives in a totallydifferent way and that trickled
down in a way to how ordinarycitizens lived as well.
Speaker 1 (25:41):
I'm ready to read it.
Speaker 2 (25:45):
The one thing that we're going to have to see when
we read this book, and I'm sureeverybody's just dying to get
into it.
You know, thriller authors inparticular are accused of being
too hard to hide plot pointsfrom, and so I'll be really
interested if you know I canpick up your breadcrumbs before
you actually give me the whodone it.
Speaker 3 (26:05):
I think you will be astonished, Even with your the
investigative talents you twohave.
You might have an inclinationas you get close to it, but I
think even the thriller writerswho have read it, like Brad Thor
and Lee Child and others, werereally astonished with how it
wraps up, but then also entirelypersuaded that there was no
(26:25):
other way.
Speaker 2 (26:28):
That's a major accolade right there, if you got
Brad Thor and Lee.
Child to read that and be likeokay, yeah, no, no, this is,
this is good Then.
Bravo sir.
Speaker 3 (26:39):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (26:40):
Well, doug, I appreciate you coming on and
talking about the book.
Everybody in the book is themysterious case of Rudolph
Diesel.
I should put my author in.
Like you know, the mysteriouscase of Rudolph Diesel on it.
Speaker 3 (26:49):
Oh, that was good.
Speaker 1 (26:50):
I know I might have to, you know, read these books
sometime, like actually on air19 September.
Speaker 2 (26:56):
That's the release date.
Speaker 3 (26:57):
September 19, pub days, yeah.
Speaker 2 (26:59):
All right, september 19.
Speaker 1 (27:01):
I will have you know what we're going to.
I'm going to read it.
I might have to send this oneout to AIMA, but I love.
My goal now is to read thebooks after I do the interview
and then do like a real review.
You know, because so manyauthors out there they do.
They write the books, peopleread them but they don't get
like.
You need to review the booksyou know, tell people what you
(27:22):
know, what you like about it.
Speaker 3 (27:24):
Yeah Well, round back with me.
I'm dying to know what youthink.
Speaker 1 (27:27):
Oh, I will believe me .
And, doug, I appreciate youcoming on the show.
I want to have you back onbecause there was a couple of
things I wanted to get to todaybut kind of press for time, like
to keep it around 30 minutes orso.
But one thing I do want to talkto you next time you come on if
you can come on again is yourwriting technique.
I want to know how you wentfrom the fiction to the
nonfiction world and kind ofyour research process.
Everybody's so different inlike the how you, how you spend
(27:50):
time with like Rudolph Diesel toget these books on there.
Speaker 3 (27:54):
Yeah Well, the research piece was the bridge
between the fiction andnonfiction, and just the love of
telling a good story, and Ithink in this case, with these,
I just stumbled across thegreatest story of the 20th
century and I hope I've donejustice to it.
But the research was also a,you know, a labor of passion,
whatever you call that.
I loved every minute of it.
Speaker 2 (28:17):
Well, you went from, you know, talking Wall Street to
political campaigns, to tennis,of course, about pushing your
kids, and now this I mean everystory you have is compelling in
its own right.
So bravo for your choices.
To be able to do that innonfiction, that in itself I
can't applaud that enough.
(28:37):
To get anybody to get excitedabout a nonfiction book, it can
be a little difficult.
Speaker 3 (28:43):
Oh, thanks.
One of the writers I admiremost, who we lost too early, is
Michael Crichton, and one of thereasons I admired him so much
is his range of work.
He did everything from JurassicPark and he's always been the
zeitgeist.
You know, he did Jurassic Parkwhen chaos theory was being
discussed and he did Rising Sunwhen Japanese business taking
over, the need of beingdiscussed and disclosure was
(29:04):
sort of early in the workplaceharassment thing, and so he just
took on so many differenttopics and he's a star on the TV
side, so he just did differentstuff, did it all really well,
and so I've always admired that,and my approach has been
similar in the sense that I wantto take on things that I think
have relevance today, that arealso fascinating and draw me in.
Speaker 2 (29:28):
I will be eagerly following your career, sir.
Thank you so much.
Speaker 3 (29:31):
Thank you, thank you.
Hey, one thing we do is we always hit that record
button.
Welcome to the ProtectorsPodcast.
Excellent guest today and anexcellent co-host.
First I have to give Emma Adairthe kudos for coming back on a
show.
Every time we have the New YorkTimes bestselling authors on,
or just high class authors, justreally all the authors, because
all the authors are great We'vehad on Emma welcome, and then
(00:37):
Doug Brun.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
Doug welcome to the show, Thanks so much for having
me.
This is great.
I love having authors on, Ilove talking about it,
especially now that I'm jumpinginto the real rating world.
Listen, I love nonfiction, Ilove fiction.
I love everything.
I love coming up with the ideasand speaking to people who have
done it and have multiplereally mainstream books out
(00:59):
there.
It's kind of exciting.
Speaker 3 (01:02):
I loved.
As you know, we were justtalking about it offline, I have
a show talking to authors too.
Every conversation is different, it's dynamic.
It's so interesting to hear howthey come up with their ideas,
how they execute on it.
It's really really fun stuff.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
Yeah, dedicated with Doug Brun.
It's now on my playlist.
And another thing Listen,there's a lot of original
thoughts out there, but yours ispretty cool.
It's like you have a drink.
You have a drink for eachauthor and you're like, okay,
this is the drink they have.
Everybody kind of has a uniquespin on conversations and
interviews.
So I'm really excited to checkout your podcast because, hey,
(01:39):
you know what I like to learnfrom other people.
That's the same thing when wetalk to authors.
All of us like to learn fromother people, from their
experiences and their techniques.
Speaker 3 (01:47):
True, and I have to say the starting off the show
with the guest favorite drink ishelpful.
It's a nice lubricant.
We had Jack Carr on and he was.
We were just drinking bourbonon the rocks and by the end of
the show we were.
You know, we'd gone back forseconds and thirds, so we were
getting into it by the end ofthe show.
Speaker 1 (02:05):
I can only imagine.
You know, I stopped drinking onthe show a long time ago
because of that.
I'm like whoa, I don't knowwhat I'm going to say.
There's going to be like somestate secrets flowing out of
here, especially with Aiman.
We both be like oh you know,there's this top secret.
I'm just kidding.
Speaker 3 (02:18):
We'll have to have to redact those episodes a little
bit.
Speaker 1 (02:21):
Exactly, doug.
We're here to talk about a lotof things, and one of them is
your new book, the MysteriousCase of Rudolph Diesel.
And right before we hit therecord button, you're like oh,
you know, there's a lot ofespionage and mystery about it.
What is the premise?
I like it coming from theinvestigative realm of, like,
you know these books, but what'sthe premise of the book?
Speaker 3 (02:42):
Well, I'll take it to the very beginning.
In September 29, 1913, rudolphDiesel is traveling from Belgium
to England on an overnightpassenger ferry across the North
Sea.
And at this time, unlike today,his name has really been erased
from history and as you findout the reasons why in the book,
deliberately erased.
But at the time, in 1913, justbefore World War I, he's an
(03:03):
international celebrity.
The diesel engine which heinvented often misspelled with a
lowercase did because nobodyknows there was a Rudolph diesel
was taking over as the dominantpower source for inland use.
For rail they used to use steamengines, shoveling wood or coal
into this furnace to boil water, to drive a steam engine to
drive a train crazy, rudimentarytechnology.
(03:24):
But it also had taken over asthe only option for the
submarine.
Kerosene and gasoline enginesdid not work for the submarine.
So there would be no U-boat orsubmarine warfare in World War I
, but for diesel for World WarII.
So he's traveling across theNorth Sea and he disappears in
the middle of the night.
They get up in the morning.
He's supposed to have breakfastwith his traveling companions
at 6 am on the overnightpassenger ferry and he's gone.
(03:47):
They stopped the ship at sea.
They search it.
All they can find is his hatand his coat folded at the stern
of the ship by the rail on thepromenade deck, and he's gone.
So then this mystery explodes.
It's the front page headline ofnewspapers from the United
States all through WesternEurope to Russia about what
happened to diesel, and theprevailing theories at the time
(04:09):
are maybe suicide.
It seemed to mark where hemight have jumped off the ship.
But there are also two murdersuspects identified.
One is Kaiser Wilhelm II, theEmperor of Germany, and the
other is John Rockefeller, thefounder of Standard Oil and at
that time the richest man in theworld.
And the reason people arespeculating Kaiser Wilhelm may
have done it or sent agents todo it, of course is what I
(04:31):
already identified.
The submarine was anincreasingly important weapon at
that time and there was anAnglo-German naval arms race
happening, which was one of themain reasons we got into World
War I to begin with, thiscompetition between the two, and
everybody was scrambling fordiesel expertise and Rudolph
Diesel, because the engine wasstill so young he had just
(04:52):
released it in 1897 and wasstill getting figured out,
especially for the exactingrequirements of undersea use.
He was still the man.
You still needed, rudolph, tokind of get your submarine
program going.
And then the armies and thenavies of every major power were
looking for his help.
The other reason was diesel.
Imagined that the engine wouldnever run on petroleum.
(05:13):
That Rockefeller was pullingout of the ground.
His idea was that it could runon vegetable or nut oil and he
won the 1900 Paris World's Fairwith a diesel engine running on
peanut oil.
So he was saying I can breakthe fuel monopolies.
We don't need to live like this.
We can either make coal tarfrom coal or we can just grow
our own fuel.
So his idea was that everynation in the world could
(05:36):
produce its own fuel throughfarmers.
And of course this was not goodfor Rockefeller.
So there was speculation thatthe big oil trusts had sent
maybe a quote unquote Pinkertondetective over there to knock
him off.
So that sets up the mystery andI follow events, you know I
really sort of bring you up tospeed, up to 1913, about how
(05:56):
diesel managed the invention andwhat Wilhelm and Rockefeller
were doing in that time and whythe diesel engine became the
center of the focus of hisperiod of time.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
You know, investigating something like
this is, it's got to beinteresting because, like when
you said about what the world'sperception of World War One and
World War Two and like thatwhole era is really based at the
macro level, unless you look atit like you know, you really
dig deep into history, you'rereally not going to know what's
going on.
So when you brought up thediesel thing, I'm like I didn't
(06:30):
know.
There's a guy named Rudolphdiesel that made the diesel
engine.
I'm like you know, because it'sto me, it's like it's almost
like ancient history.
It's almost like diesel Cool, Iknow about it, big trucks etc.
But when you start bringing upall the other intricacies of it,
yeah, you can run on a peanutoil, you can do this, you can do
that.
Speaker 3 (06:49):
And it does pull into mystery in 2007.
Willie Nelson ran his tour busaround America on recycled
kitchen grease, basicallyvegetable.
Speaker 2 (06:58):
I remember that.
Speaker 3 (06:59):
We don't need to be running around fighting wars
over fuel.
We can grow our own fuel, whichwas always the vision of diesel
, going back more than 120 years.
Speaker 1 (07:07):
And then you think about an assassination
assassination and you're like,ah, okay, this makes sense.
And if you had no suicidalideations before, it's like
that's kind of interesting.
So when you're putting thisbook together and it's a, it's
an in depth book.
You know, I'm just going by theamount of pages are in this
book right now because I amgoing to read this.
You know, I get a ton of booksbut I'm actually going to read
this because of that, theinvestigative aspect of it.
(07:31):
How do you dive into this?
Speaker 3 (07:33):
And I had, you know, I had a lot of folks like you
two who were former CIA, formerFBI, as well as police
detectives, examine my evidencein my case that I put forward.
And so I was in archives aroundEurope and America delving
through old documents from thattime period, even doing, you
know, those old microfichenewspaper searches with
headlines, because now thatstuff is pretty strong.
(07:53):
Well, that stuff is prettysearchable.
So there was a crazy three weekperiod post the night of his
disappearance where everyreporter was on the beat, so it
was every every British,american, german, french
newspaper was following this.
And then, you know, as youdiscover in the book, it sort of
halted and then World War Onecame and just wiped everything
(08:15):
else off the front page.
But back in 1917 or 1920, itwould be very hard to go back
and investigate these.
It would be very hard to findall these newspaper articles
that had so many conflictingdetails.
But there was, there werepieces of hard evidence in there
.
Much of that now has beenscanned and because you can do a
keyword search or search aroundthis period, you can actually
(08:36):
you know from your chair is alibrary level research go find
all this stuff that's innewspaper archives that you can
access online now and theinvestigation and more and more
gets scanned and uploaded intoonline databases every day.
So the investigation is mucheasier now than it was even 20
years ago to pull that piece ofit together.
(08:57):
But I was on the groundthroughout Europe for a few
years pulling all this togetherand former UK special forces
folks looked at it who are inthe intelligence community and
and agree 100% with theconclusion of the book, because
every other theory but the one Iput forward has massive gaping
holes in it.
Even at the time in October1913, you could look at this and
(09:20):
say, clearly, it's not theseother things which is what got
me started on it.
I had a theory of the case andI was able to put it together.
All of that is just no, that'sit.
Speaker 2 (09:31):
It's fascinating to me.
So the level of detail, justyou even talking about having
the close folded when he wentmissing, it paints a picture and
it just draws you into thatstory.
But then the level of detailyou get into, because you said
there were conflicting bits ofdetail how did you route through
that and how did you decidewhat to use to create your
(09:51):
narrative and to come up withyour theory?
Speaker 3 (09:54):
Well, in order to tell the book.
It was a very complicated bookto organize because it is part
biography, it's part manybiographies of the suspects.
It's a true crime who done it?
It's a primer on Europeandiplomacy of turn of the century
that got us into this World WarI mess anyway which was the
motive for many of the playersinvolved, and it's sort of like
(10:15):
a combustion engines for dummiestoo, Like you got to understand
how the diesel engine works alittle bit and why it matters
and why the sources of fuelmattered and things like that.
There were certain facts youcould count on from archives and
primary research that had beendocumented.
And then it's sort oftriangulating in on the events
(10:36):
you could take to the bank basedon different sources of
information, and I actually wasable to get into archives that
had much of diesel's ownwritings, his letters, his
diaries, all in German, much ofit held either in the Deutsches
Museum in Germany or in the MannMuseum, mann being
(10:57):
Maschinen-Fabrik Augsburg,nuremberg, which was his partner
company back in the 1890s todevelop the engine, which still
exists today and is still one ofthe main diesel manufacturers
today, and they have a wholemuseum with much of his stuff.
And so I actually contacted myold high school, a buddy who's
working in the Englishdepartment there.
He put me in touch with the guywho runs the German language
(11:18):
department and he translated allthese reams of material that
were just gold.
I mean, it's like the geeky sideof Indiana Jones, you know, the
bookish one.
But when you find somethingthat if someone else came across
it it would be, oh well, that'skind of cool but meaningless to
me.
But in the context of thisstory you'll be like wait,
winston Churchill said what Daysafter diesel said this and
(11:40):
certain things.
It's just, you find it in thecontext of what you're putting
together as an investigator.
It's gold.
So those were really funmoments in the period of years
of doing the research.
Speaker 1 (11:52):
Well, you brought up a great word, one of my favorite
ones investigation.
Now, what is your background?
I mean to put this togetherlike to me, like if I'm gonna
run a case or a back one, that Iused to actually work and do
cases but I would do like a kindof like a timeline.
Okay, this is when thishappened.
This happened, this happenedand this is kind of where I
wanna go with the case.
What's your background?
Where you learn how to do Kindof you're basically an
(12:13):
investigator.
You're almost like ainvestigator reporting on
history.
Speaker 3 (12:16):
Well, I'm not naturally or maybe I'm naturally
an investigator, but I'm notprofessionally an investigator
and have not been prior to this.
But I am professionally awriter and have always done tons
of research for my fiction.
So this is my first nonfictionbook for listeners.
It's a narrative nonfiction inthe style of like an Eric Larson
or a David Gran.
My fiction has always beendeeply researched though, with
(12:39):
lots of interviews, primarysources as well as some
secondary research, and so I'vealways loved that piece.
I think it helps my fictionwhen I'm telling a story, and if
I've deeply researched it, Ican bring it to the page with
more force and credibility, andI've always loved the research
piece of it and the way thisbook got started.
(12:59):
I bought a boat years ago, sevenyears ago, and it was a bigger
boat but it had these twogasoline engines in it.
And I was talking to the guyyou know what?
I'm gonna fix the boat up.
It was old and needed some work.
And the guy said well, you know, the first thing you should do
is repower this boat with dieselengines.
And I, seven years ago, waslike most people are today why
(13:20):
diesel?
Why is that different from gas?
I don't understand.
I thought it was just acombustion engine.
What's the difference and hegoes through this list of
reasons which is, you know, on a200 gallon tank you'll get two,
three times the range.
Diesel is much more efficient.
100% of boat fires come fromgasoline engines.
Zero from diesel.
It's not flammable, the fuelunder normal conditions and
(13:40):
there are no fumes.
Gasoline is very fume-y fuel,diesel is not.
There are no fumes.
So I was like, well, this allsounds great.
So I repowered the boat withdiesel and then, a few years
later, was going through ideasfor a new novel.
I was kind of in between booksNow, just tinkering around
online looking at cool things.
Hopefully, you know, somethingmight stick or inspire me to do
(14:01):
something.
And I came across this list ofmysterious disappearances at sea
and on the list was RudolphDiesel 1913, this story I
mentioned to you to open thebook and I was like even now I
was like, oh, I wonder if thisis connected to my diesel
engines.
You know, like still notknowing and of course took a
deep dive and then didn't comeout of the rabbit hole for five
years until the book was done,but had an early theory of what
(14:25):
might have been.
It's almost like you know, whenyou look at those paintings
that are all dots and then like,if you stare at it for long
enough, it turns into like amermaid or whatever is in there.
It was like that I just hadread about this, just being
curious and fascinated by it,and then suddenly, like the dots
showed up, I'm like this mustbe what happened.
Nothing else makes sense.
And the more I got into it andfound little pieces of
(14:47):
information, everythingsupported that.
And, as you guys know, likemurder, cases are almost always
solved on circumstantialevidence.
You know it's rare to say tohave some eyewitness that said I
saw the knife go in.
Here's how it happened.
And, by the way, eyewitnesstestimony is Some of the least
reliable stuff out there.
(15:08):
It's generally thecircumstantial stuff that does
it.
So it's a circumstantial casewhen it's rock solid.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
Just say I love that you use multiple sources.
Through this I, like, Icompletely understand where
you're coming from when you kindof you get the thread of
something fascinating and youjust can't let go of it and you
just keep pulling and pulling,and pulling.
But the fact that you didn'tJust take the surface level and
went a little bit deeper isoutstanding, because you're
absolutely right, diesel is aterm that we throw out every
(15:37):
single day, but no one everthinks about where it came from
or what the history of that was.
Until I read the title of yourbook Zero clue of who invented
the diesel engine and why thatwas, you know, important or what
it could have been.
Speaker 3 (15:51):
Yeah, yeah.
And if you think about itsprevalence even today, like,
imagine a pineapple grown insome tropical region, all the
heavy farm equipment used to toGrow the pineapple is on diesel
and then gets loaded on a truckto go down to port Anything
larger than a passenger car isdiesel.
(16:12):
A crane puts it on the ship,the crane is diesel, the ship,
the 100% of cargo ships thattake things around the world.
Diesel goes across the ocean,goes into port, unloaded on a
truck onto a train all trainsare diesel and then it goes to
some refrigeration plant.
You know many of the Powerplants of power for duration,
electricity are diesel andnothing is happening, even today
(16:33):
, without diesel.
There's some stat of you knowglobal, it's like kilo Ton miles
or something like that that theamount of goods that are
shipped over a number of milesper year or something, and you
know many trillions, and 99.9%of it gets there by diesel.
A very small fraction is thesteep, the turbine engines of
(16:54):
jets, but diesel powers theglobal economy.
There's, the global economywould not exist, as it says,
without, without diesel, andthat's that's present day.
And the fundamental Technologyof the engine.
Engine is the same as whatRudolph put out in 1897.
Speaker 1 (17:09):
Enhancements of course, but it's basically the
same now backtrack and you thinkabout the automobile and then
you think, okay, why not get ridof someone?
Is going to knock out really atrillion dollar, eventually
going to be a trillion trillionsa dollar business.
So this guy was like kind oflike hey, you know what, if we
don't, it's almost like gettingrid of Elon Musk.
You never know what he's gonnado next.
Back then it was like where'sdiesel gonna go next?
(17:31):
Some must have been like youknow what, when you're, when you
start messing with people'spocketbooks, yeah, you know and
if you go back to 1913, it wasnot at all settled what the fuel
was gonna be.
Speaker 3 (17:42):
In 1905 New York City had a huge taxi cab fleet I
several thousand cars, allelectric.
There was a charging stationfor electric cars for New York
taxi fleet on Broadway in TimesSquare.
And then they had trouble.
You know, edison was trying tofigure out the battery for the
electric car.
Ford even made an attempt, inPartnership with Edison, to
build an electric car.
(18:03):
The battery technology was wasa little difficult so that
didn't come through.
But having an electric car orengines running on vegetable or
or peanut oil Were very much inplay and standard oil was really
on the ropes.
Because all that money,standard oil.
You know, in 1900 and 1905Rockefeller's the richest man in
the world.
All the money he'd made was onkerosene.
(18:24):
They were, they were in theillumination business and Then
the electric light bulb camealong and wiped that away and he
was scrambling.
He needed the combustion engineand the automobile to take off
in order to survive into the20th century.
So they were.
It was a very shaky time forRockefeller and standard oil and
it was not at all settled thatpetroleum was going to be the
(18:46):
way forward.
So he was.
He was a bit like a corneredanimal when the Edison light
bulb came along.
Speaker 1 (18:54):
When you bring up you know this whole story and doing
your research about it andknowing about it and looking at
the old newspaper clippings andmicrophesies and everything, it
kind of makes you wonder likeit's really a call for real
investigative journalism Because, like in our future, you know,
in the future of my kids futureand yours and everything, what
(19:15):
are they gonna research back andis they're gonna be like really
solid Investigative reportinggoing out there?
So it's like critical that ifsomething does happen, that
there's good records and notjust you know you need people
who have that critical eye, whocan dig up information and Hint
then also have solid andreliable information.
Speaker 3 (19:33):
Yeah, it's true this is slightly off topic, but I
think the decline of local newsis scary in that regard, because
they were our consumer watchdogthings.
You'd see John Stossel orArnold Diaz out there doing
those consumer watchdog-ysegments and that was the
purview of local news in someways.
Now the internet opens up newways for that sort of thing to
(19:54):
happen, but to your point, itneeds to happen.
Speaker 1 (19:59):
You've got to collect that information, right.
Speaker 2 (20:01):
Well, not just that but the timing that you have of
this.
It kind of lends itself to thecharacter.
But there's some comparisons tothis book about it being a
little bit Sherlock Holmes-like,with that kind of investigative
and the deductive reasoning andobservational discovery.
That's a hell of a comparison.
Speaker 3 (20:21):
I love that review.
Equal parts Walter Isaacson andSherlock Holmes.
That's exactly what I'm hopingfor.
I'm hoping that the reader willtake away.
Speaker 2 (20:34):
I would be framing that one if that were me.
Speaker 3 (20:37):
The other piece of it , along with that, is the era.
It's this late gilded age Irefer to it sometimes as Downton
Abbey, the early seasons priorto World War I and the cast of
characters in the book really isphenomenal.
You get to the point whereyou're reading it you start
forgetting that you're readingnonfiction.
The way the licensing schemeswould work back then is someone
(21:02):
would acquire the exclusiverights to market and manufacture
the diesel engine for anational territory In North
America.
It was Adolphus Bush, thefounder of Anheuser Bush.
He acquired the diesel engineinitially to provide the power
to pump water in his breweriesand energy for refrigeration.
He also developed a sidebusiness that was developing
(21:23):
diesel engines for the US Navyfor their submarine fleet In
Russia.
It was the Nobel family.
It is the same Nobel family asAlfred Nobel.
This is another fascinatingstory that you can.
This is like another five-yearrabbit hole to go down.
The Nobel family founded theRussian oil business at the turn
of the century.
Alfred Nobel was slightlyinvolved, but it was the two
(21:44):
older brothers who developedRussian oil and also had a
munitions manufacturing business.
They took the exclusive licensefor diesel in Russia and built
diesels for the Russian Navy.
The cast of characters is justso far and wide.
Churchill plays a big role, ofcourse.
Kaiser Wilhelm and his grandadmiral Terpitz plays an
(22:04):
enormous role.
Rockefeller, as we've discussed.
Edison, diesel and Edison havethis phenomenal meeting when
diesel comes to America in 1912.
His notes from his diary arejust hilarious about it.
In some ways, in a way theyclashed more than got along.
His observations about Edisonand also of America at that time
(22:27):
are fascinating because hecomes over with this very
scientific engineering point ofview.
He was also a humanitarian typeand slightly a poetic guy.
I think in that era inparticular, engineers felt a
dual role to be both a scientistand a social theorist.
He has really, reallyfascinating observations about a
(22:48):
turn of the century in Americafrom a European's take on things
.
Speaker 1 (22:57):
Talk about a cast of characters.
History is starting to comeback and you have Oppenheimer.
It just came out, oppenheimer.
Now you have this who, who, who.
It's like a real cast ofcharacters.
It's a real everything.
It's almost like the who doneit of who back then.
We're all about the same ages Alittle bit.
Amy is a little younger, I'm alittle younger, older, I don't
know.
Anyway, those names, I don'tthink they've ever been accused
(23:19):
of being the younger.
When you bring up theRockefellers and everybody, a
lot of people don't realize howvery important they were back
then and how significant theywere.
This is really cool, man.
Speaker 3 (23:31):
Yeah, Something like Rockefeller had the power to
shape wars, influence wars,start and stop wars.
It was incredible.
If you look at their net worth,just doing the inflation
calculation doesn't quitecapture it.
If you compare it to the moneysupply, there are other metrics
a little bit more accurate tocapture his financial influence
(23:53):
at the time.
If you just do it by inflation,then Musk is wealthier per his
time.
But if you do the more accuratemeasures as a percentage of
money applies, a percentage ofGDP, Rockefeller is a multiple
of Elon Musk's wealth today.
It's extraordinary the power heand a handful of others had at
that time.
Speaker 2 (24:14):
We often talk about setting being a key factor in
stories, and you couldn't havepicked a better one.
I mean, there is that bit of aromanticism around it, but that
era, you're right, it's like acrossroads of world history and
that in itself is going to drawpeople to the book.
You add in actual history and alittle bit of true crime, and
this has to be like catnip formultiple genres, just to come
(24:37):
and latch on to this.
Speaker 3 (24:39):
It was certainly catnip for me.
It kept me fascinated for fiveyears and I kind of miss working
on it.
You know, diesel's like myimaginary friend.
I tell my family I'm going togo hang out with Rudolph for a
little while.
But you're right about the erathat, and Dalton Abbey does
capture that sort of hinge ofhistory of what World War I
meant to the world.
Because prior to World War I,all of Europe, really lived in a
(25:02):
different way, more feudal, notbetter or worse, you might say.
It's slightly more romantic allthese sort of courts of Europe,
the monarchies of Europe.
But think about the number ofempires and monarchs that went
away before and after that war.
The Russian Empire goes andwe've got the Bolsheviks.
The German Empire goes, theAustria-Hungary Empire goes, the
Ottoman Empire goes.
(25:22):
All of these things turn intothen Turkey with a prime
minister, and Germany with theWeimar Republic and Austria, you
know, split into a number ofthings.
So Europe lives in a totallydifferent way and that trickled
down in a way to how ordinarycitizens lived as well.
Speaker 1 (25:41):
I'm ready to read it.
Speaker 2 (25:45):
The one thing that we're going to have to see when
we read this book, and I'm sureeverybody's just dying to get
into it.
You know, thriller authors inparticular are accused of being
too hard to hide plot pointsfrom, and so I'll be really
interested if you know I canpick up your breadcrumbs before
you actually give me the whodone it.
Speaker 3 (26:05):
I think you will be astonished, Even with your the
investigative talents you twohave.
You might have an inclinationas you get close to it, but I
think even the thriller writerswho have read it, like Brad Thor
and Lee Child and others, werereally astonished with how it
wraps up, but then also entirelypersuaded that there was no
(26:25):
other way.
Speaker 2 (26:28):
That's a major accolade right there, if you got
Brad Thor and Lee.
Child to read that and be likeokay, yeah, no, no, this is,
this is good Then.
Bravo sir.
Speaker 3 (26:39):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (26:40):
Well, doug, I appreciate you coming on and
talking about the book.
Everybody in the book is themysterious case of Rudolph
Diesel.
I should put my author in.
Like you know, the mysteriouscase of Rudolph Diesel on it.
Speaker 3 (26:49):
Oh, that was good.
Speaker 1 (26:50):
I know I might have to, you know, read these books
sometime, like actually on air19 September.
Speaker 2 (26:56):
That's the release date.
Speaker 3 (26:57):
September 19, pub days, yeah.
Speaker 2 (26:59):
All right, september 19.
Speaker 1 (27:01):
I will have you know what we're going to.
I'm going to read it.
I might have to send this oneout to AIMA, but I love.
My goal now is to read thebooks after I do the interview
and then do like a real review.
You know, because so manyauthors out there they do.
They write the books, peopleread them but they don't get
like.
You need to review the booksyou know, tell people what you
(27:22):
know, what you like about it.
Speaker 3 (27:24):
Yeah Well, round back with me.
I'm dying to know what youthink.
Speaker 1 (27:27):
Oh, I will believe me .
And, doug, I appreciate youcoming on the show.
I want to have you back onbecause there was a couple of
things I wanted to get to todaybut kind of press for time, like
to keep it around 30 minutes orso.
But one thing I do want to talkto you next time you come on if
you can come on again is yourwriting technique.
I want to know how you wentfrom the fiction to the
nonfiction world and kind ofyour research process.
Everybody's so different inlike the how you, how you spend
(27:50):
time with like Rudolph Diesel toget these books on there.
Speaker 3 (27:54):
Yeah Well, the research piece was the bridge
between the fiction andnonfiction, and just the love of
telling a good story, and Ithink in this case, with these,
I just stumbled across thegreatest story of the 20th
century and I hope I've donejustice to it.
But the research was also a,you know, a labor of passion,
whatever you call that.
I loved every minute of it.
Speaker 2 (28:17):
Well, you went from, you know, talking Wall Street to
political campaigns, to tennis,of course, about pushing your
kids, and now this I mean everystory you have is compelling in
its own right.
So bravo for your choices.
To be able to do that innonfiction, that in itself I
can't applaud that enough.
(28:37):
To get anybody to get excitedabout a nonfiction book, it can
be a little difficult.
Speaker 3 (28:43):
Oh, thanks.
One of the writers I admiremost, who we lost too early, is
Michael Crichton, and one of thereasons I admired him so much
is his range of work.
He did everything from JurassicPark and he's always been the
zeitgeist.
You know, he did Jurassic Parkwhen chaos theory was being
discussed and he did Rising Sunwhen Japanese business taking
over, the need of beingdiscussed and disclosure was
(29:04):
sort of early in the workplaceharassment thing, and so he just
took on so many differenttopics and he's a star on the TV
side, so he just did differentstuff, did it all really well,
and so I've always admired that,and my approach has been
similar in the sense that I wantto take on things that I think
have relevance today, that arealso fascinating and draw me in.
Speaker 2 (29:28):
I will be eagerly following your career, sir.
Thank you so much.
Speaker 3 (29:31):
Thank you, thank you.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!