May 23, 2025 • 38 mins
In this episode of Rosie the Reviewer, we sit down with Matt Hartman, retired US Navy Chief Petty Officer and author of the WWII spy thriller Other Than Honorable. We talk about writing spy fiction, morally complex heroes, the feeling of Berlin on the brink of war and what it’s like to build a Jason Bourne-ish spy with zero suave and actual consequences. From the emotional roots of Ridge Frost to Hartman’s Enigma rabbit holes, this one's got historical deep cuts, an awkward leading man and a leading lady who might be more competent than the man himself. We love spy shit.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
Welcome to Rosie the Reviewer. We're your host.
I'm Sam. And I'm Mark June.
And we like World War 2 media and we want to talk about it.
Frost sauntered into the office of Captain Edwin Hendricks,
United States Navy, with his hands cuffed tightly behind him,
four days of scruff on his jaw and his big uniform, a tattered
(00:24):
set of black and white striped coveralls, disheveled nearly
beyond belief. The garden, a fresh young
private named Timmons, stopped afull 4 paces behind Ridge,
intent, it seemed, on keeping himself well out of harm's way
and halt the garden sweep. Ridge stopped 10 paces from the
captain's desk. He waited without coming to
attention or parade rest 10 seconds passed, then 10 more,
(00:47):
and then 30 without looking up. Hendrix snarled.
You can sound off anytime you like.
Frost said nothing. Welcome back to Rosie the
Reviewer. This week, we have a special
episode where we are interviewing an author, which
(01:08):
we're very excited about. We're talking about the book
Other than Honorable, which comes out this year in 2025.
And the author's name is Matt Hardman.
He's a retired U.S. Navy chief Petty Officer and
current John Hopkins University faculty member.
Welcome, Matt. Thank you for having me.
Can we put you on the spot to give us the elevator pitch about
your book? The elevator pitch.
(01:30):
So I created an American versionof James Bond, who's much less
suave, much less of a misogynist, and he's kind of
lost. He's not a very good spy to
start with. And then I kind of throw him to
the wolves. Yeah, that's about the
impression that we got to you a Mart.
Yeah, I was wondering if you were going to bring up James
(01:50):
Bond, and you did so. I did he he was one of the
inspirations for this character,but I wanted him to feel less
professional about the whole spybusiness.
Yeah, we love that. First of all, I'm a little bit
interested about your backgroundbecause you have a bachelor's in
intelligence studies and counterintelligence from the
(02:11):
military university and you havea method in writing.
So it seems like that's the perfect combination to write
Spyberg can. You tell.
Me a little bit about how that came about.
The undergrad is less cool than it sounds.
It was. It was effectively, Yeah.
It's unfortunately, like I didn't get to read a whole lot
(02:31):
of fiction, spy novels or anything like that.
It was a lot of just how to prepare reports, analysis,
thinking, logic, a lot. It seems like every class was
based in logic. So it's significantly less cool
than it sounds on paper. But it allows me to do my day
job, which also has nothing to do with intelligence.
It's just I'm sort of continuingwhat I used to do when I was in
(02:53):
the Navy, which is Marine engineering.
So, but with the writing part, Ithink I've been on this path
since I was maybe 8. My dad handed me a copy of The
Hunt for Red October when I was 8 or 9.
I read the book, you know, 10 years later, you know, I'm in a
recruiting office volunteering to be on a submarine. 20 years
later, I retire. So I think I've been on this
(03:13):
trajectory the whole time for the last 30 plus years.
So if you've been a writer longer then you've been a
military person then? Oh, writing.
So my, my, so I have, I have a couple of older brothers and one
of them used to talk me into doing these young author
competitions when I was a kid, when I was really young.
(03:36):
You know, you can barely spell. But you know, he's like, here,
here's a blank book. We're going to fill this out.
I'm going to illustrate it because I can't draw to save my
life. I can barely draw a stick
figure, much less illustrate a children's novel.
But yeah, he talked me into doing that for like 3 or 4
straight years from like age 6 on.
So I think the first book I everwrote was about 3 Snakes on
Vacation and it was, it was likea little board book, nothing
(03:59):
impressive at all. What made you want to write a
spinal for them? Everything I read growing up was
either classic literature, Dickens, Dumas, Dostoyevsky or
Clancy. Stephen Cones, Stephen Hunter, a
lot of Tom Clancy back then. And I think that it was always
in the back of my head to try itone day.
(04:21):
It just ended up having to wait until I was significantly less
busy. So I had to wait till I retired
from the Navy to to give this a shot.
And my first two books coming out of Hopkins were both Tom
Clancy style military thrillers.And I, you know, I kind of took
some time off and reread the oldJohn Leckere novels and the Ian
Fleming early Bond novels. And I was like, you know what, I
(04:44):
think I can do this. This sounds like more fun than
the stuff I write now. So off I went.
It is really fun, we both reallyenjoyed it, but I really did
read your book. I appreciate it.
And one of the reasons you're on, well, the reason you're on
our podcast is because it said during World War 2, what made
you pick World War 2? So I was reading through your
(05:05):
questions. I saw that one and I saw is
there anything Cold War coming out?
And I wanted to hit up both timeperiods, but I needed a good
starting point. So I decided to just start at
the beginning of World War 2 andmove him through World War 2 at
different points and off into the Cold War.
You know, the early days of the Cold War.
(05:25):
I don't know that I have. You're both familiar with the
Tom Clancy universe, the Jack Ryan universe.
There's a character in there named John Clark, who was a
Vietnam era SEAL who's still going in the books.
I don't know that I have an intent for Ridge Frost to be
doing this when he's 80. Maybe he'll pass the torch on as
we move forward. But but yeah, I definitely want
(05:46):
to cover both time periods. So the prologue starting in 19,
37, and then this first story happening right there at the
beginning, right before the Nazis rolled into Poland and the
world was just told about, hey, we discovered nuclear fission.
It seemed like a really good starting point for Frost's.
Career. Obviously when you write
(06:07):
something in in the World War 2,I want to say universe, but
that's a weird thing to say. If you write something said
during World War 2, you need to know a little bit about it.
Can you tell me a little bit about your research if you did
any? Most of my research for this one
was on 2 fronts. 1 was everything that happened in 1937
(06:29):
with the 4th Marines because that's not something that I was
ever taught in high school, in college, and not even in the
military. Like I was on 2 ships that
transported Marines and the Marines never even told me about
this. So I had to do a lot of research
about what the 4th Marines did in Shanghai, what the British
were doing in Shanghai, the Chinese, the Japanese, and that
(06:52):
took up a lot of time. And then the biggest thing that
I found that I absolutely did not know and could not find in a
book was trying to find out whatBerlin in 1939 felt like and
what parts of Europe actually felt like.
Like it's easy to look up pictures and be like, OK, the
restaurant that I picked look like this or the car look like
(07:13):
this, the hotel look like this. People talked like this.
That's, that's all well documented.
But to try and get that feel, I had to dig up some contacts.
People I've met since retiring from the Navy, people I met
while I was in the Navy that, you know, in their own words are
getting up there in age and, youknow, hey, what was it like back
(07:34):
then? What, what did it feel like?
And that took me. That was a good three or four
months of talking to people to try and get what it felt like
being, you know, kind of on the edge of that storm.
You almost think it feels like the deep breath before the
plunge, but is that just hindsight?
Because we know what comes next.Yeah.
And so I had that conversation and the answer that I routinely
(07:56):
got from people who could remember what it felt like.
And, you know, they're, they're in their, you know, late 90s
now. Somebody actually quoted the
line from Lord of the Rings at me about this, about having to
wait on the edge of something that you can't get away from.
That's what it felt like. And I was like, OK, that's
fascinating. So.
(08:16):
I do feel when I read your book,once Bridge gets to Berlin, I
feel that you've put research into that feeling because it
kind of translates really well into the paper.
I was talking to Sam about this before this recording yesterday
and we were talking about Berlin.
It's it's the most World War 2 in your book, I feel.
(08:39):
Even though the entirety of it is sat there in Berlin, it feels
really real to me. So one of the people I did talk
to is also somebody who grew up in the Midwest in Indiana.
And that's where that line wherewhere they're walking up the red
carpet and there's all this fanfare when they're going in to
see this speech. He mentioned that when he was
little and he was in Berlin whenthis was all going on, you know,
(09:02):
at the kind of, you know, heightof what it was like to be there.
He's like, it was a lot like going downtown Indianapolis on
the day, the Indianapolis 500, which is why that lines in the
book, which is, you know, why Ridge brings it up so.
Love that. Hang on, I need to look at the
question. This always happens.
I go off on attention and I forget tomorrow.
(09:24):
I do that every. Day.
Cool. Not just me, then.
No. So you've already said you.
You haven't. You had a name for career.
Did you put any of that into thebook?
Obviously Ridges. There you go.
Not in this one. Before I started this one, I
kind of picked out the next three or four points that I want
(09:45):
to use for the next three or four books.
There's definitely some of very,very loosely related to my
neighborly experience, but there's definitely some of that
in the next book in the sequel. There's definitely some
submarine adventures with Rich Frost in the next book, which
he's not going to be thrilled tohelp.
You know, he's he's very new to the spy business.
He's very unsure of himself. He's not the smoothest guy on
(10:08):
the planet. And I'm going to, in this case,
I'm going to throw them to the Wolf Pack, but.
That's a spider. We're getting more books.
That's cool. Yes, you are.
Most of the people we have on also, in one way or another,
have a personal connection to World War 2.
Is there any in your family? Not so much in my family.
(10:28):
So you mentioned that I'm a retired chief Petty Officer.
The day that I found out that I made chief, the chief's mess
that I was a part of their firstassignment was Find the first
chief Petty Officer you ever metand get a charge book entry from
hey, here's what you need to do when you finally put those
anchors on. And my brain froze at that
second because the first chief Petty Officer I ever met was a
(10:51):
guy I grew up playing golf with who was a principal at my
elementary school long before I went there.
And he was a chief Petty Officerwhose ship was bombed at
Guadalcanal. And you know, my brain froze for
a second because I wasn't 100% sure he was still alive when I
(11:11):
got that. But we had several conversations
in the years after I made chief about what it was like to be a
chief during World War 2 and what it's like now.
At one point, I think he did have actually like asked me like
he's like, so what's a chief make now?
And he told me what he made during World War 2, which was
like just over $140.00 a month. And I was just like, oh, wow,
(11:32):
that's awful. But that's my personal
connection is usually him. Most of my like my grandparents
were mostly farmers. The one military service that is
there was Korean War era. He missed.
He missed out. You don't really miss out on
World War 2. But he didn't deploy.
He snapped his leg when he was like 21 and he was supposed to
(11:56):
go. So the only time he deployed
was, you know, several years after the end of World War 2
when Korea was going on. Wow 140 bucks a month.
Like don't spend it all in one place.
Yeah, I'm like my, my C pay is like 3 times that.
And he's just like, that's ridiculous.
What do you do with all that? And I was like, well, it's a lot
more expensive to live now. Right.
(12:17):
It is, but also he's getting bombed on his ship.
I usually don't get shot at these days when I deploy SO.
Thank God for that. Yes.
So I have a question about your studies.
But you already said it isn't ascool as it looks.
But did you learn anything really cool in your studies?
(12:40):
Not necessarily at the school itself, but I did have a couple
of professors who were also history buffs who just kept
recommending book after book after book after book after
book. So now I have this entire like
section of bookshelf. It's just spy fiction, spy
nonfiction, World War Two, WorldWar One, Korea, Vietnam, Cold
(13:04):
War, American Revolution, Civil war.
So it's it's a pretty massive collection these days.
So that that may be the coolest thing was tying what he's
teaching me to how it has workedin the past or didn't work in
the past. Very cool.
I just think spies are awesome. It's such a childish thing to
say, but it's such a cool universe to write a book.
(13:28):
And I think, oh I agree. And also this has nothing to do
with your book once offer, but Ijust want to know what's it like
being on the submarine? It's interesting.
I'm trying to think what I can actually say about it.
It's interesting. It's not for people who are
claustrophobic. Not.
Familiar. I can still remember the first
(13:49):
time that we dove, the first time that we went below the
surface about 5 minutes after wedid it.
I remember walking by a depth gauge for the first time and I
just a little bit of a panic attack.
But, you know, once after a few hours, the novelty, I guess
wears off and there's so much todo, especially when you're
you're new, you're unqualified, you know, you don't have your
(14:11):
fish yet. You can't stand watch because
you don't know how to do anything.
The crew is highly motivated to take somebody like me who was
brand new and make sure that I'museful in some way, shape or
form. So within a few days, you know,
I found myself learning how to, you know, operate the helm, the
planes, the machinery in my spaces.
So it's it's an interesting life.
(14:33):
I spent most of my career on thesurface aircraft carriers, stuff
like that. But I definitely treasured the
time that I was on a submarine. I just almost wonder if it's
better not to know what you're doing, because once you know it
sounds just absolutely terrifying to me.
That's that. That's why we have submarines in
the 1st place. We always want the the surface
(14:55):
sailors not knowing what we're doing or where we are.
That's when it's really scary. Like it's, it's never scary when
you know where the submarine is or what it's doing.
When you don't know where it is,that's a problem.
I think those are my questions. I'm going to hand you over to
Sam, and Sam's going to talk a little bit more about your
actual book, so keep all my nerdiness to myself though.
(15:19):
Can you talk to us about the title?
Like for those of us who have never served, can you explain an
other than honorable discharge? I can.
So there's several types of discharges from the United
States military. There's the honorable discharge
and then there's this array of like, maybe you weren't so well
behaved other than honorable is it's usually classified as like
(15:41):
kind of an administrative discharge that it can be used
because you couldn't behave, butit can also be used for well,
mostly it's used because you couldn't behave otherwise.
We just call it an admin set. But and you're talking like
anything from, you know, you couldn't stop fighting.
You got caught stealing from somebody on the ship, something
that doesn't rise to the level of dishonorable in the time
(16:02):
period we're talking about. There was another term for it
was like blue sheet and it was specifically, it wasn't
exclusively used, but it, it wasused in the late 30s, early 40s
to remove individuals whose sexuality was questionable to
the United States military at the time.
(16:23):
And since then, you know, it took, I don't know, 70 years for
us to change our minds on that. But I needed a way to not
dishonorably discharge Frost. But I needed something that
portrayed him as a good Marine, but not the greatest Marine and
somebody the Marines had a problem with.
So I I needed him trapped in a in a nice neat little square so
(16:45):
I could boot him. Yeah, I mean, it's a really good
fit as a title. Your main character, Everett
Frost, as you said, perhaps not the best Marine.
And then when he sort of gets called up into spy action, he's
not innately great at that either.
So can you tell us a little bit about what you drew from what
inspired you? Did you?
Do you feel like you put anything of yourself into this
(17:07):
this character at all? Only the awkwardness.
So every like you, you got your your classic, you know, Bond spy
who's almost untouchable, almosthe becomes more untouchable
later on. You got the the books out there
where you have like super spies who never they never get hit,
they never get scratched, they never bleed.
(17:29):
And then you've got this world of like the Gray Man spy where
he just keeps getting the holy living crap kicked out of him.
He gets punched, he gets kicked,he gets shot, he gets stabbed.
He's not invulnerable. He's not necessarily perfect at
his job. He's not even necessarily, you
know, morally white. And I wanted a character who was
(17:51):
flawed, who was not considered an expert at the job, who was
kind of learning on the fly because in the time period we're
talking about, there wasn't exactly like a training course
for this on on our side of the ocean.
The OSS wasn't really up and running.
We definitely weren't, you know,training people in, you know, at
the farm in Virginia like you see in all the Tom Clancy books.
(18:11):
So they're taking this guy who all he really knows is how to be
a Marine officer. And they're like, yeah, by the
way, we're going to, we're goingto go have you do all this stuff
and you're going to be alone with no support, no safety net,
have fun. And the the last thing that I
wanted to do to him was I wantedhim to be a little bit more like
Jason Bourne than James Bond when it comes to the woman.
(18:34):
I did not want three women a novel.
I did not want the women to get progressively younger.
I didn't want any of that. I wanted him to be socially
awkward when it comes to women until I put that one in front of
him and that's the only one he cares about for as long as I
write the novels. Which sort of might answer one
of the other questions you get ready to ask.
(18:56):
Yeah, yeah, we the, I think a lot of people are maybe unaware
that World War 2 is really the advent of modern spycraft.
Like they're just people have a hard time, I think, imagining
that there was a world before the CIA, but there was.
Yeah. So we, we've talked a lot on
this podcast about the women of the Special Operations
Executive, the SOE, Violet Zabo,Virginia Hall, Noor, any icon.
(19:21):
And we were wondering if you have any plans for any potential
female spies for Ridge to link up with.
And we're also wondering if you can give us any hints about
about your female lead getting back in on the action.
So I, I, I read those questions and I was trying to figure out
how to answer them without giving too much away.
So the answer is yes, there's female spies coming for some of
(19:44):
the books coming up. There is going to be French and
Dutch resistance. Yes, Eva's coming back because
it would be inhumane to kill heroff because I would have to
change Ridge like he would have to go on a Rivers rampage.
She's coming back and it is theoretically possible in my
planning that she starts workingin tandem with Fridge in the
(20:06):
future. I thought the way you write her,
especially toward the end of thebook, she becomes almost more
and more competent than rich. Yeah, So there's a reason for
that. So the the first meeting when
they're on the train and bridge can't speak and she kind of does
(20:26):
the little like just below the table wave at him and they're
both really awkward around each other.
So I I wrote that that's part ofme.
That is me and my wife. She is largely based around how
we behave around each other and in something like this I believe
that my wife would be more confident than I am, which is
(20:47):
why Ava is written the way she is.
So she she is largely based on on my wife.
I love that, and we're definitely glad to hear that
she'll be back. We on this podcast, we
perennially complain about the lack of female characters of
World War 2 media, especially female characters who actually
have something to do. So we really love that about Ava
in your book. I appreciate it.
(21:07):
Thank you. When we read World War 2 novels,
we tend to get excited when we see references to things we've
read about that your average reader might not recognize, kind
of little Easter eggs. And an example that comes to
mind for me from your book is the bit where you can tell that
the Nazis have been using amphetamines.
That's pretty clear from that passage.
I was wondering if you have any favorite rabbit holes that you
(21:28):
went down that you were really excited to include in your book?
That made it into the book. That was like 3 days that that
one specifically was like 3 daysof like, wow, really.
In writing the second one, I have gone down an enigma rabbit
hole that is absolutely fascinating.
It's and it's it's stuff that you're never told about, you
(21:50):
know, unless you, you know, read, you know, 400 books on the
subject. Like, I didn't know until, you
know, I started planning this series that there were, you
know, several variations of Enigma because you, you read,
you know, pop culture literature, stuff like that.
And you it's like, OK, it's justalways referred to as Enigma.
It's like, well, there's a navalvariant.
(22:12):
There's one with three rotors, there's one with four rotors,
there's one with five rotors. And there's different variants
of those different plug. And, and it's like, it is a this
massive rabbit hole that I've probably spent a month on so far
trying to figure out which one'sright for my next book.
And then the other rabbit hole that's absolutely fascinating
just from, you know, a standpoint of a marine engineer
(22:34):
and shipbuilding and, you know, having served on ships and
submarines is I got the entire tech manual for a German U boat,
plus the like we would call it an instruction manual like the
NAV admin or naval instruction for how to be the best U boat
commander you can possibly be. And reading through that and
(22:58):
figuring out the way that they fought, you know, direct from
them and not interpreted by historian after historian after
historian is fascinating. And I think I've spent about a
month on that too. Ash yeah, we love a primary
source. We're not on your level, but we
dabble a little bit in writing fiction, me and Mark, and we are
always. He's talking about when is the
time to stop reading the books and actually write something.
(23:21):
Never do both at the same time. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Is there a piece of real intelligence in this book that
you think most readers won't notice?
So I've, I've noticed that quitea few people thought it was a
much shorter time frame from thediscovery of fission until, you
know, the bombs dropped in August of 45.
(23:42):
And I mentioned in the book and in, you know, in his briefing,
like, hey, we're going to send you to Germany and you're going
to go get this information because these guys in Germany
said that they can split atoms. And these guys in the US just
told the president they can makea bomb out of it.
And that, you know, that happened in, you know, 1939.
And I think there's this odd, like when you, you know, if you
(24:03):
only watch movies, especially onthis side of the ocean where we
like to shorten everything and, you know, extra special effects.
And I think there is this like, hey, it was a much shorter time
frame from the discovery. It's like, no, they were working
on this for like 6 years. Even if it was just a study, you
know, that was signed on by Roosevelt upfront in 1939.
(24:24):
We were already concerned about where the Nazis were with atomic
weapons research. So I think that for this book
was fascinating. And then the history of for the
next book, the history of, you know, the actual cracking of
Enigma and how long that stayed a secret to the Nazis.
(24:44):
Like how long the Nazis were just completely unaware that the
Enigma wasn't quite as secure asthey thought it was.
That's also just fascinating to me, reading about Polish
intelligence and all they actually did leading up to the
individuals at Bletchley Park and Alan Turing and the various
phrase where Enigma machines were captured.
That's just fascinating. It's not something we get a lot
(25:05):
of here, unfortunately. Here we like to focus on D-Day
to the end of the war, and that's about it.
It's for that theater. And we'll, you know, Americans
will talk forever about the Pacific theater.
But yeah, for some reason we're obsessed with June 6th, 1944 is
the start of World War 2. And it's like that's not true.
Like Europe was fighting this guy for a long time.
(25:25):
That's something we talk about too, because she's Dutch and I'm
Canadian, and obviously the Dutch didn't have a lot of
options in terms of getting involved in the war.
And I mean, in Canada, we declared war at the same time as
the Brits did. And so, yeah, so we, we
frequently talk about that because we, I mean, we love the
Saving Private Ryans and the Band of Brothers and all that
stuff, and they're great. But also, there's so many little
(25:46):
stories like that that we're like, oh, it'd be nice if
someone, you know, threw $100 million at that, you know?
Like something a book that I just picked up recently was Alex
Kershaw's The Few about the air battle from 1939 on.
And the very few, like Americans, Canadians, who
(26:06):
against all of the rules skipped, made it to England and
fought for the RAF in these little kind of tossed together
squadrons until, you know, the US finally got there, their
button here, and decided to showup.
Yeah, It's so interesting. We recently talked about a
memoir that I had read by a FreeFrench fighter pilot and
literally just, yeah, your country gets taken over and
(26:27):
you're like, all right, well, then he just went to Britain and
flew with the RAF and I'm just like, this is wild.
I mean. He may.
I forgot what his name is, but he makes an appearance in a few.
Yeah. He's he's in there with and
yeah, 2 days ago I could have pulled the guys name out of thin
air. An American bobsledder who was
(26:49):
world famous at the time, who was like, yeah, I'm disappearing
and going to fight, going to become a fighter pilot.
Oh, yeah, yeah. And we actually a few weeks ago,
we also covered the movie slash book about MO Berg, the American
baseball player who was sent overseas to collect intelligence
about the Germans making the atomic bomb.
(27:09):
So we also just coincidentally also recently talked about that.
And it's so interesting how now we know that the Germans never
really got close, right? But at the time, it was
obviously a huge concern. It was like, even if there's a
5% chance me at the atomic bomb,like we have to know about it.
OK, so if there were to be a film adaptation, who's your
(27:31):
who's your Dreamcast, Who's playing Ridge?
Who's playing Ava? What are we thinking?
So, you know, funny enough, before I wrote the book, I sat
down and I, I pulled pictures off the Internet of what my
characters look like so I could write the book and be like, OK,
that's what Ridge looks like. That's what Ava looks like.
That's what. And it cracks people up when I
(27:52):
show it to them. But Ridge was imagined as like
an like a 25 year old Gary Cooper.
So I don't think I'm going to beable to, you know, if this ever
becomes a Netflix movie or anything, I don't think I'm
going to be able to get Gary Cooper.
But I would sell for like. I think Netflix has the cash to
raise him from the grave no problem.
Ava was Sarah Gadon from 11/22/63.
(28:14):
She's been in some other stuff that you know, off the top of my
head. I can't remember her brother
Elias. The picture that I have is Neil
Patrick Harris from Starship Troopers in the retro like Nazi
uniforms, some of Ridge's bossesat Unit 12.
One of them is Jason Alexander from Seinfeld.
(28:35):
At one point I couldn't decide who Captain Hendricks was, but
in my head I always pictured himas Humphrey Bogart from the Cane
Mutiny, as Captain Queeg. Like, that's, that's the idea
that I had in mind when I was writing him.
Yeah, I've got an entire spreadsheet with all of their
pictures and little bio notes. I love that, and I'm especially
(28:57):
entertained by the idea of Neil Patrick Harris playing just a
villainous Nazi and maybe doing a German accent.
Like for some reason that reallytickles me.
Yeah, I, I as soon as I wrote the name of the character down,
I knew exactly what picture I was looking for of Neil Patrick
Harris. It's that one where he shows up
as a Colonel and Starship Troopers.
I was like, that's the one. Amazing.
(29:17):
Just to wrap about my section here, what's the part of this
book that no one talks about butyou're secretly really proud of?
So far, it's the character of Ava.
People that you know, they immediately, immediately latch
on to Ridge Frost because he's the main character.
They latch on to the bad guy because they hate his guts
almost as an afterthought. Like people do keep coming back
(29:38):
to that Gerald character who just kind of vanishes part way
through the book. And there's a reason for that.
But I love the way that I wrote Ava.
I think that I got where I wanted to be with her and her
relationship and what she's beenable to, you know, how
entrancing she is to Ridge. I think I very rarely hear that
(29:59):
that's the favorite character inthe book.
You better throw some tough shitthough.
I did and and she turns out to be the one that gets the job
done in the end. So which is why I kind of hinted
it, yes, she's coming back and yes, she's probably going to be,
you know, it's going to become ateam effort.
(30:21):
So you've already told us you have a pretty big collection of
books, but can you recommend us some?
Do you have any favorite opportunity books?
Some. Favorite.
Oh man, my favorite World War Two book of all time is the K
meeting, which was significantlyless funny.
It was not that funny the first time I read it after serving on
(30:45):
a destroyer. The book's hilarious.
It's like seeing Full Metal Jacket before you go to boot
camp and then watching it again right after you get out of boot
camp. Who said?
Bye Herman. But like for nonfiction,
fiction, spy related stuff, I love The Secret War by Sir Max
Hastings and anything by John Leckerry.
Not necessarily World War Two there, it's mostly Cold War, but
(31:08):
anything involving George Smileyand Carla.
I love those books. I wouldn't be a proper
submariner if I didn't mention Blind Man's Bluff is a favorite
Cold War book. I might get disowned for that.
Well. Hopefully not, You've already
given us some spoilers, but do you have anything you want to
flag? Is there anything you want to
(31:28):
sell? Not so, but just black.
No, I, this is, it's, it's odd that you know, I, I got this
book kind of out of my system, have the plans for the next few
books out. And I'm, I'm actually working on
some stuff now, like I mentionedthat my kids kind of like just
to see, I'm trying my hand at other genres just to see what I
(31:50):
can do. I think I've got 4 projects
going on right now. So I've got something that's a
little bit like the gunslinger the Dark Tower series by Stephen
King. I've got something that's a
little bit like the Foundation series by Isaac Asimov, got one
that is specifically me involving my kids in the writing
process. A picture of Pirates of
Caribbean, but like Game of Thrones style.
(32:11):
I'm told each of. So it's me, my wife and six kids
and I have told each of my kids that they are a pirate lawyer
lady. I just offed the 8th pirate king
and now they all have to fight for the throne.
It's kind of a choose your own adventure for them.
So, you know, I've got a few chapters, you know, sometime in
the next month or so, I'll give them all, like, little briefing
(32:31):
sheets and ask them to pick like, OK, what is it you want to
do? And they're allowed to make
alliances with each other. They're allowed to attack each
other. They just have to tell me about
it so I can figure out how I want to work it into the book or
if it's going to work into the book or if I just want to be
that cruel. I guess kind of not Dungeon
Master, but like writing Master and just completely torpedo
(32:52):
their efforts and what? A fun thing to do together.
It, it should be interesting because my kids are already
plotting. Like they don't even know how
this book starts, but they're already plotting.
They're already figuring out like how to backstab each other.
So like. Oh my God, I can't believe how
many plates you're spinning. Are you like a super organized
person? Do you have a like everything
(33:13):
planned out? I do, I carry around a little
like notebook that's got like 4 craft notebooks in it.
You know, one for short story ideas, one for like where I am
with different projects, one forstuff I need to do to the house
and then my day-to-day schedule.But yeah, I, I, I try to stay
busy and it's becoming more of achallenge as my kids get older
(33:36):
and there's less for me to do around the house.
Like my oldest is, will be 26 this year.
My youngest is already talking about a driver's license.
So I've only got 1 left in high school.
Wow. OK.
Yeah, yeah. I'm going to be an empty nester
in the next 8 years so. Just out of curiosity, how much
time do you devote to? Writing then about two or three
(33:57):
hours a day if I'm strictly doing it by hand.
I have this year tried my hand out at the whole like Stephen
King dictating into like a voicenotes app.
It works extremely well. I am finding out that I do lack
the ability or I guess I'm not that great at spinning plates I
guess. I'm currently editing one of the
(34:18):
stories that I almost solely dictated to a voice notes app.
I have a 2 hour commute every day and I found out that like
remembering where I left off theday before is not something I'm
entirely great at. My character, you know at one
point changes names like 3 timesin like a one hour recording.
Some details like I've got this weird character that shows up in
(34:42):
the middle of the chapter and I have no idea because it was like
a month ago when I recorded it why the characters there.
The female lead in the book has changed names like 6 times and
44,000 words. So I'm getting used to that part
of it. I don't know how he does it.
I don't know if he does like a refresher every day that I just
I'll turn it on, get in the car,head up to DC to work and start
(35:04):
talking. And the dialogue works better
that way because it it sounds like human beings talking but
the pros is questionable sometimes.
But at least if it's done, you can edit, right?
Like you can't edit if you didn't do it at all.
So. I can, and occasionally I have
to edit out my asking other DC drivers what they're doing.
(35:26):
So I'm sure you word it like that too.
Exactly. Can I ask you a final question
about to closes out for those? Actually, where does the
nickname Rich come from? Because it's not in his.
Name. So that'll come out in Book 2,
but it's going to end up being aname that his Marines, like the
(35:48):
enlisted Marines saddled him with, and that there's going to
be some sort of tie in to his brother who died at Shanghai in
37 in that prologue. There's going to be a little bit
of a tie. You know, he's he's going to
have been involved with coming up with that name.
But it's mostly because his Marines look at him as a guy who
kind of lives on the edge. And calling him Edge wouldn't
(36:09):
have been World War 2 appropriate.
But Ridge was a common name backthen, so.
If you'd called him Edge, I feellike I would have thought he was
like a skateboarder or something, yeah.
Yeah, there's definitely like a a Mohawk, tattoos, piercing
baggy Jenko, you know, 90s pantsfeeling to that where Ridge was.
You know, I kept looking up lists of possible nicknames in
(36:32):
the 20s, thirties, 40s and 50s and Ridge showed up like 3 or 4
times. I did the same thing when I was
trying to come up with his firstname.
I was like, what were the most popular baby names in 1920?
And you know, 6 different websites every came up like 7
times. I was like, OK, that's
interesting. It's on there twice, so.
Yeah, I do feel like if my name were Everett, I would probably
(36:53):
want a nickname as well. Yeah, and I'm, I'm absolutely
sticking with the he hates firstname, The one character Lampkin,
his first name was originally Greg in the first draft, but I
wanted him to have something to kind of commiserate with Ridge
about, which is where his, you know, the first name Aloysius
actually came from. And he, you know, he hates that
(37:14):
name too, so. Gosh, when's the last time
you've encountered someone namedAloysius?
In my life right before I retired.
There's a school around here that used to be called St.
Aloysius, but I'm not sure that I've ever met a person.
It's it's one of those strange ones.
I had an 18 year old sailor check on about a month before I
retired from the Navy to the USSJames U Williams, whose name was
(37:35):
Aloysius, and I was just like, oh man, I hope you, I hope you
gave your parents help for that.Absolutely.
Thank you everybody for listening.
Actually, thank you Matt for being on the show, first of all.
Thank you for having me. And you can send this officer to
your friend if you like. You can follow us on Instagram
(37:57):
at Rosie the Reviewer Podcast. You can visit our website,
rosiethereviewer.com. Or you can read us five stars if
you like. And we would like you to do that
and we'll see you next. Week.
Welcome to Rosie the Reviewer. We're your host.
I'm Sam. And I'm Mark June.
And we like World War 2 media and we want to talk about it.
Frost sauntered into the office of Captain Edwin Hendricks,
United States Navy, with his hands cuffed tightly behind him,
four days of scruff on his jaw and his big uniform, a tattered
(00:24):
set of black and white striped coveralls, disheveled nearly
beyond belief. The garden, a fresh young
private named Timmons, stopped afull 4 paces behind Ridge,
intent, it seemed, on keeping himself well out of harm's way
and halt the garden sweep. Ridge stopped 10 paces from the
captain's desk. He waited without coming to
attention or parade rest 10 seconds passed, then 10 more,
(00:47):
and then 30 without looking up. Hendrix snarled.
You can sound off anytime you like.
Frost said nothing. Welcome back to Rosie the
Reviewer. This week, we have a special
episode where we are interviewing an author, which
(01:08):
we're very excited about. We're talking about the book
Other than Honorable, which comes out this year in 2025.
And the author's name is Matt Hardman.
He's a retired U.S. Navy chief Petty Officer and
current John Hopkins University faculty member.
Welcome, Matt. Thank you for having me.
Can we put you on the spot to give us the elevator pitch about
your book? The elevator pitch.
(01:30):
So I created an American versionof James Bond, who's much less
suave, much less of a misogynist, and he's kind of
lost. He's not a very good spy to
start with. And then I kind of throw him to
the wolves. Yeah, that's about the
impression that we got to you a Mart.
Yeah, I was wondering if you were going to bring up James
(01:50):
Bond, and you did so. I did he he was one of the
inspirations for this character,but I wanted him to feel less
professional about the whole spybusiness.
Yeah, we love that. First of all, I'm a little bit
interested about your backgroundbecause you have a bachelor's in
intelligence studies and counterintelligence from the
(02:11):
military university and you havea method in writing.
So it seems like that's the perfect combination to write
Spyberg can. You tell.
Me a little bit about how that came about.
The undergrad is less cool than it sounds.
It was. It was effectively, Yeah.
It's unfortunately, like I didn't get to read a whole lot
(02:31):
of fiction, spy novels or anything like that.
It was a lot of just how to prepare reports, analysis,
thinking, logic, a lot. It seems like every class was
based in logic. So it's significantly less cool
than it sounds on paper. But it allows me to do my day
job, which also has nothing to do with intelligence.
It's just I'm sort of continuingwhat I used to do when I was in
(02:53):
the Navy, which is Marine engineering.
So, but with the writing part, Ithink I've been on this path
since I was maybe 8. My dad handed me a copy of The
Hunt for Red October when I was 8 or 9.
I read the book, you know, 10 years later, you know, I'm in a
recruiting office volunteering to be on a submarine. 20 years
later, I retire. So I think I've been on this
(03:13):
trajectory the whole time for the last 30 plus years.
So if you've been a writer longer then you've been a
military person then? Oh, writing.
So my, my, so I have, I have a couple of older brothers and one
of them used to talk me into doing these young author
competitions when I was a kid, when I was really young.
(03:36):
You know, you can barely spell. But you know, he's like, here,
here's a blank book. We're going to fill this out.
I'm going to illustrate it because I can't draw to save my
life. I can barely draw a stick
figure, much less illustrate a children's novel.
But yeah, he talked me into doing that for like 3 or 4
straight years from like age 6 on.
So I think the first book I everwrote was about 3 Snakes on
Vacation and it was, it was likea little board book, nothing
(03:59):
impressive at all. What made you want to write a
spinal for them? Everything I read growing up was
either classic literature, Dickens, Dumas, Dostoyevsky or
Clancy. Stephen Cones, Stephen Hunter, a
lot of Tom Clancy back then. And I think that it was always
in the back of my head to try itone day.
(04:21):
It just ended up having to wait until I was significantly less
busy. So I had to wait till I retired
from the Navy to to give this a shot.
And my first two books coming out of Hopkins were both Tom
Clancy style military thrillers.And I, you know, I kind of took
some time off and reread the oldJohn Leckere novels and the Ian
Fleming early Bond novels. And I was like, you know what, I
(04:44):
think I can do this. This sounds like more fun than
the stuff I write now. So off I went.
It is really fun, we both reallyenjoyed it, but I really did
read your book. I appreciate it.
And one of the reasons you're on, well, the reason you're on
our podcast is because it said during World War 2, what made
you pick World War 2? So I was reading through your
(05:05):
questions. I saw that one and I saw is
there anything Cold War coming out?
And I wanted to hit up both timeperiods, but I needed a good
starting point. So I decided to just start at
the beginning of World War 2 andmove him through World War 2 at
different points and off into the Cold War.
You know, the early days of the Cold War.
(05:25):
I don't know that I have. You're both familiar with the
Tom Clancy universe, the Jack Ryan universe.
There's a character in there named John Clark, who was a
Vietnam era SEAL who's still going in the books.
I don't know that I have an intent for Ridge Frost to be
doing this when he's 80. Maybe he'll pass the torch on as
we move forward. But but yeah, I definitely want
(05:46):
to cover both time periods. So the prologue starting in 19,
37, and then this first story happening right there at the
beginning, right before the Nazis rolled into Poland and the
world was just told about, hey, we discovered nuclear fission.
It seemed like a really good starting point for Frost's.
Career. Obviously when you write
(06:07):
something in in the World War 2,I want to say universe, but
that's a weird thing to say. If you write something said
during World War 2, you need to know a little bit about it.
Can you tell me a little bit about your research if you did
any? Most of my research for this one
was on 2 fronts. 1 was everything that happened in 1937
(06:29):
with the 4th Marines because that's not something that I was
ever taught in high school, in college, and not even in the
military. Like I was on 2 ships that
transported Marines and the Marines never even told me about
this. So I had to do a lot of research
about what the 4th Marines did in Shanghai, what the British
were doing in Shanghai, the Chinese, the Japanese, and that
(06:52):
took up a lot of time. And then the biggest thing that
I found that I absolutely did not know and could not find in a
book was trying to find out whatBerlin in 1939 felt like and
what parts of Europe actually felt like.
Like it's easy to look up pictures and be like, OK, the
restaurant that I picked look like this or the car look like
(07:13):
this, the hotel look like this. People talked like this.
That's, that's all well documented.
But to try and get that feel, I had to dig up some contacts.
People I've met since retiring from the Navy, people I met
while I was in the Navy that, you know, in their own words are
getting up there in age and, youknow, hey, what was it like back
(07:34):
then? What, what did it feel like?
And that took me. That was a good three or four
months of talking to people to try and get what it felt like
being, you know, kind of on the edge of that storm.
You almost think it feels like the deep breath before the
plunge, but is that just hindsight?
Because we know what comes next.Yeah.
And so I had that conversation and the answer that I routinely
(07:56):
got from people who could remember what it felt like.
And, you know, they're, they're in their, you know, late 90s
now. Somebody actually quoted the
line from Lord of the Rings at me about this, about having to
wait on the edge of something that you can't get away from.
That's what it felt like. And I was like, OK, that's
fascinating. So.
(08:16):
I do feel when I read your book,once Bridge gets to Berlin, I
feel that you've put research into that feeling because it
kind of translates really well into the paper.
I was talking to Sam about this before this recording yesterday
and we were talking about Berlin.
It's it's the most World War 2 in your book, I feel.
(08:39):
Even though the entirety of it is sat there in Berlin, it feels
really real to me. So one of the people I did talk
to is also somebody who grew up in the Midwest in Indiana.
And that's where that line wherewhere they're walking up the red
carpet and there's all this fanfare when they're going in to
see this speech. He mentioned that when he was
little and he was in Berlin whenthis was all going on, you know,
(09:02):
at the kind of, you know, heightof what it was like to be there.
He's like, it was a lot like going downtown Indianapolis on
the day, the Indianapolis 500, which is why that lines in the
book, which is, you know, why Ridge brings it up so.
Love that. Hang on, I need to look at the
question. This always happens.
I go off on attention and I forget tomorrow.
(09:24):
I do that every. Day.
Cool. Not just me, then.
No. So you've already said you.
You haven't. You had a name for career.
Did you put any of that into thebook?
Obviously Ridges. There you go.
Not in this one. Before I started this one, I
kind of picked out the next three or four points that I want
(09:45):
to use for the next three or four books.
There's definitely some of very,very loosely related to my
neighborly experience, but there's definitely some of that
in the next book in the sequel. There's definitely some
submarine adventures with Rich Frost in the next book, which
he's not going to be thrilled tohelp.
You know, he's he's very new to the spy business.
He's very unsure of himself. He's not the smoothest guy on
(10:08):
the planet. And I'm going to, in this case,
I'm going to throw them to the Wolf Pack, but.
That's a spider. We're getting more books.
That's cool. Yes, you are.
Most of the people we have on also, in one way or another,
have a personal connection to World War 2.
Is there any in your family? Not so much in my family.
(10:28):
So you mentioned that I'm a retired chief Petty Officer.
The day that I found out that I made chief, the chief's mess
that I was a part of their firstassignment was Find the first
chief Petty Officer you ever metand get a charge book entry from
hey, here's what you need to do when you finally put those
anchors on. And my brain froze at that
second because the first chief Petty Officer I ever met was a
(10:51):
guy I grew up playing golf with who was a principal at my
elementary school long before I went there.
And he was a chief Petty Officerwhose ship was bombed at
Guadalcanal. And you know, my brain froze for
a second because I wasn't 100% sure he was still alive when I
(11:11):
got that. But we had several conversations
in the years after I made chief about what it was like to be a
chief during World War 2 and what it's like now.
At one point, I think he did have actually like asked me like
he's like, so what's a chief make now?
And he told me what he made during World War 2, which was
like just over $140.00 a month. And I was just like, oh, wow,
(11:32):
that's awful. But that's my personal
connection is usually him. Most of my like my grandparents
were mostly farmers. The one military service that is
there was Korean War era. He missed.
He missed out. You don't really miss out on
World War 2. But he didn't deploy.
He snapped his leg when he was like 21 and he was supposed to
(11:56):
go. So the only time he deployed
was, you know, several years after the end of World War 2
when Korea was going on. Wow 140 bucks a month.
Like don't spend it all in one place.
Yeah, I'm like my, my C pay is like 3 times that.
And he's just like, that's ridiculous.
What do you do with all that? And I was like, well, it's a lot
more expensive to live now. Right.
(12:17):
It is, but also he's getting bombed on his ship.
I usually don't get shot at these days when I deploy SO.
Thank God for that. Yes.
So I have a question about your studies.
But you already said it isn't ascool as it looks.
But did you learn anything really cool in your studies?
(12:40):
Not necessarily at the school itself, but I did have a couple
of professors who were also history buffs who just kept
recommending book after book after book after book after
book. So now I have this entire like
section of bookshelf. It's just spy fiction, spy
nonfiction, World War Two, WorldWar One, Korea, Vietnam, Cold
(13:04):
War, American Revolution, Civil war.
So it's it's a pretty massive collection these days.
So that that may be the coolest thing was tying what he's
teaching me to how it has workedin the past or didn't work in
the past. Very cool.
I just think spies are awesome. It's such a childish thing to
say, but it's such a cool universe to write a book.
(13:28):
And I think, oh I agree. And also this has nothing to do
with your book once offer, but Ijust want to know what's it like
being on the submarine? It's interesting.
I'm trying to think what I can actually say about it.
It's interesting. It's not for people who are
claustrophobic. Not.
Familiar. I can still remember the first
(13:49):
time that we dove, the first time that we went below the
surface about 5 minutes after wedid it.
I remember walking by a depth gauge for the first time and I
just a little bit of a panic attack.
But, you know, once after a few hours, the novelty, I guess
wears off and there's so much todo, especially when you're
you're new, you're unqualified, you know, you don't have your
(14:11):
fish yet. You can't stand watch because
you don't know how to do anything.
The crew is highly motivated to take somebody like me who was
brand new and make sure that I'museful in some way, shape or
form. So within a few days, you know,
I found myself learning how to, you know, operate the helm, the
planes, the machinery in my spaces.
So it's it's an interesting life.
(14:33):
I spent most of my career on thesurface aircraft carriers, stuff
like that. But I definitely treasured the
time that I was on a submarine. I just almost wonder if it's
better not to know what you're doing, because once you know it
sounds just absolutely terrifying to me.
That's that. That's why we have submarines in
the 1st place. We always want the the surface
(14:55):
sailors not knowing what we're doing or where we are.
That's when it's really scary. Like it's, it's never scary when
you know where the submarine is or what it's doing.
When you don't know where it is,that's a problem.
I think those are my questions. I'm going to hand you over to
Sam, and Sam's going to talk a little bit more about your
actual book, so keep all my nerdiness to myself though.
(15:19):
Can you talk to us about the title?
Like for those of us who have never served, can you explain an
other than honorable discharge? I can.
So there's several types of discharges from the United
States military. There's the honorable discharge
and then there's this array of like, maybe you weren't so well
behaved other than honorable is it's usually classified as like
(15:41):
kind of an administrative discharge that it can be used
because you couldn't behave, butit can also be used for well,
mostly it's used because you couldn't behave otherwise.
We just call it an admin set. But and you're talking like
anything from, you know, you couldn't stop fighting.
You got caught stealing from somebody on the ship, something
that doesn't rise to the level of dishonorable in the time
(16:02):
period we're talking about. There was another term for it
was like blue sheet and it was specifically, it wasn't
exclusively used, but it, it wasused in the late 30s, early 40s
to remove individuals whose sexuality was questionable to
the United States military at the time.
(16:23):
And since then, you know, it took, I don't know, 70 years for
us to change our minds on that. But I needed a way to not
dishonorably discharge Frost. But I needed something that
portrayed him as a good Marine, but not the greatest Marine and
somebody the Marines had a problem with.
So I I needed him trapped in a in a nice neat little square so
(16:45):
I could boot him. Yeah, I mean, it's a really good
fit as a title. Your main character, Everett
Frost, as you said, perhaps not the best Marine.
And then when he sort of gets called up into spy action, he's
not innately great at that either.
So can you tell us a little bit about what you drew from what
inspired you? Did you?
Do you feel like you put anything of yourself into this
(17:07):
this character at all? Only the awkwardness.
So every like you, you got your your classic, you know, Bond spy
who's almost untouchable, almosthe becomes more untouchable
later on. You got the the books out there
where you have like super spies who never they never get hit,
they never get scratched, they never bleed.
(17:29):
And then you've got this world of like the Gray Man spy where
he just keeps getting the holy living crap kicked out of him.
He gets punched, he gets kicked,he gets shot, he gets stabbed.
He's not invulnerable. He's not necessarily perfect at
his job. He's not even necessarily, you
know, morally white. And I wanted a character who was
(17:51):
flawed, who was not considered an expert at the job, who was
kind of learning on the fly because in the time period we're
talking about, there wasn't exactly like a training course
for this on on our side of the ocean.
The OSS wasn't really up and running.
We definitely weren't, you know,training people in, you know, at
the farm in Virginia like you see in all the Tom Clancy books.
(18:11):
So they're taking this guy who all he really knows is how to be
a Marine officer. And they're like, yeah, by the
way, we're going to, we're goingto go have you do all this stuff
and you're going to be alone with no support, no safety net,
have fun. And the the last thing that I
wanted to do to him was I wantedhim to be a little bit more like
Jason Bourne than James Bond when it comes to the woman.
(18:34):
I did not want three women a novel.
I did not want the women to get progressively younger.
I didn't want any of that. I wanted him to be socially
awkward when it comes to women until I put that one in front of
him and that's the only one he cares about for as long as I
write the novels. Which sort of might answer one
of the other questions you get ready to ask.
(18:56):
Yeah, yeah, we the, I think a lot of people are maybe unaware
that World War 2 is really the advent of modern spycraft.
Like they're just people have a hard time, I think, imagining
that there was a world before the CIA, but there was.
Yeah. So we, we've talked a lot on
this podcast about the women of the Special Operations
Executive, the SOE, Violet Zabo,Virginia Hall, Noor, any icon.
(19:21):
And we were wondering if you have any plans for any potential
female spies for Ridge to link up with.
And we're also wondering if you can give us any hints about
about your female lead getting back in on the action.
So I, I, I read those questions and I was trying to figure out
how to answer them without giving too much away.
So the answer is yes, there's female spies coming for some of
(19:44):
the books coming up. There is going to be French and
Dutch resistance. Yes, Eva's coming back because
it would be inhumane to kill heroff because I would have to
change Ridge like he would have to go on a Rivers rampage.
She's coming back and it is theoretically possible in my
planning that she starts workingin tandem with Fridge in the
(20:06):
future. I thought the way you write her,
especially toward the end of thebook, she becomes almost more
and more competent than rich. Yeah, So there's a reason for
that. So the the first meeting when
they're on the train and bridge can't speak and she kind of does
(20:26):
the little like just below the table wave at him and they're
both really awkward around each other.
So I I wrote that that's part ofme.
That is me and my wife. She is largely based around how
we behave around each other and in something like this I believe
that my wife would be more confident than I am, which is
(20:47):
why Ava is written the way she is.
So she she is largely based on on my wife.
I love that, and we're definitely glad to hear that
she'll be back. We on this podcast, we
perennially complain about the lack of female characters of
World War 2 media, especially female characters who actually
have something to do. So we really love that about Ava
in your book. I appreciate it.
(21:07):
Thank you. When we read World War 2 novels,
we tend to get excited when we see references to things we've
read about that your average reader might not recognize, kind
of little Easter eggs. And an example that comes to
mind for me from your book is the bit where you can tell that
the Nazis have been using amphetamines.
That's pretty clear from that passage.
I was wondering if you have any favorite rabbit holes that you
(21:28):
went down that you were really excited to include in your book?
That made it into the book. That was like 3 days that that
one specifically was like 3 daysof like, wow, really.
In writing the second one, I have gone down an enigma rabbit
hole that is absolutely fascinating.
It's and it's it's stuff that you're never told about, you
(21:50):
know, unless you, you know, read, you know, 400 books on the
subject. Like, I didn't know until, you
know, I started planning this series that there were, you
know, several variations of Enigma because you, you read,
you know, pop culture literature, stuff like that.
And you it's like, OK, it's justalways referred to as Enigma.
It's like, well, there's a navalvariant.
(22:12):
There's one with three rotors, there's one with four rotors,
there's one with five rotors. And there's different variants
of those different plug. And, and it's like, it is a this
massive rabbit hole that I've probably spent a month on so far
trying to figure out which one'sright for my next book.
And then the other rabbit hole that's absolutely fascinating
just from, you know, a standpoint of a marine engineer
(22:34):
and shipbuilding and, you know, having served on ships and
submarines is I got the entire tech manual for a German U boat,
plus the like we would call it an instruction manual like the
NAV admin or naval instruction for how to be the best U boat
commander you can possibly be. And reading through that and
(22:58):
figuring out the way that they fought, you know, direct from
them and not interpreted by historian after historian after
historian is fascinating. And I think I've spent about a
month on that too. Ash yeah, we love a primary
source. We're not on your level, but we
dabble a little bit in writing fiction, me and Mark, and we are
always. He's talking about when is the
time to stop reading the books and actually write something.
(23:21):
Never do both at the same time. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Is there a piece of real intelligence in this book that
you think most readers won't notice?
So I've, I've noticed that quitea few people thought it was a
much shorter time frame from thediscovery of fission until, you
know, the bombs dropped in August of 45.
(23:42):
And I mentioned in the book and in, you know, in his briefing,
like, hey, we're going to send you to Germany and you're going
to go get this information because these guys in Germany
said that they can split atoms. And these guys in the US just
told the president they can makea bomb out of it.
And that, you know, that happened in, you know, 1939.
And I think there's this odd, like when you, you know, if you
(24:03):
only watch movies, especially onthis side of the ocean where we
like to shorten everything and, you know, extra special effects.
And I think there is this like, hey, it was a much shorter time
frame from the discovery. It's like, no, they were working
on this for like 6 years. Even if it was just a study, you
know, that was signed on by Roosevelt upfront in 1939.
(24:24):
We were already concerned about where the Nazis were with atomic
weapons research. So I think that for this book
was fascinating. And then the history of for the
next book, the history of, you know, the actual cracking of
Enigma and how long that stayed a secret to the Nazis.
(24:44):
Like how long the Nazis were just completely unaware that the
Enigma wasn't quite as secure asthey thought it was.
That's also just fascinating to me, reading about Polish
intelligence and all they actually did leading up to the
individuals at Bletchley Park and Alan Turing and the various
phrase where Enigma machines were captured.
That's just fascinating. It's not something we get a lot
(25:05):
of here, unfortunately. Here we like to focus on D-Day
to the end of the war, and that's about it.
It's for that theater. And we'll, you know, Americans
will talk forever about the Pacific theater.
But yeah, for some reason we're obsessed with June 6th, 1944 is
the start of World War 2. And it's like that's not true.
Like Europe was fighting this guy for a long time.
(25:25):
That's something we talk about too, because she's Dutch and I'm
Canadian, and obviously the Dutch didn't have a lot of
options in terms of getting involved in the war.
And I mean, in Canada, we declared war at the same time as
the Brits did. And so, yeah, so we, we
frequently talk about that because we, I mean, we love the
Saving Private Ryans and the Band of Brothers and all that
stuff, and they're great. But also, there's so many little
(25:46):
stories like that that we're like, oh, it'd be nice if
someone, you know, threw $100 million at that, you know?
Like something a book that I just picked up recently was Alex
Kershaw's The Few about the air battle from 1939 on.
And the very few, like Americans, Canadians, who
(26:06):
against all of the rules skipped, made it to England and
fought for the RAF in these little kind of tossed together
squadrons until, you know, the US finally got there, their
button here, and decided to showup.
Yeah, It's so interesting. We recently talked about a
memoir that I had read by a FreeFrench fighter pilot and
literally just, yeah, your country gets taken over and
(26:27):
you're like, all right, well, then he just went to Britain and
flew with the RAF and I'm just like, this is wild.
I mean. He may.
I forgot what his name is, but he makes an appearance in a few.
Yeah. He's he's in there with and
yeah, 2 days ago I could have pulled the guys name out of thin
air. An American bobsledder who was
(26:49):
world famous at the time, who was like, yeah, I'm disappearing
and going to fight, going to become a fighter pilot.
Oh, yeah, yeah. And we actually a few weeks ago,
we also covered the movie slash book about MO Berg, the American
baseball player who was sent overseas to collect intelligence
about the Germans making the atomic bomb.
(27:09):
So we also just coincidentally also recently talked about that.
And it's so interesting how now we know that the Germans never
really got close, right? But at the time, it was
obviously a huge concern. It was like, even if there's a
5% chance me at the atomic bomb,like we have to know about it.
OK, so if there were to be a film adaptation, who's your
(27:31):
who's your Dreamcast, Who's playing Ridge?
Who's playing Ava? What are we thinking?
So, you know, funny enough, before I wrote the book, I sat
down and I, I pulled pictures off the Internet of what my
characters look like so I could write the book and be like, OK,
that's what Ridge looks like. That's what Ava looks like.
That's what. And it cracks people up when I
(27:52):
show it to them. But Ridge was imagined as like
an like a 25 year old Gary Cooper.
So I don't think I'm going to beable to, you know, if this ever
becomes a Netflix movie or anything, I don't think I'm
going to be able to get Gary Cooper.
But I would sell for like. I think Netflix has the cash to
raise him from the grave no problem.
Ava was Sarah Gadon from 11/22/63.
(28:14):
She's been in some other stuff that you know, off the top of my
head. I can't remember her brother
Elias. The picture that I have is Neil
Patrick Harris from Starship Troopers in the retro like Nazi
uniforms, some of Ridge's bossesat Unit 12.
One of them is Jason Alexander from Seinfeld.
(28:35):
At one point I couldn't decide who Captain Hendricks was, but
in my head I always pictured himas Humphrey Bogart from the Cane
Mutiny, as Captain Queeg. Like, that's, that's the idea
that I had in mind when I was writing him.
Yeah, I've got an entire spreadsheet with all of their
pictures and little bio notes. I love that, and I'm especially
(28:57):
entertained by the idea of Neil Patrick Harris playing just a
villainous Nazi and maybe doing a German accent.
Like for some reason that reallytickles me.
Yeah, I, I as soon as I wrote the name of the character down,
I knew exactly what picture I was looking for of Neil Patrick
Harris. It's that one where he shows up
as a Colonel and Starship Troopers.
I was like, that's the one. Amazing.
(29:17):
Just to wrap about my section here, what's the part of this
book that no one talks about butyou're secretly really proud of?
So far, it's the character of Ava.
People that you know, they immediately, immediately latch
on to Ridge Frost because he's the main character.
They latch on to the bad guy because they hate his guts
almost as an afterthought. Like people do keep coming back
(29:38):
to that Gerald character who just kind of vanishes part way
through the book. And there's a reason for that.
But I love the way that I wrote Ava.
I think that I got where I wanted to be with her and her
relationship and what she's beenable to, you know, how
entrancing she is to Ridge. I think I very rarely hear that
(29:59):
that's the favorite character inthe book.
You better throw some tough shitthough.
I did and and she turns out to be the one that gets the job
done in the end. So which is why I kind of hinted
it, yes, she's coming back and yes, she's probably going to be,
you know, it's going to become ateam effort.
(30:21):
So you've already told us you have a pretty big collection of
books, but can you recommend us some?
Do you have any favorite opportunity books?
Some. Favorite.
Oh man, my favorite World War Two book of all time is the K
meeting, which was significantlyless funny.
It was not that funny the first time I read it after serving on
(30:45):
a destroyer. The book's hilarious.
It's like seeing Full Metal Jacket before you go to boot
camp and then watching it again right after you get out of boot
camp. Who said?
Bye Herman. But like for nonfiction,
fiction, spy related stuff, I love The Secret War by Sir Max
Hastings and anything by John Leckerry.
Not necessarily World War Two there, it's mostly Cold War, but
(31:08):
anything involving George Smileyand Carla.
I love those books. I wouldn't be a proper
submariner if I didn't mention Blind Man's Bluff is a favorite
Cold War book. I might get disowned for that.
Well. Hopefully not, You've already
given us some spoilers, but do you have anything you want to
flag? Is there anything you want to
(31:28):
sell? Not so, but just black.
No, I, this is, it's, it's odd that you know, I, I got this
book kind of out of my system, have the plans for the next few
books out. And I'm, I'm actually working on
some stuff now, like I mentionedthat my kids kind of like just
to see, I'm trying my hand at other genres just to see what I
(31:50):
can do. I think I've got 4 projects
going on right now. So I've got something that's a
little bit like the gunslinger the Dark Tower series by Stephen
King. I've got something that's a
little bit like the Foundation series by Isaac Asimov, got one
that is specifically me involving my kids in the writing
process. A picture of Pirates of
Caribbean, but like Game of Thrones style.
(32:11):
I'm told each of. So it's me, my wife and six kids
and I have told each of my kids that they are a pirate lawyer
lady. I just offed the 8th pirate king
and now they all have to fight for the throne.
It's kind of a choose your own adventure for them.
So, you know, I've got a few chapters, you know, sometime in
the next month or so, I'll give them all, like, little briefing
(32:31):
sheets and ask them to pick like, OK, what is it you want to
do? And they're allowed to make
alliances with each other. They're allowed to attack each
other. They just have to tell me about
it so I can figure out how I want to work it into the book or
if it's going to work into the book or if I just want to be
that cruel. I guess kind of not Dungeon
Master, but like writing Master and just completely torpedo
(32:52):
their efforts and what? A fun thing to do together.
It, it should be interesting because my kids are already
plotting. Like they don't even know how
this book starts, but they're already plotting.
They're already figuring out like how to backstab each other.
So like. Oh my God, I can't believe how
many plates you're spinning. Are you like a super organized
person? Do you have a like everything
(33:13):
planned out? I do, I carry around a little
like notebook that's got like 4 craft notebooks in it.
You know, one for short story ideas, one for like where I am
with different projects, one forstuff I need to do to the house
and then my day-to-day schedule.But yeah, I, I, I try to stay
busy and it's becoming more of achallenge as my kids get older
(33:36):
and there's less for me to do around the house.
Like my oldest is, will be 26 this year.
My youngest is already talking about a driver's license.
So I've only got 1 left in high school.
Wow. OK.
Yeah, yeah. I'm going to be an empty nester
in the next 8 years so. Just out of curiosity, how much
time do you devote to? Writing then about two or three
(33:57):
hours a day if I'm strictly doing it by hand.
I have this year tried my hand out at the whole like Stephen
King dictating into like a voicenotes app.
It works extremely well. I am finding out that I do lack
the ability or I guess I'm not that great at spinning plates I
guess. I'm currently editing one of the
(34:18):
stories that I almost solely dictated to a voice notes app.
I have a 2 hour commute every day and I found out that like
remembering where I left off theday before is not something I'm
entirely great at. My character, you know at one
point changes names like 3 timesin like a one hour recording.
Some details like I've got this weird character that shows up in
(34:42):
the middle of the chapter and I have no idea because it was like
a month ago when I recorded it why the characters there.
The female lead in the book has changed names like 6 times and
44,000 words. So I'm getting used to that part
of it. I don't know how he does it.
I don't know if he does like a refresher every day that I just
I'll turn it on, get in the car,head up to DC to work and start
(35:04):
talking. And the dialogue works better
that way because it it sounds like human beings talking but
the pros is questionable sometimes.
But at least if it's done, you can edit, right?
Like you can't edit if you didn't do it at all.
So. I can, and occasionally I have
to edit out my asking other DC drivers what they're doing.
(35:26):
So I'm sure you word it like that too.
Exactly. Can I ask you a final question
about to closes out for those? Actually, where does the
nickname Rich come from? Because it's not in his.
Name. So that'll come out in Book 2,
but it's going to end up being aname that his Marines, like the
(35:48):
enlisted Marines saddled him with, and that there's going to
be some sort of tie in to his brother who died at Shanghai in
37 in that prologue. There's going to be a little bit
of a tie. You know, he's he's going to
have been involved with coming up with that name.
But it's mostly because his Marines look at him as a guy who
kind of lives on the edge. And calling him Edge wouldn't
(36:09):
have been World War 2 appropriate.
But Ridge was a common name backthen, so.
If you'd called him Edge, I feellike I would have thought he was
like a skateboarder or something, yeah.
Yeah, there's definitely like a a Mohawk, tattoos, piercing
baggy Jenko, you know, 90s pantsfeeling to that where Ridge was.
You know, I kept looking up lists of possible nicknames in
(36:32):
the 20s, thirties, 40s and 50s and Ridge showed up like 3 or 4
times. I did the same thing when I was
trying to come up with his firstname.
I was like, what were the most popular baby names in 1920?
And you know, 6 different websites every came up like 7
times. I was like, OK, that's
interesting. It's on there twice, so.
Yeah, I do feel like if my name were Everett, I would probably
(36:53):
want a nickname as well. Yeah, and I'm, I'm absolutely
sticking with the he hates firstname, The one character Lampkin,
his first name was originally Greg in the first draft, but I
wanted him to have something to kind of commiserate with Ridge
about, which is where his, you know, the first name Aloysius
actually came from. And he, you know, he hates that
(37:14):
name too, so. Gosh, when's the last time
you've encountered someone namedAloysius?
In my life right before I retired.
There's a school around here that used to be called St.
Aloysius, but I'm not sure that I've ever met a person.
It's it's one of those strange ones.
I had an 18 year old sailor check on about a month before I
retired from the Navy to the USSJames U Williams, whose name was
(37:35):
Aloysius, and I was just like, oh man, I hope you, I hope you
gave your parents help for that.Absolutely.
Thank you everybody for listening.
Actually, thank you Matt for being on the show, first of all.
Thank you for having me. And you can send this officer to
your friend if you like. You can follow us on Instagram
(37:57):
at Rosie the Reviewer Podcast. You can visit our website,
rosiethereviewer.com. Or you can read us five stars if
you like. And we would like you to do that
and we'll see you next. Week.
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