August 5, 2025 • 17 mins
The New York Times bestselling master of suspense, Jeffery Deaver, returns to his beloved series, adapted for TV in CBS's Tracker, starring Justin Hartley. Reward seeker Colter Shaw races against the clock in SOUTH OF NOWHERE (G.P. Putnam's Son's; On-Sale: May 6, 2025), to save a flooding town from a full-fledged disaster, where the culprit lurks in the plain sight.
When a levee collapses in Hinowah, a small town in Northern California, Colter Shaw is brought on by his sister, Dorion, a disaster response specialist, to help locate a family swept away by the raging water, with mere hours to survive. But after a surprise attack along the river obstructs Colter's urgent search, the siblings are forced to consider a new reality: Is the levee at risk of failing from natural causes, or is someone sabotaging it?
Colter and Dorion must race against a ticking clock to uncover the truth and save the citizens before the village washes out completely, destroying everything and everyone in its path.
Fans of the hit CBS show Tracker and Deaver fans alike will thrill to a fifth Shaw adventure and SOUTH OF NOWHERE will not disappoint.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/arroe-collins-unplugged-totally-uncut--994165/support.
When a levee collapses in Hinowah, a small town in Northern California, Colter Shaw is brought on by his sister, Dorion, a disaster response specialist, to help locate a family swept away by the raging water, with mere hours to survive. But after a surprise attack along the river obstructs Colter's urgent search, the siblings are forced to consider a new reality: Is the levee at risk of failing from natural causes, or is someone sabotaging it?
Colter and Dorion must race against a ticking clock to uncover the truth and save the citizens before the village washes out completely, destroying everything and everyone in its path.
Fans of the hit CBS show Tracker and Deaver fans alike will thrill to a fifth Shaw adventure and SOUTH OF NOWHERE will not disappoint.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/arroe-collins-unplugged-totally-uncut--994165/support.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Good morning, Jeffrey. How are you doing?
Speaker 2 (00:02):
Oh? Oh, very good, Thank you. And one thing I
have to do a little housekeeping here. Apparently some literature
went out with the character of my book Misspelled. You
may know this, but the character is culture Shaw col
t Er some of the material. I don't know whether
you got it or not, but some of the interviewers
have Cultunshaw, but this is culture show.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
What is that like for you? Because I know that
when my first book came out, there were a lot
of typos like that, and it kind of just got
into my soul, going okay, okay, I do my homework.
Who dropped the ball? I mean, do you think like that?
Speaker 2 (00:34):
Oh? Absolutely? And congratulations on writing. What genre do you
work in? You know?
Speaker 1 (00:39):
I started out with trying to be one of those
inspirational writers, and they put me in the religious section.
I said, that's not what I said we were going
to do. I mean, and I even went into Barnes
and Noble and I said, I'm not religious on this
book because I don't want to push anybody away, and
so sometimes it gets really difficult, you know, when it
comes to those genres.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
Yeah, I mean inspirational writing. Actually it's very important and
it's some fine writing, and you know you don't want
that to fall by the wayside. So although I'll tell
you a funny story about speaking of you know, somebody
dropping the ball. I go to an interview and I
don't know if you ever heard of this guy, but
they say the radio presenter didn't. Just looked at the
(01:19):
fast sheet and said, and now my next guest Jeffrey Archer. Now,
Jeffrey Archer. You know it's a British politician. As a
matter of factor, did a little time in jail for
some kind of financial thing. I think I don't remember
what that was, but it still came out and was
you know, did I kept kept writing and I thought, well,
do I correct on live radio? Do I correct the announcer?
(01:41):
And I said, hell, yes.
Speaker 3 (01:43):
I'm sorry. That's that's good. I wish I were Jeffrey Archer,
but I'm not. He said, oh yeah, okay, I got it.
I got it mixed up and that was from the
radio station's problem. But anyway, so there we've got culture
Shaw now and we're all set to go.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
Don't you love those moments? So when that where we
trip and stumble only because to me that gives me
a book idea or an idea to slip into a paragraph.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
Oh, you know, I'm a walking sponge. I get so
much idea. I get so many ideas just looking around.
And you know, my girlfriend says hello, hello, Jeff, are
you with us? And because I've been you know, I
mean it's not like I'm taking notes while we're out
to dinner, but I'll hear a conversation, you know, a
(02:28):
couple maybe having a fight or a disagreement or something,
and I think, oh, that's interesting. I never heard it
put quite that way. And it goes into the UH,
goes into the hopper and who knows where it's going
to come out again.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
Yeah, well, when you have a title like South of Nowhere,
I mean seriously that that did that just drop into
your head and you're going, yeah, that's where I'm going.
Speaker 2 (02:49):
I'll tell you. And this will require a or just
a little background of the book. The book is, of
course a culture Shaw book. The character from Tracker, and
it's that he's come to a small town to seek
a reward. That's his job to find a family who's
been in an suv and has fallen into the UH.
This flooding river and the levee is about to break.
(03:12):
All kinds of exciting stuff going on. But the town
U is named Hinoa, and that's a an indigenous UH
name of the the uh the nation, the Native American nation.
There is the Olone related tribes. That's I'm too much
(03:32):
in the weeds there. But but anyway, Heinoa was the
name of the town and a lot of weird stuff
goes on south of it. And I'm thinking south of Heinoa,
south of nowhere, south of nowhere, and so it it
hit me like a ton of bricks. I said, that's
the title, and uh, but sometimes they're really hard. I mean, titles.
(03:55):
Can you know, how do I come up with a title?
I look for which vein do I want to open?
It's that difficult, yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
Because you know, we all judge a book by its cover.
And we also you know, when we're on Amazon or
we go into Barnes and Noble, we see a title
and we go, what, let me look into this.
Speaker 2 (04:12):
I I'm a business person. I tell my students when
I teach my writing course that you are Procter and gamble.
It's your job to create a product and that product
has to sell, just like toothpaste does you don't make
liver flavored toothpaste. Nobody wants it. They want mind flavored paste.
And they don't want it called like tooth stuff. They
(04:35):
want it called you know, Pepsidad or Colgate or this
is a product placement. I can just can't think of
any other toothpaste. But but you know, it's it's a
it's something that is going to appeal to the readers.
The title I'm saying, and you know it's really hard.
And the jacket too. You know, even now, we do
a lot of purchasing on I mean, I'm a big
(04:57):
fan of independent bookshops, but let's face it, a lot
of sales on Amazon and online and Barnes and Noble
online and other bookstores online. Well, you know, the covers
maybe a little tiny thing. Well, maybe we have to
adjust the cover now, Maybe the jacket has to look
a little bit different because people are going to look
at it on their tiny computer screen or even I
can't say worse because I do that too, but even
(05:19):
more so on the phone. That little tiny thing.
Speaker 1 (05:21):
Yeah, but Jeffrey, I am a page whore. What the
texture of that page gets my attention? I don't know
why it is. But if that page does not feel
right in my fingertips, I have a problem with that.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
Well, Eric, I'll tell you something very interesting, and I
learned this from the writing process. Excuse me. When I
write a book, come out with the first draft very quickly.
South of nowhere probably wrote the first draft. Well, I
planned it out for eight months. I do a long outline.
But then when I write the book, bang out. It
comes in two months, one hundred thousand words. But that's
kind of the start of the game. Then I have
(05:55):
to edit it. So I edited on the computer, but
then I print it out on paper and read it,
and it's a different experience. It's a richer experience on paper, absolutely,
And that's not I'm sure. I don't know. A scientist
the doctor could tell us why. But it is an
objectively different experience. You see it more, you realize the
(06:17):
scenes better on paper, So there's no there's no getting
around that.
Speaker 1 (06:23):
See. That's the reason why I've dropped my kindle, because
I mean, yes, it was so comfortable to be able
to whip out that kindle and you know, at the
drop of a hat. But the thing about it is
there was no texture to it. There was nothing for
except for my hand to sit there and get cramps
in and just holding that kindle.
Speaker 2 (06:38):
Well, I'll tell you something about the kindle and the
Amazon experience. I publish with Putnam publishes my Lincoln Rhyme Books,
The Bone collect the Books, the Culture Shaw Books, out
of Nowhere in the Never Game. That's the basis for
the TV show. But I also published with Amazon.
Speaker 1 (06:54):
And why is that?
Speaker 2 (06:55):
Because I love short fiction. I write short stories and
Amazon on is a huge market. And I'll tell you
this fast story. Of course, I buy a lot of
stuff on Amazon. During COVID, we got in that experience.
I need office supplies and I need computer stuff. Sometimes
I can't find it, but I get an Amazon package. Well,
I don't know. A couple of months ago, I got
an Amazon package. I don't know, open it up, what
(07:19):
is it? Well, look at this, it's a loose like que.
So anyway, I opened it up and it's a loose
I que and I thought, well, that's pretty weird. Maybe
you know, I don't know. A couple days ago, I
had a glass of wine too many. Who doesn't need
an extra loose I que? Right?
Speaker 1 (07:34):
I ordered one. I turn it over.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
Congratulations, from Amazon Publishing. There have been two hundred and
fifty thousand downloads of your latest short story, and I thought, well, okay,
that's not bad, and those are kindled only for now,
but in a nod to you and other readers like yourself,
I am now getting the rights to put those in print,
and I will publish them in print because people they
(07:59):
like the paper stuff.
Speaker 1 (08:01):
Are you doing anything with tickbook at all, because it
seems that that seems to be where everybody's going as well.
Speaker 2 (08:07):
Well, you know, I have a social media director and
she's absolutely wonderful and she does all my posting. I mean,
I don't even know how to tag people. I don't
even know what that means. I you know, send that
all over her and she's great. She gets me. I have,
you know, hundreds of thousands of people around the world,
and she handles handles all of that. And I asked
her about it, and she said, well, like TikTok and
(08:28):
tickbook or book talk or whatever it's called, she said,
the only thing about that is that you have to
devote a portion of your life to it. You have
to do it every day, and otherwise it, you know,
you get lost in the millions of posts and everything
like that, and I thought, well, no, I don't want
to do that. I sit in a dark room for
(08:49):
ten hours a day and I make stuff up for
a living dog at my feet, and that's all I
want to do. And you know, of course I do
little videos when a book is released, and you know,
I might do a YouTube thing now and then, but
the idea of actually doing a you know, a regular thing,
and you've got to get it right, you know, And
to be honest with you, I know we're a radio now,
(09:12):
but I don't necessarily have a face made for video,
and so I'm pretty happy just to you know, stick
with the traditional stuff. I've learned to call it insta
though I said Instagram, but I was corrected, no that,
you know, the girls in the family said, oh, Jeff, no,
it's Insta and so you know the terms of art.
(09:35):
And also snap, it's not snapcham'nap.
Speaker 1 (09:39):
Isn't it hell to be a human?
Speaker 2 (09:40):
I mean?
Speaker 1 (09:40):
Is every day's that new lesson?
Speaker 2 (09:43):
Oh? Well, I mean, I idea, I feel I need
to take notes. Well, you know, I'm just a very
fast story. I was. I'm a producer of Tracker, and
I told that to the family. But the way I
put it was, I'm so proud of this. As being
a little silly, I said, you know, asked, I'm a
Hollywood mogul, and they all laugh. But then my my niece,
(10:05):
who is probably twelve at the time, then later in
the day she said just she had some friends over, said, yeah,
that's my uncle. He's a Hollywood mongrel. And you know, so,
I mean, I've had a wonderful experience with Ken o
Ollen and Justin Artley and Roxy Oland, everybody on the
(10:26):
show has been absolutely fan fantastic, but we all have
Hollywood stories, you know, where there had been a few
mongols involved.
Speaker 1 (10:32):
Please do not move. There's more with Jeffrey Deaver coming
up next. Hey, thanks for coming back to my conversation
with author and producer Jeffrey Deaver. What do you do
with all your personalities? Do you give them each a name?
Because there's several things that I do. Each personality has
a different name because I don't want them to mix
up and you know, and and and you know cross
over into each other. So when you're doing tracker versus
(10:54):
writing books, I mean, that's got to be two different personalities.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
Oh absolutely, Yeah, Yeah, and it's interesting you say that
it's a very clever thing to do. I never really
thought about it quite in terms that that are, you know,
that well thought out. But I go into a different
place in my mind and I do the same creating
a book. When I outline, I'm in one phase. When
(11:18):
I write the book, come in another one. And it's
like you use the left part of your brain for
the structure, and then once the outline is done, you
use the right part of your brain to put it
all together. For instance, there's a scene in in South
of Nowhere where Coulter is worried that there could be
(11:40):
a bomb in the levee. It's going to collapse and
kill all these people, and there's there's no time the
terrible storm, the roads are down, there's no time to
get a bomb squad there detector. So I thought, well,
how am I going to do that? You know? And
here's did some research, here's the right side of my
(12:00):
Apparently you can train honey bees to search for explosives
within ten minutes. Yep takes the dog two weeks. Pigs
are good. The pigs take about a week, honey bees
ten minutes. And so, well, where did that come from.
I mean, I didn't know it until I researched it,
but I just the right part of my brain was saying,
(12:22):
Colder's got to save the day finding a bomb. How's
he going to do it? Helicopter into a you know,
a bomb disposable plays, get one of their devices. Yeah,
that's not really going to work. Looked it up. There
we go, and so you know, ero, just remember that
you want to carry honey bees around with you just
in case you're ever in a situation where you might
find yourself next to a bomb.
Speaker 1 (12:42):
Dude, you're not going to believe this, But just right
down on the other side of the forest that I
live in, I A there's a bee keeper and I mean,
and that man loves his bees so much. I mean,
I can't wait to share this story with him.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
Well, and actually tell him about the book. I'm not
you know, of course I'm not going to tell him
not to buy it, but don't tell him by it.
But the character in the in the book that culture
goes to is a beekeeper who's very sympathetic and he
has this great line that readers have said, uh, they
absolutely love. And the beekeeper comes to Coulter with the
container of some bees, and he says, well, I've got
(13:15):
the bees, but I'm going to ask you. I'm going
to ask you to guarantee no harm will come to
my animals school they culture says no. In fact, I'm
going to give him lunch, because you the you train
the bees by putting a little honey on a bit
of it. He uses near some gunpowder, so they taste
(13:35):
the honey, they smell the gunpowder, and that conditions them
to look for gunpowder.
Speaker 1 (13:41):
I love moments like this because I'm constantly researching for
any type of information, and it sounds like you're you're
the same way that you you will dig in and
go to chat GPTs or go to Google or whatever.
Speaker 2 (13:53):
I've been using chat shept quite a bit. I do
a lot of research. I tell my students, of course,
don't use chat gpteacher write because first of all, you know,
there's this big, this big worry. Oh no, the students
are going to fool their teachers by you know, writing
a paper and chat epet. I'm sorry. I've read chat
GPT writing. It's wonderful for research. It's brilliant. It does
(14:17):
not write like you know a thirteen year old who's
never written a paper before. That's not going to fool
any teacher in the world. But I do it for research,
and then of course have to double check it. Always
double check your research, and then you know, write it
in your own terms. But the thing you have to
guard against as a writer. I'm not telling you anything
(14:38):
new because you are a writer. But for your listeners
out there, who may you know, be interested in the
idea of writing a book put in as far as
the research goes put in only so much as moves
the story forward or helps to find the character. All
the rest of it goes out. You may find it interesting.
But people don't want interesting books. They want, you know,
(14:59):
compelling book.
Speaker 1 (15:00):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (15:03):
You know.
Speaker 1 (15:03):
One of the things that you talked about was was
it you writing with your dog in the room? Has
your dog appeared in South of Nowhere?
Speaker 2 (15:11):
Well, you know one thing I'm very careful of in
my books. I never heard a child and I never
heard an animal. And I see I'm not going to
mention certain movies. Well, how's this, I'll use this line.
I'm not going to mention John Wick by name. Oh
I guess I just did. I'm sorry to give something
(15:32):
away because I'm a little pot about it. And I
think the first one, what happens, he goes on a
rampage because somebody kills his dog. I'm sorry, I kill
his wife, you know, I don't know, cut his little
toe off or something. But don't hurt an animal. So
I don't really put animals in my books much. I
(15:54):
imperiled children, but I save them at the end, you know,
because I want My grandmother had this great expression she said,
is she might see a TV show or a movie
and you know, she said, you know what that is.
That's dirty dishwater. Ooh, and dirty in the adult sense,
but dirty in the sense of you know, she just
didn't feel like maybe it had an ending where the
(16:15):
hero died at the end, or maybe there was a
little too much bad language or too much violence. And
she said, you know, I just don't feel good. I
don't feel clean having to watch that. And I want
my books to be you know, like I guess I
call it clean dishwater or maybe you know, a clean
bath or something like that. And so I don't hurt children,
don't hurt animals, and the heroes survive, the bad guys
(16:39):
get some kind of justice. They may not get killed
at the end, but they're always is justice and that's
my philosophy, Readers. I respect them so much. It's all
about them, and I have to make sure they have
a good experience.
Speaker 1 (16:51):
Wow, Jeffery, you got to come back to this show
anytime in the future. Twenty minutes with you is never
ever going to be enough.
Speaker 2 (16:56):
Wow, it's fled by really fast amazons. O'h.
Speaker 1 (16:58):
My goodness, will you be brilliant today? Okay, sir, you
take care of.
Speaker 2 (17:06):
A really good talking to you. M
Good morning, Jeffrey. How are you doing?
Speaker 2 (00:02):
Oh? Oh, very good, Thank you. And one thing I
have to do a little housekeeping here. Apparently some literature
went out with the character of my book Misspelled. You
may know this, but the character is culture Shaw col
t Er some of the material. I don't know whether
you got it or not, but some of the interviewers
have Cultunshaw, but this is culture show.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
What is that like for you? Because I know that
when my first book came out, there were a lot
of typos like that, and it kind of just got
into my soul, going okay, okay, I do my homework.
Who dropped the ball? I mean, do you think like that?
Speaker 2 (00:34):
Oh? Absolutely? And congratulations on writing. What genre do you
work in? You know?
Speaker 1 (00:39):
I started out with trying to be one of those
inspirational writers, and they put me in the religious section.
I said, that's not what I said we were going
to do. I mean, and I even went into Barnes
and Noble and I said, I'm not religious on this
book because I don't want to push anybody away, and
so sometimes it gets really difficult, you know, when it
comes to those genres.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
Yeah, I mean inspirational writing. Actually it's very important and
it's some fine writing, and you know you don't want
that to fall by the wayside. So although I'll tell
you a funny story about speaking of you know, somebody
dropping the ball. I go to an interview and I
don't know if you ever heard of this guy, but
they say the radio presenter didn't. Just looked at the
(01:19):
fast sheet and said, and now my next guest Jeffrey Archer. Now,
Jeffrey Archer. You know it's a British politician. As a
matter of factor, did a little time in jail for
some kind of financial thing. I think I don't remember
what that was, but it still came out and was
you know, did I kept kept writing and I thought, well,
do I correct on live radio? Do I correct the announcer?
(01:41):
And I said, hell, yes.
Speaker 3 (01:43):
I'm sorry. That's that's good. I wish I were Jeffrey Archer,
but I'm not. He said, oh yeah, okay, I got it.
I got it mixed up and that was from the
radio station's problem. But anyway, so there we've got culture
Shaw now and we're all set to go.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
Don't you love those moments? So when that where we
trip and stumble only because to me that gives me
a book idea or an idea to slip into a paragraph.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
Oh, you know, I'm a walking sponge. I get so
much idea. I get so many ideas just looking around.
And you know, my girlfriend says hello, hello, Jeff, are
you with us? And because I've been you know, I
mean it's not like I'm taking notes while we're out
to dinner, but I'll hear a conversation, you know, a
(02:28):
couple maybe having a fight or a disagreement or something,
and I think, oh, that's interesting. I never heard it
put quite that way. And it goes into the UH,
goes into the hopper and who knows where it's going
to come out again.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
Yeah, well, when you have a title like South of Nowhere,
I mean seriously that that did that just drop into
your head and you're going, yeah, that's where I'm going.
Speaker 2 (02:49):
I'll tell you. And this will require a or just
a little background of the book. The book is, of
course a culture Shaw book. The character from Tracker, and
it's that he's come to a small town to seek
a reward. That's his job to find a family who's
been in an suv and has fallen into the UH.
This flooding river and the levee is about to break.
(03:12):
All kinds of exciting stuff going on. But the town
U is named Hinoa, and that's a an indigenous UH
name of the the uh the nation, the Native American nation.
There is the Olone related tribes. That's I'm too much
(03:32):
in the weeds there. But but anyway, Heinoa was the
name of the town and a lot of weird stuff
goes on south of it. And I'm thinking south of Heinoa,
south of nowhere, south of nowhere, and so it it
hit me like a ton of bricks. I said, that's
the title, and uh, but sometimes they're really hard. I mean, titles.
(03:55):
Can you know, how do I come up with a title?
I look for which vein do I want to open?
It's that difficult, yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
Because you know, we all judge a book by its cover.
And we also you know, when we're on Amazon or
we go into Barnes and Noble, we see a title
and we go, what, let me look into this.
Speaker 2 (04:12):
I I'm a business person. I tell my students when
I teach my writing course that you are Procter and gamble.
It's your job to create a product and that product
has to sell, just like toothpaste does you don't make
liver flavored toothpaste. Nobody wants it. They want mind flavored paste.
And they don't want it called like tooth stuff. They
(04:35):
want it called you know, Pepsidad or Colgate or this
is a product placement. I can just can't think of
any other toothpaste. But but you know, it's it's a
it's something that is going to appeal to the readers.
The title I'm saying, and you know it's really hard.
And the jacket too. You know, even now, we do
a lot of purchasing on I mean, I'm a big
(04:57):
fan of independent bookshops, but let's face it, a lot
of sales on Amazon and online and Barnes and Noble
online and other bookstores online. Well, you know, the covers
maybe a little tiny thing. Well, maybe we have to
adjust the cover now, Maybe the jacket has to look
a little bit different because people are going to look
at it on their tiny computer screen or even I
can't say worse because I do that too, but even
(05:19):
more so on the phone. That little tiny thing.
Speaker 1 (05:21):
Yeah, but Jeffrey, I am a page whore. What the
texture of that page gets my attention? I don't know
why it is. But if that page does not feel
right in my fingertips, I have a problem with that.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
Well, Eric, I'll tell you something very interesting, and I
learned this from the writing process. Excuse me. When I
write a book, come out with the first draft very quickly.
South of nowhere probably wrote the first draft. Well, I
planned it out for eight months. I do a long outline.
But then when I write the book, bang out. It
comes in two months, one hundred thousand words. But that's
kind of the start of the game. Then I have
(05:55):
to edit it. So I edited on the computer, but
then I print it out on paper and read it,
and it's a different experience. It's a richer experience on paper, absolutely,
And that's not I'm sure. I don't know. A scientist
the doctor could tell us why. But it is an
objectively different experience. You see it more, you realize the
(06:17):
scenes better on paper, So there's no there's no getting
around that.
Speaker 1 (06:23):
See. That's the reason why I've dropped my kindle, because
I mean, yes, it was so comfortable to be able
to whip out that kindle and you know, at the
drop of a hat. But the thing about it is
there was no texture to it. There was nothing for
except for my hand to sit there and get cramps
in and just holding that kindle.
Speaker 2 (06:38):
Well, I'll tell you something about the kindle and the
Amazon experience. I publish with Putnam publishes my Lincoln Rhyme Books,
The Bone collect the Books, the Culture Shaw Books, out
of Nowhere in the Never Game. That's the basis for
the TV show. But I also published with Amazon.
Speaker 1 (06:54):
And why is that?
Speaker 2 (06:55):
Because I love short fiction. I write short stories and
Amazon on is a huge market. And I'll tell you
this fast story. Of course, I buy a lot of
stuff on Amazon. During COVID, we got in that experience.
I need office supplies and I need computer stuff. Sometimes
I can't find it, but I get an Amazon package. Well,
I don't know. A couple of months ago, I got
an Amazon package. I don't know, open it up, what
(07:19):
is it? Well, look at this, it's a loose like que.
So anyway, I opened it up and it's a loose
I que and I thought, well, that's pretty weird. Maybe
you know, I don't know. A couple days ago, I
had a glass of wine too many. Who doesn't need
an extra loose I que? Right?
Speaker 1 (07:34):
I ordered one. I turn it over.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
Congratulations, from Amazon Publishing. There have been two hundred and
fifty thousand downloads of your latest short story, and I thought, well, okay,
that's not bad, and those are kindled only for now,
but in a nod to you and other readers like yourself,
I am now getting the rights to put those in print,
and I will publish them in print because people they
(07:59):
like the paper stuff.
Speaker 1 (08:01):
Are you doing anything with tickbook at all, because it
seems that that seems to be where everybody's going as well.
Speaker 2 (08:07):
Well, you know, I have a social media director and
she's absolutely wonderful and she does all my posting. I mean,
I don't even know how to tag people. I don't
even know what that means. I you know, send that
all over her and she's great. She gets me. I have,
you know, hundreds of thousands of people around the world,
and she handles handles all of that. And I asked
her about it, and she said, well, like TikTok and
(08:28):
tickbook or book talk or whatever it's called, she said,
the only thing about that is that you have to
devote a portion of your life to it. You have
to do it every day, and otherwise it, you know,
you get lost in the millions of posts and everything
like that, and I thought, well, no, I don't want
to do that. I sit in a dark room for
(08:49):
ten hours a day and I make stuff up for
a living dog at my feet, and that's all I
want to do. And you know, of course I do
little videos when a book is released, and you know,
I might do a YouTube thing now and then, but
the idea of actually doing a you know, a regular thing,
and you've got to get it right, you know, And
to be honest with you, I know we're a radio now,
(09:12):
but I don't necessarily have a face made for video,
and so I'm pretty happy just to you know, stick
with the traditional stuff. I've learned to call it insta
though I said Instagram, but I was corrected, no that,
you know, the girls in the family said, oh, Jeff, no,
it's Insta and so you know the terms of art.
(09:35):
And also snap, it's not snapcham'nap.
Speaker 1 (09:39):
Isn't it hell to be a human?
Speaker 2 (09:40):
I mean?
Speaker 1 (09:40):
Is every day's that new lesson?
Speaker 2 (09:43):
Oh? Well, I mean, I idea, I feel I need
to take notes. Well, you know, I'm just a very
fast story. I was. I'm a producer of Tracker, and
I told that to the family. But the way I
put it was, I'm so proud of this. As being
a little silly, I said, you know, asked, I'm a
Hollywood mogul, and they all laugh. But then my my niece,
(10:05):
who is probably twelve at the time, then later in
the day she said just she had some friends over, said, yeah,
that's my uncle. He's a Hollywood mongrel. And you know, so,
I mean, I've had a wonderful experience with Ken o
Ollen and Justin Artley and Roxy Oland, everybody on the
(10:26):
show has been absolutely fan fantastic, but we all have
Hollywood stories, you know, where there had been a few
mongols involved.
Speaker 1 (10:32):
Please do not move. There's more with Jeffrey Deaver coming
up next. Hey, thanks for coming back to my conversation
with author and producer Jeffrey Deaver. What do you do
with all your personalities? Do you give them each a name?
Because there's several things that I do. Each personality has
a different name because I don't want them to mix
up and you know, and and and you know cross
over into each other. So when you're doing tracker versus
(10:54):
writing books, I mean, that's got to be two different personalities.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
Oh absolutely, Yeah, Yeah, and it's interesting you say that
it's a very clever thing to do. I never really
thought about it quite in terms that that are, you know,
that well thought out. But I go into a different
place in my mind and I do the same creating
a book. When I outline, I'm in one phase. When
(11:18):
I write the book, come in another one. And it's
like you use the left part of your brain for
the structure, and then once the outline is done, you
use the right part of your brain to put it
all together. For instance, there's a scene in in South
of Nowhere where Coulter is worried that there could be
(11:40):
a bomb in the levee. It's going to collapse and
kill all these people, and there's there's no time the
terrible storm, the roads are down, there's no time to
get a bomb squad there detector. So I thought, well,
how am I going to do that? You know? And
here's did some research, here's the right side of my
(12:00):
Apparently you can train honey bees to search for explosives
within ten minutes. Yep takes the dog two weeks. Pigs
are good. The pigs take about a week, honey bees
ten minutes. And so, well, where did that come from.
I mean, I didn't know it until I researched it,
but I just the right part of my brain was saying,
(12:22):
Colder's got to save the day finding a bomb. How's
he going to do it? Helicopter into a you know,
a bomb disposable plays, get one of their devices. Yeah,
that's not really going to work. Looked it up. There
we go, and so you know, ero, just remember that
you want to carry honey bees around with you just
in case you're ever in a situation where you might
find yourself next to a bomb.
Speaker 1 (12:42):
Dude, you're not going to believe this, But just right
down on the other side of the forest that I
live in, I A there's a bee keeper and I mean,
and that man loves his bees so much. I mean,
I can't wait to share this story with him.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
Well, and actually tell him about the book. I'm not
you know, of course I'm not going to tell him
not to buy it, but don't tell him by it.
But the character in the in the book that culture
goes to is a beekeeper who's very sympathetic and he
has this great line that readers have said, uh, they
absolutely love. And the beekeeper comes to Coulter with the
container of some bees, and he says, well, I've got
(13:15):
the bees, but I'm going to ask you. I'm going
to ask you to guarantee no harm will come to
my animals school they culture says no. In fact, I'm
going to give him lunch, because you the you train
the bees by putting a little honey on a bit
of it. He uses near some gunpowder, so they taste
(13:35):
the honey, they smell the gunpowder, and that conditions them
to look for gunpowder.
Speaker 1 (13:41):
I love moments like this because I'm constantly researching for
any type of information, and it sounds like you're you're
the same way that you you will dig in and
go to chat GPTs or go to Google or whatever.
Speaker 2 (13:53):
I've been using chat shept quite a bit. I do
a lot of research. I tell my students, of course,
don't use chat gpteacher write because first of all, you know,
there's this big, this big worry. Oh no, the students
are going to fool their teachers by you know, writing
a paper and chat epet. I'm sorry. I've read chat
GPT writing. It's wonderful for research. It's brilliant. It does
(14:17):
not write like you know a thirteen year old who's
never written a paper before. That's not going to fool
any teacher in the world. But I do it for research,
and then of course have to double check it. Always
double check your research, and then you know, write it
in your own terms. But the thing you have to
guard against as a writer. I'm not telling you anything
(14:38):
new because you are a writer. But for your listeners
out there, who may you know, be interested in the
idea of writing a book put in as far as
the research goes put in only so much as moves
the story forward or helps to find the character. All
the rest of it goes out. You may find it interesting.
But people don't want interesting books. They want, you know,
(14:59):
compelling book.
Speaker 1 (15:00):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (15:03):
You know.
Speaker 1 (15:03):
One of the things that you talked about was was
it you writing with your dog in the room? Has
your dog appeared in South of Nowhere?
Speaker 2 (15:11):
Well, you know one thing I'm very careful of in
my books. I never heard a child and I never
heard an animal. And I see I'm not going to
mention certain movies. Well, how's this, I'll use this line.
I'm not going to mention John Wick by name. Oh
I guess I just did. I'm sorry to give something
(15:32):
away because I'm a little pot about it. And I
think the first one, what happens, he goes on a
rampage because somebody kills his dog. I'm sorry, I kill
his wife, you know, I don't know, cut his little
toe off or something. But don't hurt an animal. So
I don't really put animals in my books much. I
(15:54):
imperiled children, but I save them at the end, you know,
because I want My grandmother had this great expression she said,
is she might see a TV show or a movie
and you know, she said, you know what that is.
That's dirty dishwater. Ooh, and dirty in the adult sense,
but dirty in the sense of you know, she just
didn't feel like maybe it had an ending where the
(16:15):
hero died at the end, or maybe there was a
little too much bad language or too much violence. And
she said, you know, I just don't feel good. I
don't feel clean having to watch that. And I want
my books to be you know, like I guess I
call it clean dishwater or maybe you know, a clean
bath or something like that. And so I don't hurt children,
don't hurt animals, and the heroes survive, the bad guys
(16:39):
get some kind of justice. They may not get killed
at the end, but they're always is justice and that's
my philosophy, Readers. I respect them so much. It's all
about them, and I have to make sure they have
a good experience.
Speaker 1 (16:51):
Wow, Jeffery, you got to come back to this show
anytime in the future. Twenty minutes with you is never
ever going to be enough.
Speaker 2 (16:56):
Wow, it's fled by really fast amazons. O'h.
Speaker 1 (16:58):
My goodness, will you be brilliant today? Okay, sir, you
take care of.
Speaker 2 (17:06):
A really good talking to you. M
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