Riley Bowman: This is the Concealed Carry Podcast, Season 13, Episode 6.
Riley Bowman: And welcome to Concealed Carry
Riley Bowman: Podcast, part of the ConcealedCarry.com network, brought to you by HK.
Riley Bowman: Today is February 4th, 2026, as of the recording of this episode.
John Gilstrap: I am your host,
Riley Bowman: Riley Bowman. I'm pleased to be here with you, and I've got another special
Riley Bowman: episode for you today. I'm thrilled to bring to you.
Riley Bowman: I've actually got another interview that I recorded at SHOT Show 2026
John Gilstrap: Just a couple weeks ago.
Riley Bowman: This one is with a multiple-time New York Times bestselling author, John Gilstrap.
Riley Bowman: And in this episode, we get into talking about some of his latest books,
Riley Bowman: including his newest release, which is not quite out yet, but will be like next
Riley Bowman: month, I think, March, 2026, a book called Scorched Earth.
Riley Bowman: And I'm actually holding right here in my hands. He was very kind,
Riley Bowman: very generous and gifted to me and Jacob a pre-release copy of Scorched Earth.
Riley Bowman: I nicely autographed it for us. Very, very kind.
Riley Bowman: And I started reading this this week And
Riley Bowman: it's fantastic Like all of his books Super action-packed
Riley Bowman: Fast-paced reading If you enjoy thrillers
Riley Bowman: like this Then this is the book for you And
Riley Bowman: this is the reason why we interviewed John too He is
Riley Bowman: a gun guy And he understands guns He knows how to talk about guns He knows how
Riley Bowman: to write about guns And put those elements into his books In a believable manner
Riley Bowman: Which we really appreciate And he's a friend to the industry and we should be
Riley Bowman: supporting people in the industry like this fantastic author, John Gilstrap.
Riley Bowman: I do got a couple of sponsor messages and we'll talk a little bit more about
Riley Bowman: this episode in a moment.
Riley Bowman: Today's episode was recorded in the HK booth
John Gilstrap: At SHOT Show.
Riley Bowman: Thank you so much, HK, for your support of us and the podcast and making everything
Riley Bowman: we do possible, especially the podcast and this episode.
Riley Bowman: Sat right there in the front center of the booth, right on the SHOT Show floor
Riley Bowman: in front of everybody and recorded this interview with John. Had a great time.
Riley Bowman: He was a wonderful guest on the podcast, and it was made possible thanks to HK.
Riley Bowman: John's a huge fan of HK guns and features them quite extensively in his books.
Riley Bowman: So it was an appropriate setting for this interview, and we just had a great time together.
Riley Bowman: Guys, please support HK. Consider going to their website, hk-usa.com,
Riley Bowman: to learn more about their products and why you want to use them.
Riley Bowman: I mean, their pistols are amazing.
Riley Bowman: They're the best in the industry, and, I mean, they work.
Riley Bowman: They're super reliable. They're heavily tested, well-engineered.
Riley Bowman: These are guns for serious users that really care about their products working
Riley Bowman: in life-or-death situations.
Riley Bowman: HK is also at the Great American Outdoor Show. As you are listening to this,
Riley Bowman: I think that show will probably have been kicked off and started.
Riley Bowman: It runs February 7th to the 15th in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
Riley Bowman: And HK, their booth is booth number 488. So if you're able to go to the Great
Riley Bowman: American Outdoor Show, if you're anywhere near the Harrisburg area or you plan
Riley Bowman: on traveling there, please stop by booth 488 and say hello to
John Gilstrap: The lovely folks
Riley Bowman: At HK. You could stop in and say hello to Angela.
John Gilstrap: She's always at their shows and she's wonderful. And just, hey,
John Gilstrap: say that Riley and Jacob and the
John Gilstrap: Concealed Carry folks sent you guys over there to stop by and say hello.
Riley Bowman: We'd really appreciate that. HK-USA.com, again, their website.
Riley Bowman: Today's episode also sponsored by...
John Gilstrap: Concealedcarry.com
Riley Bowman: Forward slash shop. I'm going to just give you the short link to go straight to
John Gilstrap: The store at concealedcarry.com.
Riley Bowman: When's the last time you visited the store? If it's been a while,
Riley Bowman: then there's a bunch of new stuff there that you maybe haven't seen before.
Riley Bowman: We have worked hard in recent weeks and months to update the store and add a bunch of new products.
John Gilstrap: We've got stuff that,
Riley Bowman: I mean, we're really fleshing out now our optics lineup. If you're looking for a pistol optic
John Gilstrap: Or something like that,
Riley Bowman: We've got more options now than ever before. All across the board.
Riley Bowman: We got stuff from Trijicon, from Holosun, from a new player, Ocite.
Riley Bowman: They're making waves in the industry now and a bunch of others.
Riley Bowman: Also lights. We got a bunch of options now for lights.
Riley Bowman: We've got some handheld lights. We also got a bunch of weapon mounted lights
Riley Bowman: if that's something you're interested in.
Riley Bowman: So guys, please head on over to concealedcarry.com forward slash shop.
Riley Bowman: That'll take you straight to the main shop page of the website and we i mentioned
Riley Bowman: this last last episode but we've updated the search tool on the site right at the top if
John Gilstrap: You have a product you'd like to search for
Riley Bowman: Uh you can do that even easier than ever before you can actually filter to products
Riley Bowman: and you know i can just type in right now i'll do it right now with you so let's
Riley Bowman: just say i'm looking for a weapon light and let's see what we come up with all
Riley Bowman: right all right all right Yeah,
John Gilstrap: We've got a TLR1,
Riley Bowman: We've got a TLR7X,
John Gilstrap: We've got a Holosun PIDHC,
Riley Bowman: Some new Surefire options, a Surefire XC3 Lite.
Riley Bowman: Okay, really, really cool new product. We were actually looking at those at
Riley Bowman: SHOT Show just a while back there. And so tons of options here,
John Gilstrap: All available on our site that
Riley Bowman: You can purchase
John Gilstrap: Right away. Guys, your purchase of products at concealedcarry.com
Riley Bowman: Supports us and obviously makes this whole thing possible,
John Gilstrap: Guys.
Riley Bowman: So appreciate your support of us and of the podcast. And thank you for stopping
Riley Bowman: by the concealedcarry.com store.
Riley Bowman: Also an honorary sponsor, of course, is John Gilstrap himself.
Riley Bowman: The episode wouldn't be possible without him. And you can go to his website,
Riley Bowman: johngilstrap.com, G-A-O-H-N-G-I-L-S-T-R-A-P.com.
John Gilstrap: And you'll want to
Riley Bowman: Pre-order or get on his list for getting a new copy of his latest book, Scorched Earth.
Riley Bowman: So as I mentioned in the beginning episode,
John Gilstrap: He's a fantastic author.
Riley Bowman: He's been very successful for a couple of decades now. he has sold rights to
John Gilstrap: Several of his books for
Riley Bowman: Movies and TV shows and his books are just super fun and exciting and fast paced reads.
Riley Bowman: You will really enjoy them if you're into the action thriller genre and especially coming from a guy
John Gilstrap: Who's a friend of the Second
Riley Bowman: Amendment and loves gun stuff and loves HK Pistols he's your friend.
Riley Bowman: You're going to want to read his books if you're not familiar already pick up
Riley Bowman: his latest Scorched Earth or start at the beginning and go back and read all of his books.
Riley Bowman: They're fantastic. I'm relatively new-wer to them.
Riley Bowman: As I mentioned in the episode and the interview, I just got started listening
Riley Bowman: on an audio book to my first John Gilstrap novel just a little bit less than
Riley Bowman: a month ago and have been really enjoying listening to those.
Riley Bowman: And I'm enjoying right now reading this copy of Scorched Earth.
Riley Bowman: Anyway, I'm going to play back the interview now. Thanks for being here, guys.
John Gilstrap: Enjoy the show, and I'll catch you on the flip side. Hey, everybody.
John Gilstrap: It's Riley, and we're here at SHOT Show 2026 in the Heckler & Koch booth.
John Gilstrap: And I'm pleased to bring to you – well, we could say introduced to you,
John Gilstrap: but he's been on the podcast before, actually.
John Gilstrap: I have. And this is Mr. John Gilstrap. How are you doing, sir?
Speaker2: I'm wonderful. I mean, I love the SHOT Show. It's just a great place to be to
Speaker2: hang out and meet new people.
John Gilstrap: 100%. Yeah. Yeah, no, I agree with you there. It's one of my favorite parts of it.
John Gilstrap: It's just, you know, this is where my friends are at. You probably have many
John Gilstrap: friends of yourself that you've met over the years.
John Gilstrap: It's an annual opportunity to reconnect with those friendships.
Speaker2: Right, and everybody, this is such a happy place. Yeah. You know,
Speaker2: it's just everybody's having a good time. Oh, yeah. And everybody's tired. Everybody's feet hurt.
John Gilstrap: Yeah, but what's not to love about, you know, guns, guns, guns.
Speaker2: That's right.
John Gilstrap: And, you know, good food in the evenings, hopefully. and yeah, it's a good time.
John Gilstrap: You were on the podcast. Jacob interviewed you for that one that time.
John Gilstrap: And so now it's my turn. All right. And I'm looking forward to that.
John Gilstrap: He is the, you know, the consumer of all the John Gilstrap books.
John Gilstrap: I am a relative newcomer. So I actually just started listening to my first one.
John Gilstrap: And I had this, you know, kind of,
John Gilstrap: crisis of like, well, do I start at number one or do I start with one that's
John Gilstrap: more recent so we could talk about something that's more recent, right?
John Gilstrap: That's maybe hitting the bookshelves or is on the bookshelves right now and
John Gilstrap: of course we'll talk a little bit about the new one that you've got sitting
John Gilstrap: here on the table right in front of us.
John Gilstrap: So I just started listening to Zero Sum.
Speaker2: Okay. I think that's the last book.
John Gilstrap: Yeah, the most recent Jonathan Grave book, if I'm Correct.
John Gilstrap: I thought about starting with the Irene Rivers one that was just published as well fairly recently.
Speaker2: Right. That's Burren Bridges. That just came out. But it's kind of an offshoot from the grave books.
John Gilstrap: Yeah, right, right. And I was like, well, I could start with that one.
John Gilstrap: But let's do this zero-sum one because obviously that's the character that you've
John Gilstrap: written all these books primarily about.
John Gilstrap: And so it's been a really, really good listen. I'm only about halfway or so
John Gilstrap: through. I was really trying to complete it before we got here,
John Gilstrap: before I could talk to you.
John Gilstrap: That's actually been a rule of mine with the podcast is if I'm going to talk
John Gilstrap: to an author, I try to make sure I read at least one of their books.
John Gilstrap: And unfortunately, I just didn't have the time to get it done in time.
John Gilstrap: But I'm really enjoying what I'm hearing so far.
John Gilstrap: It's thrilling. I mean, you write thrillers. I do.
Speaker2: I do. And the stakes are always high. Right. And in this case,
Speaker2: it's funny. I get this, obviously, I don't have an impact on national policy, right?
Speaker2: Right. But this is where Jonathan is taking what he calls the pillow fight on
Speaker2: drugs to be a war on drugs.
Speaker2: Yes. And he's taking it right to the cartels.
Speaker2: And for me, I live in West Virginia, and West Virginia is like the home of the opiate problem.
Speaker2: And anything I can do to bring harm to the cartels, I'm all over.
John Gilstrap: Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's a problem that's affecting a lot of different pockets
John Gilstrap: in the country. I remember, I actually grew up in Idaho.
John Gilstrap: And just off of I-15 that runs north out of Utah and goes right up through part of Idaho there.
John Gilstrap: And my uncle, who just retired the last year or so ago from being a sheriff
John Gilstrap: for quite a number of years, and a well-loved sheriff, and he did a lot of good
John Gilstrap: things and worked really hard to make his community safer.
John Gilstrap: And this is a relatively rural part of Idaho where he was sheriff of.
John Gilstrap: But I-15 was a conduit for drug trafficking right up through there and up into Montana.
John Gilstrap: And I remember him sharing some things with me about that and just kind of like,
John Gilstrap: you know, it's eye-opening.
John Gilstrap: You're like, I had no idea, especially like growing up in that region,
John Gilstrap: how much drugs was moving up and down that interstate.
John Gilstrap: He's like, oh, yeah, you know, we bus people out.
John Gilstrap: Dang near every day kind of thing.
Speaker2: And the ingenuity of the drug transporters, of where they put it,
Speaker2: how they hide it, it's really, it's impressive. I mean, in that negative sort of way.
John Gilstrap: They're really good at what they do.
Speaker2: Well, they're good at what they do, and it's an industry. You know,
Speaker2: I think, I don't think we, most people don't think of drug trade as a multi-billion
Speaker2: dollar operation, but that's really what it is. and they run it accordingly.
Speaker2: And so it's, I don't want to turn this into a political thing,
Speaker2: but we need to make a decision. We're going to be happy with this or we're not.
Speaker2: And I'm personally glad to see that we're taking real action against it.
Speaker2: But again, Jonathan, he takes decisive, you're not at the end yet,
Speaker2: but he takes decisive action.
John Gilstrap: I'm already seeing that. And Jacob's actually spoken quite a bit about your
John Gilstrap: books. Yes, decisive action sounds like maybe even almost an understatement.
John Gilstrap: But speaking of politics, and I know you didn't want to get too political,
John Gilstrap: and that's totally fine because I don't necessarily care for that either.
John Gilstrap: However, early on in the book, Zero Sum, there's a reference to a particular
John Gilstrap: state senator out of West Virginia.
John Gilstrap: And the description in the book says,
John Gilstrap: Kind of reminded me of somebody that's actually, well, until recently,
John Gilstrap: a senator from West Virginia.
John Gilstrap: I don't know if I read into that correctly or not, but I love that kind of stuff.
Riley Bowman: When you're reading a book and you're like, it kind of sounds like they're talking
Riley Bowman: About this or that or this person or that person.
Riley Bowman: I have a standard answer on this, and that is I don't write politics
Speaker2: And you can draw from what I write what you wish.
Speaker2: But I do have fun with some of that. What I find interesting is when I get a
Speaker2: lot of fan mail, like good fans, the vast majority is, you know, like your book.
Speaker2: But every now and then you get the screamer who is, I've been accused of being
Speaker2: a wild-eyed liberal and a wild-eyed conservative and a gun hater and in the
Speaker2: pocket of the gun lobby. Right. All from the same book.
Speaker2: Yeah. So people bring to it what they bring to life, I guess.
John Gilstrap: Yes, yeah.
Riley Bowman: I mean, their own personal biases. Yes. And the good news is it meant they read
Riley Bowman: the book. They bought the book and they read the book and had a passionate response, right?
Speaker2: So that's what entertainment is about.
John Gilstrap: Right, right. That sounds like some of our interactions on social media comments
John Gilstrap: on our channels where it's like you get some critical comments on something
John Gilstrap: and it's like, well, thank you for the interaction, for feeding the algorithm.
John Gilstrap: You know, it's like anyway. So, yeah, they bought the book, in other words. They read the book.
John Gilstrap: So, I'm just curious. I wanted to get to know you a little bit more personally.
John Gilstrap: Like, what got you started in writing in the first place? Where did I start from?
Speaker2: I have always been a writer. My earliest memories, literally,
Speaker2: when you pick up a pen, third, fourth grade, whenever that is,
Speaker2: I've always written stories.
Speaker2: And a lot of them were, you know, reproductions of what I saw on television
Speaker2: or whatever. But the act of actually telling a story on the page has always been a passion.
Speaker2: I never dreamed I'd make a living out of it.
Speaker2: So my background, my professional background is I was a firefighter and paramedic, firefighter and EMT.
Speaker2: And I also was a safety engineer where I worked in an explosives manufacturing plant.
Speaker2: So and then I was writing in the spare time. so I didn't realize that what I
Speaker2: was I was actually doing on the job training to be a thriller right now right
Speaker2: I was going to say all the elements are there it.
John Gilstrap: Sounds like you like things blowing up in books and so that that
John Gilstrap: That suits you well, I guess I could say.
Speaker2: Don't take this the wrong way. But I was in charge when I was working at the explosive plant.
Speaker2: One of my duties was to get rid of old explosives.
Speaker2: And the rules are written as such. The only way to get rid of it is to burn it or blow it up.
Speaker2: That's a good day. It's just a good day. I'm not hurting anybody,
Speaker2: right? It's out in the field.
Speaker2: There's one time I started a big fire accidentally. I didn't really know what
Speaker2: was in the pits. And I learned when it went high order.
Speaker2: I don't know if you've heard. The only time this has happened to me,
Speaker2: and I hesitate to tell a story at a place like SHOT Show where people have really
Speaker2: been in a crappy situation.
Speaker2: These burn pits are probably 100 yards from me. And there's a bunker where I
Speaker2: could have stood, but it's got spiders and nasty stuff.
Speaker2: So I had this remote detonator.
Speaker2: And I was standing out there, and I'm firing a hole, push the button.
Speaker2: And what's supposed to happen is you get this big fire, you know, big fireball.
Speaker2: This thing was, it went up and a huge flash. And I don't know if you've ever
Speaker2: seen a pressure wave coming at you.
Speaker2: It's startling. You get a chance to say, oh, and that's it.
John Gilstrap: Yeah, right.
Speaker2: And then as a safety guy, my job is to put out the fires I just started.
John Gilstrap: So.
John Gilstrap: Well, that sounds exciting. I like,
John Gilstrap: I might like blowing things up a little too much myself because I'm not going
John Gilstrap: to admit to any felonies here.
John Gilstrap: But when I was younger, probably statute of limitations would be passed now.
John Gilstrap: But when I was a teenager, let's just say some stuff got blown up.
Speaker2: How high did your bucket go?
John Gilstrap: Yes. Yeah, I'm lucky to have some of those fingers and toes.
John Gilstrap: And, you know, so, you know, yeah. Anyway, so good times.
John Gilstrap: So you got started. You've been writing all your life, you basically said there.
John Gilstrap: When did you write your first novel, like full-length novel?
Speaker2: The first published novel came out when I was, well, I wrote it when I was probably
Speaker2: 35, 36, came out, and then I sold it.
Speaker2: I wrote my first novel when I was freshman in college.
Speaker2: Wow, very good. And it kind of sucked, but it was, you know,
Speaker2: there were elements of it that were okay, and then there were two more after
Speaker2: that. So a total of three novels I wrote that didn't go, you know,
Speaker2: I didn't even try to sell them because I knew they weren't right.
Speaker2: And then I wrote Nathan's Run, which was my first published novel.
Speaker2: And it just, it hit the jackpot. It was an international bestseller.
Speaker2: And so it kind of launched the new career.
John Gilstrap: So tell me about those early novels that you, like you said,
John Gilstrap: you wrote, but you didn't sell or anything like that.
John Gilstrap: What did you learn from that process of writing those? I mean,
John Gilstrap: you just said that you knew that they weren't quite right. They weren't,
John Gilstrap: I guess, quite ready, let's say.
John Gilstrap: But it sounds like that was kind of a... You must have learned some things from
John Gilstrap: those in order to be so successful with Nathan's run.
Speaker2: Yeah, and...
Speaker2: I'm an avid reader. I mean, I read toothpaste tubes, right? I mean, I just read anything.
Speaker2: And that was the case at the time. And I knew just intuitively what I was writing
Speaker2: wasn't, I was writing thrillers, but they weren't thrilling.
Speaker2: There were elements of it that were flat or the, it just, you know,
Speaker2: the elements of the story didn't work.
Speaker2: And then with Nathan's Ron, it just, it was a, I was able to hit.
Speaker2: I think the big difference was I wrote that book as if I were telling the story
Speaker2: to somebody as opposed to self-consciously writing a book.
Speaker2: And once I got rid of the stiffness and I found my own voice, the story flowed.
Speaker2: But there were stuff in each of those previous three that I've cannibalized
Speaker2: and used in other books. Yeah.
Speaker2: Dialogue interactions and stuff that I thought were really good.
Speaker2: That's the encouraging part of doing this. It's like playing golf.
Speaker2: Even if you're a terrible golfer, you get one good shot that keeps you coming back.
Speaker2: When you're writing a book, if that's what you want to do, there are elements,
Speaker2: there are scenes or whatever that you go, wow, that's good.
Speaker2: It's a shame it's in the middle of a story that doesn't work.
John Gilstrap: Yeah, I like that. What it reminds me of, this is when you started going down
John Gilstrap: that, you know, kind of line of thinking, what it reminded me of is I'm a very avid shooter.
John Gilstrap: I've been shooting a long time now and including at a fairly decent level.
John Gilstrap: And so part of that journey for me has been a lot of trial and error.
John Gilstrap: And I just believe that's how life is, is that we learn and we learn probably the best from failure.
John Gilstrap: Yes. And so I just kind of was seeing this little common thread there.
John Gilstrap: You're like, hey, I wrote this novel. I wrote a couple more.
John Gilstrap: I was a freshman in college.
John Gilstrap: Nothing came really of those. And then I write Nathan's Run and boom.
John Gilstrap: You have to learn from mistakes.
Speaker2: You have to recognize mistakes. Yes. And then you have to embrace them as, yes, I did that.
Speaker2: And then improve. Make that conscious effort to improve.
Speaker2: And that's why nobody can pick up a gun or a golf club or a pen and be a journeyman
Speaker2: level at what they're doing without that learning process. And they have to
Speaker2: be willing to accept the critique.
Speaker2: And again, you talk about shooting. I'm an avid shooter too.
Speaker2: But you become better when somebody really concentrates on what you're doing
Speaker2: wrong. You can see what you did right.
Speaker2: But sometimes you've hit the target and you're doing it the wrong way.
Speaker2: And then it's the little improvements that,
Speaker2: that help a lot.
John Gilstrap: Absolutely. Who in, you know, are there other writers that have been an inspiration to you?
John Gilstrap: Like, who would you look to if that was like, oh, that, you know,
John Gilstrap: when I was a kid or whatever, I read these and these were really influential on me.
Speaker2: Oh, well, growing up, you know, it was Alistair McLean and, you know,
Speaker2: all the adventure kind of stories.
Speaker2: The Day of the Jackal by Frederick Forsyth.
John Gilstrap: Yes.
Speaker2: That was probably, that was the first book I read And it's got some really cool gun stuff in it.
Speaker2: That's the first book I read where I saw how a thriller was structured.
Speaker2: Just for whatever reason, it's like I could see through, I could see the skeleton of the story.
Speaker2: And if you think of the skeleton of the story as structure, and then the skin,
Speaker2: I guess, to carry the analogy, is the plot.
Speaker2: And I just saw how he used space breaks and character changes and chapter breaks.
Speaker2: That was the first book I saw.
Speaker2: Oh oh that's how you do it now that don't
Speaker2: mean i could do it but you still have to have a good story but um
Speaker2: contemporaneously i think stephen hunter oh yes
Speaker2: was actually he's very helpful to me early on um when i you know i i had called
Speaker2: him because he worked at the baltimore sun at the time and a buddy of mine had
Speaker2: him as a client for a financial thing so i called him he's a here's the a film
Speaker2: review at the Baltimore Sun.
Speaker2: And I asked him for his agent's name.
Speaker2: Oh, wow. And he gave it, and she rejected me, but that's fine.
Speaker2: And then I called her back and asked for some advice, and he gave it to him,
Speaker2: and he said, please don't ask me to read your manuscript.
John Gilstrap: I said, I wouldn't do that.
Speaker2: I was going to do that, but I'm not going to do that. And then when I called
Speaker2: him, when Nathan's Run sold, I called him back and sort of celebrated,
Speaker2: and he said, that's never happened before for all the people who called.
Speaker2: So Steve's been a friend for 30 years now.
Speaker2: And so for guys with guns, he goes to a level of detail that I don't go to because,
Speaker2: again, I know my level of ignorance.
Speaker2: So once you get inside the barrel and you start talking about the twists, that's not me.
Speaker2: I don't do that. But in terms of handling and tactics and all of that,
Speaker2: it's, you know, I've trained, I've been so fortunate.
Speaker2: A fellow, I guess I shouldn't name names, but I wrote a non-fiction book,
Speaker2: came out in 2006, called Six Minutes to Freedom, to be a Netflix feature next year.
Speaker2: And it's about the, it's Operation Acid Gambit, which is the rescue of Kurt Mews in Panama.
Speaker2: And I got, through a wild series of events, got extraordinary access to Delta Force.
Speaker2: And the team that did it, President Bush actually, first one,
Speaker2: the 41, intervened and allowed them to talk. The Delta guys don't talk to anybody.
Speaker2: But I got a tour of their compound and a lot, a lot, a lot of help from them.
Speaker2: And that, I don't know if it was a strike of jealousy or whatever.
Speaker2: I met a guy from Dev Group, SEAL Team 6, and he gave me a tour of the Virginia Beach SEAL compound.
Speaker2: And once you get to know these folks and you treat them well,
Speaker2: and I don't mean nothing nefarious there.
Speaker2: We're not talking exchanging money. Just treat them with respect.
Speaker2: And, you know, I would never cross that line of revealing something that I've
Speaker2: been shown either intentionally or accidentally.
Speaker2: Because I wouldn't do that. That's just not me.
Speaker2: So I've been a bad guy at a FDLE SWAT team exercise, which was with simunitions.
Speaker2: Nice. Yeah, put your gun down when the SWAT team comes in. It's the lesson. Right.
John Gilstrap: That stings.
Speaker2: But one thing leads to another, right? And here I am at this podcast.
Speaker2: You meet more people, and when you work, I'm still learning,
Speaker2: right? Everybody's still learning.
Speaker2: And the harder you work to get things right, the more people you meet who are
Speaker2: willing to help you out, which leads to better quality product,
Speaker2: which, you know, it's a constant learning process.
John Gilstrap: Well, I understand that you're kind of, I mean, you've been doing this a long
John Gilstrap: time now. Yeah. You've written, what is it,
Speaker2: 18, 19 books? This is 31 books.
John Gilstrap: I'm way off of my count.
Speaker2: Well, it's 17 books in the Jonathan Graves series.
John Gilstrap: Oh, that's what I was thinking. Yeah. Wow. So 31 books total, though. Right.
John Gilstrap: Wow. That's remarkable. Well, I mean, congratulations to you.
John Gilstrap: I mean, that's been amazing.
John Gilstrap: We're going to come back to that. We're going to talk about your upcoming book.
John Gilstrap: What you were just talking about there kind of reminded me of something.
John Gilstrap: I might have lost my train of thought.
John Gilstrap: All right, let's jump to it then. Let's talk about Scorched Earth, shall we?
Speaker2: All right. Scorched Earth is the number 17 in the Jonathan Graves series.
Speaker2: Over the course of the series, the FBI director, a lady named Irene Rivers,
Speaker2: I've painted her as like the last honest person in the federal government.
Speaker2: But she's honest through awkward means.
Speaker2: I mean, she will do, she believes in justice over the law, kind of.
Speaker2: You know, there's a way to do things. And there's things that she cannot do.
Speaker2: So she brings in Jonathan Grave to do it for her. Right.
John Gilstrap: Speaking of which, in Zero Sum, there was a one-liner that you just basically gave it just now.
John Gilstrap: And I think it goes something like this where he's having a conversation with
John Gilstrap: her fairly early on in the book. and he's like, you know, I don't care about the law.
John Gilstrap: I care about justice or something to that effect. Yeah.
Speaker2: And, you know, and not to get too far off track, we all know that.
Speaker2: You know, that there are, in certain states, I live in West Virginia,
Speaker2: right? So it is the best gun law state in the union.
Speaker2: But there are states where if you shoot a burglar in your house, you're the bad guy.
John Gilstrap: Yeah, it could, yeah.
Speaker2: You know, there is no justice. in that. I mean, it's the law,
Speaker2: but there's no justice, right?
Speaker2: So this is the area where Jonathan Grave finds his traction. Yeah. And in this book,
Speaker2: And Irene Rivers, in the book you're reading now, I won't give away the ending,
Speaker2: but I will. Irene Rivers is ousted from office.
John Gilstrap: I can see the writing on the wall, by the way.
Speaker2: Yeah, it's not subtle.
Speaker2: And she has been using, Jonathan is not the only OTR, off-the-record contractor that she's been using.
Speaker2: And there's somebody in government that is going and killing her contractors.
Speaker2: And so that's what Scorched Earth is about. Jonathan is a target of one of these.
Speaker2: And he finds out about more. And then there's an overarching plot.
Speaker2: Senator Bridges, I don't know if I name her state. Yeah, North Carolina.
Speaker2: For reasons that are in the book, she's actually part of, or she's suborning
Speaker2: a terrorist attack that's designed specifically to kill children.
Speaker2: And for reasons. And Jonathan finds out about that, and that's the big race at the end.
Speaker2: So it's always high stakes.
Speaker2: And now, you know, we talk about technical things in books.
Speaker2: The area where I'm most far behind, call me, is in drone technology.
Speaker2: Because that's becoming more and more part of the battle game.
Speaker2: Why go into a place when you can send a thing into the place?
Speaker2: Well, it's because I write thrillers, right? So it's almost like they have to
Speaker2: create a reason sometimes why technology can't do it because people read about,
Speaker2: about characters going and do things manually. So it's not always about getting
Speaker2: technical details right.
Speaker2: It's explaining why this instead of that.
Speaker2: And, again, that's why I come to the SHOT Show.
John Gilstrap: Now, Scorched Earth, I think, comes out in March,
Speaker2: Is it? February 24th. But you can preorder it now.
John Gilstrap: Just before March. Okay, good. Good. So, folks, you should go preorder it.
John Gilstrap: I mean, like I said, I'm just getting into your books, And they're a great read,
John Gilstrap: man. I love good classic thrillers.
John Gilstrap: I've read a bunch over the years. I mean, I grew up reading Tom Clancy.
John Gilstrap: That's just pretty much how I grew up. So it's right in that same vein. It's good stuff.
John Gilstrap: It's fun to see how you're talking about.
John Gilstrap: It's more important to talk about why this versus that as opposed to getting
John Gilstrap: all technical details correct.
John Gilstrap: But at the same time, you do a good job getting technical details correct, I would say.
John Gilstrap: Thank you. And you love featuring a number of actual guns and weapons and tactics.
John Gilstrap: And we're here in the HK booth, and you seem to be an HK fan of sorts.
Speaker2: I am an HK fan. And I was first introduced to HK products when I toured the
Speaker2: SEAL Team compound. Yeah. And that's what they were using.
Speaker2: And that's when I met the MP7. Yeah. Kind of had a little love affair with it.
Speaker2: But I shot the 416 and 417 and MP7 and I don't know what else.
Speaker2: But it was at their range with their lead instructor. And they were very patient and very nice to me.
Speaker2: And because I then knew the details I needed, and it was the first book that
Speaker2: I was writing in the Grave series, it became H&K.
Speaker2: And since then, the folks at H&K have been very nice to me and have always been
Speaker2: generous in helping with your technical details and what have you.
Speaker2: So if you land on a platform that you understand as a writer,
Speaker2: It's very, why would I leave.
John Gilstrap: You know?
Speaker2: Right, right. Plus, they're such good products. I mean, it's the gun that everybody wants, right?
John Gilstrap: They're built exceptionally well, and they work when you need them to.
Speaker2: So Jonathan carries the M27 variant of the 416.
Speaker2: His friend Boxer's is enormous. Carries a 417. Yep.
Speaker2: And it works really well for them, you know? And they switch out.
Speaker2: John and the Carrie's MP7 on his hip, actually holstered.
John Gilstrap: Right.
Speaker2: On his weak side. So it's, yeah. I mean, HK is featured very prominently in the books.
John Gilstrap: Well, I think that's really cool. It's fun to see, you know,
John Gilstrap: for people that are kind of in the know, if you will, gun people,
John Gilstrap: and they read that kind of stuff, they're like, oh, man, this guy knows his stuff.
John Gilstrap: I have a lot more respect for writers that, you know, at least...
John Gilstrap: At least put out effort that they're trying to, you know, explain and incorporate
John Gilstrap: some of those elements into books accurately or reasonably accurately because,
John Gilstrap: you know, over the years, like I said, I've read a lot of things and there's
John Gilstrap: those ones you're just like, it's like you're screaming at the television.
John Gilstrap: You're like, come on, can't you at least know that detail, you know?
John Gilstrap: So, yeah, it's greatly appreciated.
Speaker2: And different people go to different levels. I mean, Tom Clancy,
Speaker2: rest his soul, he often, in my taste, Everybody has their own taste.
Speaker2: Once you get to, like, lands and grooves with Steve's books and the devil of
Speaker2: detail that Clancy would go into,
Speaker2: that's not what I do because those are the paragraphs, even though I'm really
Speaker2: into all of this, those are the paragraphs I tend to skim, right, instead of really read.
Speaker2: But I know, I'm confident that there are tons of people who live for those paragraphs.
Speaker2: Yeah, yeah. In my own books, I have what I call the loadout,
Speaker2: where it's important. I don't know. I don't have real statistics on it.
Speaker2: It's important to probably 10%, 15% of my readers. And the others,
Speaker2: I know that's what they skip because they've got a pistol and a rifle. That's all they need.
John Gilstrap: Right. That's all they care about. Right.
Speaker2: Yeah. But then once you've committed to that platform, then you've got to get
Speaker2: the details right because people are following it.
John Gilstrap: Right. Yep. I remember now what I was going to ask you about earlier.
John Gilstrap: And it was when we were talking about some other authors and maybe some of those
John Gilstrap: that have helped you, like Hunter.
John Gilstrap: And then Jacob had mentioned to me that you do quite a bit of speaking at writing
John Gilstrap: conferences and events and things like that.
John Gilstrap: So you've kind of now also taken on the role of helping mentor other writers as well.
Speaker2: I do. I teach a course at conferences that, frankly, got to be self-aggrandizing.
Speaker2: It's always well received because it's always lighthearted.
Speaker2: And it's called Bangs and Booms 101, technical stuff that writers get wrong.
Speaker2: So I go into, it's not, you know, it's like a 10,000 foot level, but,
Speaker2: And I'm shocked at the number of people that don't know the difference between
Speaker2: the bullet and the cartridge.
John Gilstrap: Right.
Speaker2: And what caliber really means.
John Gilstrap: Yep.
Speaker2: Right? So 7.62 isn't the own. It's not one bullet, right?
Speaker2: There's this whole family of bullets that goes into it. So I teach that,
Speaker2: but then I also teach how the impact of bullets actually works.
Speaker2: You don't get blown through the door.
Speaker2: Yeah. You know, I have a little bit about Newton's third law of motion. Yeah.
Speaker2: And there's a lot of videos of people doing stupid things. But there's also some serious stuff.
Speaker2: And just my idea, what I want to do is help them not embarrass themselves.
Speaker2: You know, and there's a whole genre.
Speaker2: You know, if you're writing an Agatha Christie kind of mystery.
John Gilstrap: Mystery, yeah.
Speaker2: You know, a pistol is fine. A revolver is fine.
Speaker2: Because that's not what people want to get. But when you're writing military-adjacent
Speaker2: thrillers like I do, that's not enough, you know?
Speaker2: And the deeper into detail you get,
Speaker2: The higher risk you are of getting it wrong, which is why you've got to do more research.
John Gilstrap: How much time would you say, on average, you spend in research on a particular,
John Gilstrap: you know, any given novel?
Speaker2: Well, now, the research will go to a particular thing. Like, I need drones.
Speaker2: And there are drones in zero-sum. Boy, are there drones in zero-sum.
John Gilstrap: I mean, the very opening chapter.
Speaker2: I have no idea if that technology exists.
John Gilstrap: It wouldn't surprise me.
Speaker2: It wouldn't surprise me either. So part of it is making stuff up,
Speaker2: too, and making it believable to the reader.
Speaker2: And my theory there is if it doesn't exist, only 100 people in the world know
Speaker2: it doesn't exist, and they're not allowed to tell anybody.
John Gilstrap: Right.
Speaker2: But that's the research I do. is what's available, and then how can I tweak
Speaker2: it in a fictional way to make it work.
John Gilstrap: Right, right. Very good. I imagine, obviously, too, now that you've been doing
John Gilstrap: this long enough as well that you sort of banked a lot of effort and time in
John Gilstrap: the past researching a lot that you can kind of draw upon now.
John Gilstrap: Yeah. Yeah. Do you do much in the way of, like, how important is it for you
John Gilstrap: to research particular locations?
Speaker2: Okay, here's the laziness factor. None of the locations I use are real.
John Gilstrap: Yeah, I get that.
Speaker2: So, I just create...
John Gilstrap: But is there anything that you draw inspiration from? Like you see,
John Gilstrap: whether it's a building or a restaurant or anything.
Speaker2: Oh, all the time. All the time. You walk in and you think that that's a really cool place.
Speaker2: Jonathan Grave lives in a converted firehouse. That firehouse,
Speaker2: in my head, it's in the books. It's in Fisherman's Cove, Virginia,
Speaker2: which doesn't exist. Right.
Speaker2: But the real firehouse is in Lower Manhattan.
John Gilstrap: Oh, okay.
Speaker2: And it's just this gorgeous, go to my website, there's a picture of it.
Speaker2: Just this gorgeous old firehouse. It's not a firehouse anymore.
Speaker2: They've converted it into something else.
Speaker2: Yeah. But, you know, that's where you pass by and you say, okay,
Speaker2: that's a great location. Yeah. But it doesn't have to be there.
Speaker2: Right. I can move it wherever I want. Of course. Right?
John Gilstrap: So that's cool.
Speaker2: There's the compound that you'll read at the end of Zero Sum is actually a hotel
Speaker2: I stayed at when I was visiting Big Bend National Park in Texas.
John Gilstrap: Well, you see, yeah, there was a reference in the book already to something
John Gilstrap: just north of Big Bend. And I was like, okay, interesting.
John Gilstrap: I mean, I get that you're not talking about specific, specific places.
John Gilstrap: But, yeah, I think that's pretty cool. I mean, you talked about touring different
John Gilstrap: military training locations and things in the past.
John Gilstrap: And I imagine that has also inspired much of what you've incorporated in your books, I would think.
Speaker2: Yes. and I think this is something that,
Speaker2: I sense, as shared, certainly in my fire service experience,
Speaker2: those 16 years, there's a sense of family that develops.
Speaker2: What impresses me about military facilities is that the family is larger than
Speaker2: a firehouse or a fire department. And it moves around.
Speaker2: So there are people who, not so much in the special forces community,
Speaker2: although that too, But throughout the military, families are reunited every now and then.
Speaker2: And so they have this great network of support.
Speaker2: And I think that's very important in the tone of what I write.
Speaker2: You know, when I was dealing with the guys from Delta, they're all out now.
Speaker2: But there was that great sense of it really is God, country and family and the flag and,
Speaker2: the stuff that outside of that community, certainly at the time I was writing this in 2004 I guess,
Speaker2: a lot of people would see as corny but I don't think that people realize that
Speaker2: it's it's very real and it's very important and that's who's out there fighting
Speaker2: for what we're trying to accomplish.
Speaker2: And then it becomes the mission, right? So politics aside, much as a.
Speaker2: As a firefighter, a fire was an operation, a thing to take care of.
Speaker2: You try really hard to save people. You try really hard, but it's really about
Speaker2: the operation. You can deal with that stuff as it happens. I don't know if I'm
Speaker2: making sense here or not.
Speaker2: But the focus is not on anything else. I don't care who set the fire.
Speaker2: So when it goes to a military community, as I sense, on any mission, it's the mission.
Speaker2: We're going to get them, which is where Jonathan Grave, when he commits to a
Speaker2: hostage rescue, the hostage is coming home.
Speaker2: Or they're not coming home. That's the mission. The hostage might not come alive,
Speaker2: but the hostage is coming home, and we hope that's alive.
Speaker2: But that is their sole mission, and they move heaven and earth to make it happen.
Speaker2: I just love that. I find that inspiring to write about, and I find it inspiring
Speaker2: to sense that kind of commitment from other people,
Speaker2: which is doing the right thing, doing the right thing, justice over what might be the law.
Speaker2: Jonathan does a lot of extrajudicial dispatching of people, right?
Speaker2: But he sleeps well because they're all bad guys.
John Gilstrap: Yeah, yeah.
John Gilstrap: Well, unfortunately, we're up against the time here.
John Gilstrap: So I think that what you just were talking about there, though,
John Gilstrap: is a great place to sort of sum and wrap it up a little bit.
John Gilstrap: You're just talking about the people and what you had to say about service members
John Gilstrap: and their community and the family and flag.
Speaker2: Let me tell you a story real quick. I know it's short on time.
Speaker2: Let me tell you a story. I was researching Six Minutes to Freedom,
Speaker2: and there was one fellow, James Sutterth, who was a retired operator.
Speaker2: He passed away. He's not with us anymore. And he's more or less kind of Jonathan
Speaker2: Graves, sort of based on him.
Speaker2: And, you know, these guys just won't, they would not talk about the operation.
Speaker2: It was, you know, at that point, 10, 12 years before. and um
Speaker2: but he did get the one
Speaker2: element he talked about in this operation a helicopter
Speaker2: skid little bird skid landed on his foot while he was being shot at and he's
Speaker2: you know i'm not going to die here was so he pulled his foot off just stripped
Speaker2: it out and uh finished the mission and ultimately re-qualified for Delta.
Speaker2: The only one allowed to wear tennis shoes at that point.
Speaker2: And so he's telling this story in the back of an APC being driven out after this big firefight.
Speaker2: And he looked up out of the hatch and he saw somebody waving an American flag.
Speaker2: And he could not get through that. He choked up at the mention of the American
Speaker2: flag. And I found that to be so touching.
Speaker2: You know, all the crap, right? And that's the, that's the, his,
Speaker2: his, seeing the flag on the way out is what got him emotionally.
Speaker2: Low those many years later. He could tell all the violent stuff that he could
Speaker2: tell pretty much without emotion.
Speaker2: But when it came to that, that's when he got teared up.
John Gilstrap: That's kind of what I was getting at is that it's about something bigger and
John Gilstrap: greater than ourselves and believing in that.
John Gilstrap: And what I was going to ask you to do to kind of leave us on,
John Gilstrap: I think, you know, at the end of the podcast here was going to be to our audience,
John Gilstrap: concealed carriers primarily, You know, folks who are passionate about personal
John Gilstrap: defense for a variety of reasons, protecting themselves, obviously,
John Gilstrap: but protecting more than that.
John Gilstrap: Their families in many cases, people that they care about.
John Gilstrap: What would be a piece of advice that you would have to offer to our community?
Speaker2: The full knowledge that once you start carrying, and I typically do,
Speaker2: understand what we were talking about before in terms of learning the training.
Speaker2: Train in learning your mistakes.