you are watching the tv on c-span2 with the top nonfiction others every weekend. book tv, television for serious readers. now, book tv's in-depth program with bustling novelist david

baldacci. he is the author of over 40 books including absolute power, wish you well, and most recently, the fallen. >> you have been on a tour for the last several weeks talking about your 36 novel, the fallen, and features number four in line for character by the name amos decker. if i were to meet amos on the street what what i see? >> you see a large guy ambling down the street on oblivious riveting going on and if you stopped him and asked him a question he would probably blow you off and keep going. he lives in his own world and i think people take his aloofness for rudeness which is not that at all. used to be a good out curious going guy and had traumatic

brain injury and changed his personality. i think it involves and you see in the fall and that my wife is funny. she read this book and she said i finally like him. he reached his humanity level. at the core and it took me four books to get there but i like, getting guys and he's completed. >> host: thank you for being with us in this in-depth program. in this special series we sit with authors for three hours talking about their life in their work and david baldacci will be spending the time with us today. we hope very much for both of us that we entered joy the conversation. we will put the phone numbers on the screen and our facebook and twitter handles c can join in the conversation. we like to hear your questions about his writing and characters he's developed and why you are

intrigued about them. what makes amos decker a good hero? especially for a thriller? >> guest: when i first started thinking about a sears with him i thought what would be good to do so i did this guy who is irascible and aloof and doesn't get along with people and doesn't get jokes and doesn't pick up social cues and will be popular. but he spoke to me and i've always been fascinated by the mind and this is a guy whose mind changed and had no control over that at all. he had to rebuild his life and when you develop a series you have to have enough material to justify more than one book. the character was will evolve and grow and they got a enjoy watching them change. with him he had an enormous amount of material that i could go on. his whole back story about his brain injury and family being murdered and but his perfect memory. we first went on tour the first book, memory man, they said we and if you think it's cool to have a perfect memory and can't forget everything and people

raise her hand. but i said and if you have something in your life you like to forget and everyone raise their hands and that's his dilemma. he has lots of things he let us get so for me what is cool about him is that every time is to come on the page i've no idea what the. >> host: when you think about your books now said you don't want to do the one awfully more and that do you have a sense of many you can play out with him or does it evolve as you write? >> guest: i'm not good at predicting supplicant. i never -- not like jk rolling said there were seven books and that's it. i've written a series of two and i've written series that have had five and series that have more than that. it's how much gas in the tank of the character and do i want to keep discovering things about it. i'm excited about finding him or her on the page. if the answer is yes and they keep going regardless of the book count is. if the answer is no ago on to

something else. >> host: how did you develop amos or was her model in the real world? >> guest: i it was like free time. i built him from parts all over the place. i knew i wanted a large guy and i wanted him to have this enormous presence intimidating even though he's not really intimating. i knew he would be applicable player and that was the source of the brain injury which is all too prevalent these days in professional sports and football. i've been thinking about that that a lot of the players i loved growing up watching they are either passed away or in wheelchairs or have dementia and at 60 years old there gone but i wanted to write a story where someone grappling with those issues and had this large presence and build him into a detective with a unique feature of not been able to forget

anything. but all the other bag is a goes with it he, he sort of doesn't pick up on social cues and it's hard for them to relate to people and as a detective that can be difficult. on one hand he is a superpower and on the other hand it's difficult to relate to people which is a downside for detectives. i love historical because it's innately [inaudible] it raises the stakes and helps people understand this person and what makes them tick and if you can get a readers they what makes this guy take the keep reading the pages. >> host: the setting for the fallen is [inaudible] which is fictional but it is problems are real so will you tell our audience about them? >> guest: it's a real city in a coal mining territory and this is a place where it only exists because they figure out a way to make money so this there's a call in river and i could do textile so here we had there and bill and now i need people to work on it so they came and they

pay them whatever they paid them in the down roots and headlights and kids and then the coal and textiles went away and everyone went away except the people that live there. they still had to live somehow so they have a lot of challenges in this novel and sometimes those challenges take you down a dark path. we come upon a small town that has a lot of secrets under the that is scary and when amos pokes around bad things happen. >> host: one of those is the opioid and we are all seen so much of the travesty and what story did you want readers to learn about what the country is undergoing? >> guest: first and foremost this is a man-made problem. this is a problem that did not start with drug dealers in the street but prescription medication by your doctor or pharmacist and when you have a west virginia town of 913 million opioid perceptions are in for the town is a

problem. when big pharma decided were not selling enough and we want to sell more and they made pain and elements of the diagnosis and said it's good for anything that ails you. a lot of the opioids were prescribed for back pain has no effect on back pain at all. but they said it's nonaddictive and it's all addictive. i want people to understand it was a man-made problem and now it is decimating communities. they're called the drug of despair. i want them to take away the fact that it's not getting better and needs to be addressed and it's not been addressed. advertising campaign that says just say no will not work when you talk about fentanyl. you can be addicted to fentanyl after one use. just a note doesn't work. there's a whole host of factors that needs to be addressed. but we have to. if the trends continue to the

next hundred thousand people will overdose on opiates and that's the operation of a small city. i want people to take away the fact that even though this is fictional all the stuff is nonfiction. >> host: in one scene you get into the narcan debate and what you think about that? >> guest: i think that now places are giving it to first responders and they will give that everybody so even if you're there and doing drugs as well and the person you're with overdoses take out the narcan and save his life. it is a lifesaver. people say that will encourage and i said no it will save lives until we can figure out how to solve the problem. you don't want to say don't do it and let them die in most of the problem later but let's do both at the same time. narcan needs to be out there and everyone needs to have it in these terms. give it to the addiction treatment centers and family and everyone over there might be an issue.

have it in restaurants and bars because one-time people don't realize that people will go and overdose in a public place because they know they can be resuscitated. put it in a bar or restaurant or public places and some is like having a defibrillator these days. someone goes into cardiac arrest break the glass and hit them with it. >> host: do you see a lot of this when you travel? you see these towns? >> guest: absolutely. my family came from a coal mining town in west virginia very much like this. you have a place that was once a lot of good pain coal mining jobs we can make 70 or $80000 a year without education. they're all gone. but the town is still there. when you drive to these places and drive through the midwest it is unlike the washington dc areas. a lot of people have said -- don't have college education in the work there is service oriented low pain no benefits

people have very few property and don't have homes and are in old cars if they even have a car. a lot of that is what america is and for me not surprised that people are turning to opioids to break out of this because they don't feel like they have hope. we are the greatest country on earth and every citizen should have hope. we just need to get that back. >> host: what is the lesson of capitalism? >> guest: look, i'm a capitalist and i have my own small business and there has to be a balance. it was think about this and i was driving in today. it would be better for one person to make $3 billion a year or that person to make a billion dollars a year and other people into the making $30000 can make $60000 a year. they could buy more stuff have a better life and better health insurance and maybe send their

kids to college and would that make society better or is the guy having to live on $2 billion left with that hurt him? we have seen this before in the beginning of the 20th century with the robber barons that mark twain called the golden age and this happened before with income tax it phenomenally wealthy people with robber barons and rockefellers and the carnegie's and people like that and a lot of people had nothing and that balance was out of work. you have 2 20 roosevelt come and broke them up and uterus came in with collective bargaining. unions are pretty much dead and all of a sudden you have very few who are making extraordinary amounts of money and the rest of the people not so much. i don't think it's sustainable. but i also can't argue to people plausibly that they should be rebalanced or redistribution because as soon as you say reese

distribution your socialist. i'm not a socialist but i also know the truck ron does not seem sustainable. >> host: in barron bill, the fulfillment center for online unnamed online company. have you visited one of those customer what are they like? >> guest: yes. the scale is unbelievable. they are a football field times 12 and you never seen so much cardboard in your life and shelves in your life and robots and people running literally all day. when you think about it you think about the packages you get your house for the fact that the postal service only outbreaks on sunday to deliver amazon. it's piled high with packages from amazon on sundays. those packages have to get to you somehow and fulfillment

centers are how they do. the millions of americans buying billions packages you got places that have to hold that capacity so when you go in there the scale is breathtaking and the speed at which the stuff moves, 400 packages process a second. and out the door and on its way. i was overwhelmed and it was like and i had been to big military bases. these places worth the scale i saw and it is a phenomenon. it's the one major growth industry illinois and it was unbelievable to me. >> host: i'm to get the phone numbers and 50 minutes will start taking your telephone calls for david baldacci. you can treat us @booktv and use the # in-depth and make sure you get into the queue and we can get your questions. have a facebook page and lots of wait to get involved if you like

to do that. the very first amos decker book, the memory man, the central plot is around a school shooting. what year did you write that? >> guest: it was about 55 years ago. >> host: since then we've seen a number of these are what you think about what's happening with society and what why did you use this as a device and will be hoping to gain for your readers? >> guest: with the school shooting in memory man for me it was a mistake or's hometown and the school his daughter would have gone had she lived in high school. you can write fiction a number of different ways. you can write any story a number of different ways and go big and shallow or go small and deep so i wanted my memory man to have this intimate stake to work on. you see him prowling the hallways of i school at this horrific event in a very small stage taking everything in at all points in looking at and building this template of what

is the truth and on the small stage is able to go deep and that's what i wanted to. i didn't want to go broad and shallow. for me it was hit like alfred hitchcock in reflection. it was a school and then it moved off but the primary focus here to figure out what happened. when i was overseas and in england they told me that crime fiction had overtaken regular fiction as the most popular genre in the uk for the first time ever. people ask me why and i thought i said well, if you can't get what you want in the real word you turn to fiction. in the thrillers and crime fiction your good people and bad people and the good people get the bad people at the end and justices presented in truth comes out and the ending is supposed to end. in real life bad people don't

unpunished and good people lose and i think that's why people turn to it. >> host: i was surprised to read that in the publishing trades but this is the home of agatha christie and sherlock holmes so you would think that thrillers have always been a part of the british popular choice. >> guest: it is big over there and always has been but for this year i don't know what happened but the first time ever it overtook general literature. >> host: will get into how this all started be of a caller. let's listen to what he says. ryan in sioux city, iowa. welcome to the conversation with david baldacci. >> caller: my question is about the man's condition. you said it started because of his injury and the public is his perfect recall was that before or is the perfect recall triggered by things that happened after his double injury question. >> guest: great? the answer to that is different

for different people. with amos decker it can be before the injury occurred to him. we all have memories of things that happen to us from day one moving up and sometimes our memories don't come back out but what's fascinating about his condition is that in 2018 we know little about how the brain works. we just don't. it's almost like traumatic brain injury unlocked what was in his head all along and if you want to think about his bandwidth went from normal to like a gazillion and he was able to access the information and it's only been in there but he never able to access it before. his ram went up significantly if you want to talk about it on the computer basis. it downloads everything as he sees and hears it and it can be tricky for them because people lie to him but he'll remember the lie and just won't say that it's truth but he remembers is likely what someone says. on the road he find something contractor to treat and put the template over it to understand

and maybe that statement was untrue at all. he can remember everything from day one. >> host: and all of the novels of yours that i have read there's always eight states and local and federal agency and there's always lots of bureaucracy that people have to deal with and what did you develop that worldview about and injure agency relations? >> guest: from dealing with desperate personal experience in my office where my office is in west virginia were two federal agencies almost came to blows in the lobby in my office because one was doing something and had not told the other what they were doing. they had someone stationed in the office with binoculars and walkie-talkie walking around the office and looking around in this other agency strikes into our building and full body armor and a key 15th and it was like

what was going on in the other guys came in and trenchcoats enabling the agency but they were like she works for us and why do you need to tell us because we don't tell anyone anything. we are who we are and tell us. it evolved quickly into chaos. but i had worked in doubt with acronym agencies over the years and one thing they both will tell you is that the cooperation and communication is not always what it should be. there's a lot of people a lot of paperwork and a lot of intrinsic values in the places where they like to be independent and it's a turf battle, too. the crazy way the federal budget works is that you get more money if you have more responsibility and more stuff that you do. you never want to give a piece of the pie to anyone else. >> host: the changes that we

made after 2001 where it was supposed to solve all the stuff after 911 we were supposed have agencies that all communicated and actual bandwidth that works for two occasions physical condition but what happened? >> guest: yes, easier said than done. the irs was 70 computer systems for the last 40 years and well, you know, all those things still happen because look, these are aircraft carriers and military symbolism again and if you thank you will move those things in three minutes in a new direction it will not happen. they are enormous unyielding beasts and it takes time. nothing changes are happening and things are working better but it's a long, long road. >> host: martin is in washington dc area. hello, martin. >> caller: good morning. mr. baldacci morning. i just finished the fallen recently and went through all amos records series and my question is there are in all your books but especially

deckers there is heavy deep, emotional elements in it. do you plan those or do they come about spontaneously? >> host: martin, what is the scene that struck you as an emotional one? >> caller: the last page and i will just leave it at that. >> host: we will tantalize our viewers. >> guest: that's a great question, martin. for me i have to make these characters feel like they are real and human and one way i can do that is through relate to the readers on an emotional level. we all have problems or lives in a pulldown we all have losses that we have to suffer through. in this book in particular with amos wanted to show that even though he had this traumatic brain injury and who he was not used to be that he seems aloof and not part of the world anymore but he still had heart

and soul and could feel things. i know exactly what you're talking about. the relationship between decker in that particular character that was my way to show that this guy might have changed in a lot of ways but is still a human being can still feel and be honorable and i don't necessary part these things out and if i write the book i'm so immersed in it that it feels right if i'm writing it. you could call it spontaneous but my subconscious has been telling him it for so long that it's not spontaneous but came to the surface and i used it when i was supposed to use it. for me i knew that i wanted to get emotion out of amos decker in this novel and it's one critical way to do it. >> host: we should mention [inaudible] who starts out annoying him, i think, in the

first book as a journalist who asks too many questions. >> guest: she's like his watson to sherlock holmes. she keeps him somewhat normal and kicks him in the butt when he goes too far into something that she thanks is wrong. she's a steadying influence but it's frustrating for her, too. she wants to be better and she understands that he's better than she ever will be because of his unique ability. together it's important to have a duo like this. they have to become entry so you feel like together they are better than they would be separately for both of them. each of them feed off each other. alex jamison is a critical part and i don't think he could beat decker without her. >> host: they work for the fbi. >> guest: yes. >> host: and they been in a bit of trouble and a lot of accusations find about the role and things and as someone who

works the agency for such a long time what is your view of the public perceptions and the arguing over the role of the fbi right now? >> guest: all the agents i've dealt with dedicated to what they do their jobs are hard and tough and they don't have time for political grandstanding were in about an agenda down the road. they are just trying to solve cases and catch people who are doing bad things. the criticism i'm not an agent but it hits me because i know agents. the bureau does not deserve this in the justice department does not deserve this. i'm not saying you can't criticize institutions but you can criticize individual people who you can show are doing bad things but to say the fbi in the justice department are tainted and corrupt broadscale i think that's totally unwarranted. >> host: martha is in billings, montana.

>> caller: i just started reading the alex decker books. i really liked them but i have to tell you at the age of 70 i am madly in love with [inaudible] [laughter] i want to know what you don't give him a girlfriend, please. someone that he can be settled with or something. i just love that man. >> host: will talk about him later in the program. it seems like it's dangerous to be him his love interest because they don't often survive. [laughter] [inaudible conversations] >> guest: well, i would never say never on it. his essential characters and he could find love on the road but he will be back in another book. i do like knox and she may be the one to tame him and to be the one that stands the test of time so i am keeping that in mind. i love him too and i think he's

a great guy. >> host: will there be amos decker books? >> guest: yes, more amos decker books. now i reached a tipping point on revealing him more but i feel liberated that i can go further with him. >> host: next up is joanne in wisconsin. >> caller: hello. yes. i've been at the baldacci fan for many years. my husband and i just finished watching at the library the king and maxwell tv series which is different from the book because i just finished the book which i really enjoyed but i watched, i've read, i've listened to when i walk i do the audiobooks so i am glad i do the audiobooks in the amos decker one is the last mile which was fascinating and i fell in love with the whole series so i will go back to the first one until i can figure out or read about what happened to

him. >> guest: them memory man we moved to do a new series and he will fit the bill for a lot of reasons. when you meet [inaudible] and some of the other cast they really click and i was a powerful book for me because i explore a lot in the injustice and the death penalty in prison system and it gave amos decker a worthy foil and a guy almost on his level. i still get e-mails about those guys. they will ask when melvin will come back. >> host: joanne is in, sorry, jacqueline is in washington dc. >> caller: hello, david. this is jacqueline -- [inaudible] i'm so proud and so happy all of what you've done over the past several years. i had a question that we've been pondering here in our family

regarding amazon the h q2 headquarters are trying to figure out which for that. the major cities are vying for that. i often wonder if perhaps it will be a patriotic service or national service with mr. basis considering basically providing if you will and industry in the state of west virginia or another state which needs and industry. >> guest: i would agree with that and the headquarter and the second headquarters for amazon.com will be a huge shot in the arm for any community. i know the criteria they have the high highly advocate workforce and a lot of other amenities and things in the area that would attract people in west virginia has listings as well. i certainly think communities like that should be in writing. i don't know their exact criteria on the final decision

but recently amazon sent out to some of the cities in the running list of things they did not like and apparently they maybe want them to fix. i'm not sure how you do that. i don't know what the issues were but it's extraordinary when a company has that much power and you have all these communities clamoring for these jobs and it really is extraordinary. >> host: jeff bezos is a lease of part-time washingtonian and have you met him? >> guest: no, he's honestly when amazon first started out it was out of his garage in the mid- 1990s and the fact that 20 odd years he's built this enormous company is quite an achievement. ...

>> but i could not make a living. and i wrote plays and i had a couple of options. and then i tried it to decide my hand at longform and my office was near the white house back then and to be in the d.c. area i would walk back and bush 41 with the presidential motorcade and i thought what if i write a book of the stereotype with the president and mistress and a cover-up and it seemed like it was ripped from the headlines but it wasn't but i spent

three years of my life writing that as a trial lawyer but i would go down to my little cubbyhole at night and right until the clock in the morning every day. that was my time. but i do say tongue-in-cheek but as a writer all i had in my quiver so i spent the ten years writing as a lawyer. so it was to make the transition so it could take a year to write a book. so that was an easy transition. >> and years later and said

what a great gift you gave to me that day. but quite frankly i wanted to shut you up. [laughter] >>host: it sounds like they felt the same way about you. [laughter] >> really? never shut up. >>host: what was a light one -- what was it like when you got the call? >> i just joined the firm very recently. they had no idea who i was i was number 587. my agent called and said if i sell the book will you quit lawyering and rightful time? i said that was my whole dream and they said the book sold. so at first i thought that's great.

and it was too outrageous and then i found out he was in russia. then i got a call from the president and that i was invited to this party. so i do remember going that day and it change my life. but to put the offer on the table. all the way down. that's all i wanted to do. and because it is newsworthy. >> with my brother and sister and mother and father.

then we were telling people and then are we having another baby or getting divorced? and then they were blown away. one of my close friends sons called me and said what else is going on we don't know? >>host: falls church virginia go ahead. >> caller: hello normally we see you at the barnes & noble bookstore. a couple of things in t2 you expose the whole structure of the fulfillment centers and you also mentioned earlier with "the fallen" but you also

bring out the working conditions of the people of the fulfillment centers. so do you see them based on what we heard in the book that they are becoming the sweatshops of the 21st century or do they have that potential? or are they right unionized? and this is a temporary boom for those opportunities and when they are taking over a large part of those responsibilities? >> those are all great questions. the fulfillment centers are the sweatshops. it is no way humanly possible and it never gets tired and so to answer your question it

should be right if that can happen or not i don't know. but and then to explode in these places and you shouldn't have to work yourself to death ten hours a day but at the same time automation in the long run talk about lifting boxes up to put the labels on them to put them into a truck and then to have these for filament centers and what is going on behind the computer screen and said if robots can do all the work and who will

fire? they said they figure that out. >>host: if you are regular watcher we have spent 20 years watching at the non- fiction author center of the 20th -- 20h anniversary with the "in-depth" series every sunda sunday -- the first sunday we focus on the fiction riders like david baldacci because their stories help us understand talking about a lot of issues so welcome and we hope you enjoy the programming and we hope that you enjoy this little fiction 12 times this year. alaska good morning. >> caller: books on the shelves authors incomes were

based on actual books sold with the announcements so is that still happening? it seems that has gotten to the point where they are not buying books and the effect on the incomes? >> three or four years ago that they really peaked sales wise. for 70 years it was every other genre hardcover novels and mass-market sales. and for me doing those books all in a row those are really high numbers.

in three years ago than the e-book sales started to go down again. but just the fact that they have 800 books they have not even read yet so they are not buying as many that could be an issue for some people with some of the publishers but at the same time the print books my own statements they are going up again even hardcover sales downloadable audio that is a exploding category in the country. they can use that on their smart phones. it has taken over the entire industry. at this point in my career i work with my publishers so if the pie is bigger than i make more money and the e-books are

a good thing but it is a really complicated area. >> do you travel so much? >> but when i read real books all the time. but the e-book is loaded. i only read online at lunch i keep it really short i like the book. and then to turn the pages myself. but wherever i go my laptop goes with me. and with those first three chapters that is how i did it and it is weird but if you think about it might make

sense i think better in person. >> did you go to catholic school? i thought maybe was cursive writing was a habit from childhood. [laughter] >>host: so your book has a description do you watch everybody around and to draw on that for later? >> harriet the spy. remember those? i love people and to eavesdrop and i love watching people like in front of the camera. people fascinate me. we probably relate to each other with their mannerisms and what they talk about.

you have to be a really good observer and a really big listener. >> but then they say what do you do? >> i walk out the door. i'm actually watching the world and to see two people talking one turns and walks down the alley a think what were they talking about? so i try to extrapolate what could be interesting. >> so how did you meet? >> we met that is the way that happened so i was a hotshot new trial lawyer but i turned around and there she was. i had no idea. she said i hear you're telling

people you are a lawyer? i said yes. she said stop telling people that end turned and walked away. and so i thought i have to date her. it took a long time to find out who she was heard she was in a motorcycle accident that wasn't true but finally i got her number and we went to lunch. we went to nathan's in georgetown. and with that luncheon i had nine ties in the briefcase. which one do you think? because i wanted to make a good impression.

and then we dated for a couple of years now we celebrated our h wedding anniversary. >>host: congratulations. you have two kids what have they done? >> our daughter is a not-for-profit world. and she is helping the homeless and worked there that's all she wanted to do but now taking the summer off and going to south america. she is my nomad. and our daughter works in the startup company in philadelphia and we get to see her which is nice. >> is a hard to have a famous dad? >> i told her when she was in college she says no my dad's name is skip.

so everybody started to call me skip. i thought what is happening? but sometimes they are very strong they are not walked in my shadow they have very strong lives. >>host: pennsylvania go-ahead. >> caller: history david baldacci i am a big fan of your books i preorder as soon as i get the news from amazon. but my question is i have read most of your books and i'm familiar with your venues and your descriptions wait a minute how does he do this? i'm curious that you have

visited these places and number two is this done while you are writing the book? will you complete that and fill it in afterwards? >> good questions. before i sit down to write a book i think of the subject areas i need to learn about to write that in the authentic way. so i think where will i go or who do i talk to? so i get permission to visit places at the same time i have visited other places talking to other people along the way so now it is part and parcel of the writing process. now the more i know about things the more interesting i can craft my storyline.

that is easily like wikipedia or google. so it is just happenstance. i need to do this. so i just like listening to these people so this goes hand in hand researching talking to people up to the very last stag stage. >> you seem to get into places where other people couldn't you call up agencies and you describe the top-secret work that is going on. why are they open to you? >> i become a journalist in those parts and what i have always done my sister is a journalist for years i used to go on the beat with her so i quickly learned a couple of things you need to prepare for find out what they do so when

you are talking to them on the phone that they understand immediately they are not calling out of the blue he has done some work and then they are more open to you so when i go in i don't have to ask a lot of questions they can quickly tell i have done my homework otherwise the interview would be very short so i show them i am respecting what they do in here to waste their time they get more comfortable then i ask some broad-based questions just create a dialogue not specific answers. and then they feel comfortable i respect what they do and don't waste their time and people like what they do they like to acknowledge that is something they have earned.

they like to tell you in 1979i was working in miami in a field a field office and this is what happened and i love those stories because it gives me insight into their personality and why they joined in the first place and i can take all of that to bring that into the assignment. >> and recalling the story and the one thing that seems to change is your writing style i look back at the chapters when they were ten or 12 pages now they are three or four pages also may leave you wondering what will happen at the next chapter will have the backing of all? >> riders need to continually write about themselves i was becoming more economical with my words. i do know who is part and parcel with the screenplay because every word counts so

every had to have multiple purposes but i thought i would streamline because a lot of the stories i will tell the potency is from me not being able to get the words out and in that regard and the fact about the cliffhanger at the end of each chapter, i like writing books like that that draws me onto the next chapter. i am pretty good at doing that. so it could be totally out of the blue and then you have done something else and then the last line and that did it happen and then you go to the next page. i've been to events people say

i'm really mad because i can't get any sleep. it's for clock in the morning and they say put the book down and i can't. but it is about reinventing yourself fresh and as a writer i never want to ask how do they do a last time? or how can he do it differently going forward? >> delaware. go ahead. >> how are you doing? >> good. i want to share an anecdote how i came into play with your writing i was doing a lot of traveling i was an investigator and i was waiting for my flight and i went over to the bookstore and i saw the book by david baldacci and

they said this might be interesting so i bought it and i sat down while i was reading it this would make a terrific movie. and then clint eastwood and then suddenly it donned on me that it was the movie. [laughter] what i like about your writing is how you hook the reader from the very beginning like the lady was saying she couldn't get sleep because now that you have changed your technique in the chapters. and that is what i like so

much of your writing is that you can't put the book down and as soon as you pick up a new book you are hooked from the very beginning so i appreciate that what a terrific writer you are. >> every author likes to hear calls like that and to hear how you actually had the movie right? tell us the story. >> a number of studios were bidding on it simultaneously but they have book agents and all the published houses and all they make copies and send them out to hollywood right away with a hot book. so back then five or six studios were bidding for the rights. i am at penn station. at the payphone ten people behind me are waiting in line paramount and warner bros. are all are on the line bidding on this book and the price keeps

going up and i am shouting into the phone people behind we are looking at me like we should call the police. by the time i had gotten home on the train it sold and i told myself never forget any of this this could be the only time it could happen. everything else is secondary. so i got a call from the screenwriter eastwood sign he said i've really good news in really bad news. clint eastwood signed on the line the studio has the green light what's the bad news?

so if clint eastwood has signed then your rights are gone it was going to be a father daughter thing but when i heard that news from the payphone on the train i got on the phone i called everybody i had known in my entire life. you had me in first grade you're not can believe what happened. [laughter] >> i was 34. >> and it happened so fast. mentally it must've been hard to process this process. >> it was like a dream every day was something new. the today show. "good morning america". here i was on channel nine years ago i remember my whole

offer they wanted me to talk about it but they said are you doing all that he will stop you right now and he said lawyers are handling that. so then everybody started to cheer. i voice wanted to say that. i stayed at the law firm for almost a year because i just joined the law firm and there was a new partner i didn't want to leave them in the lurch and then i went on book tour and then i told them i don't think i'm being the best lawyer or the best writer thank you for understanding. >>host: richmond go ahead. >> caller: hello.

how are you? i was actually calling i love your series definitely a loved how you brought them back into the fix and on the character but i was actually calling so what advice do you have for a 13-year-old who wants to be a lawyer but also a writer? >> that is a great question. as i was in that situation. reading a lot is great and playing around with words is great because that is what lawyers and riders do but join a book club or writing club find people with similar interests to get involved there are organizations or legal organizations or law firms that encourage people to

go into law and look at those summer camps. but just to share commonalities that there could be people there that have the same dream that your child does but open up a blank page chart one -- journal doesn't have to be anything that other than what comes out of their head may be a plot or a narrative and then do that every day. also if that 13 years old right about what you would like to know about and that can also drive you to great storytelling. >>host: we are the end of the first of three hours our next call from stafford virginia and we will show you the trailer. you are up before teen hello.

>> caller. hello it is nice to put a face with the book. i am meeting years old. one -- 80 years old. i cannot hold my head still to read so i listen to audiobooks i started listening because i could not sleep. my children suggested i listen because they were listening to them as they would drive down the road. i tried but they don't understand how you can listen to a book. so i just want to thank you for all of the books you have written i cannot recall one specific one but i listen to four or five books a week. i can listen to a voice and i

can visualize everything down to the styrofoam cup just like the scene changes in a movie. but they don't have the same pair of shoes on. and i can visualize things like that. so thank you for all of your works. >>host: what a nice call. do you read all of your own audiobooks? >> no. they are not hearing my voice but there are professional actors i do know my strengths and weaknesses that is not my strength. people reading act out there seeing a have drama and inflection and reading professionals do that and jim dale does like a hundred and 50 different voices it is

phenomenal. but i sat in my garage listening with the car running to one of my books even though i wrote it. because the audio is a different performance. wow. >>host: we will show you the trailer from "absolute power" and what made david baldacci a household name 140 million books in print and we will show you how it all began and we asked viewers to tell us about their favorite authors and then we will be back. .

of the murder weapon has disappeared. the killer's identity has been concealed. two men know the truth. one is a master thief, the other is the most powerful man in the world. clint eastwood, gene hackman in paris. laura lenny, judy davis and scott glenn, absolute power. "absolute power".

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>>host: we began our number two with david baldacci on c-span2 booktv learning about his writing life and his personal life coming together to produce 130 million books in print and in how many countries back. >> 100 countries and 50 languages. >> are you particularly popular in italy? >> my first book my publishers called and said change her name is that it's italian you can't change it. but italians want to read american thrillers if otherwise they will not buy the book said what sort of

name? i said they are all immigrants so i lucked out in the driveway so call me david ford. he said that sounds american number one bestseller in italy so absolute power is david ford. >> but it is now? yes. my third book is david baldacci ford and then david baldacci ever since but absolute power was david ford. >> you tour? what is your interaction? >> why did you change your name? [laughter] >> like this 70-year-old who called in earlier so who is john poehler? >> an agent who investigates

crime personnel around the world criminal investigator position in the army. again the mps investigate minor crimes this is a higher level they are all enlisted and then you go to west point and then they are involved in the military world there is one in the breeze but this is for the army. >> talking about your phone calls if you have questions about a particular series you can ask any of his works we are here to learn about his writing life. and to have a very famous father and is a decorated military hero and legendary so

thinking about chesty? >> that's where the name came from. he grew up in virginia and learned about him and his he was also decorated and that's where it came from. so i emulated his career i maybe should've went differently with political differences but chesty volunteered for vietnam and of course they didn't want him so a lot of that those descriptions sr. were from when he was a little kid. >> writing about federal agencies now how do you do the research with the military? you even have military readers and some are not true though how'd you do that?

>> in law enforcement in the air force and coast guard and a lot of friends in the d.c. area so a friend of mine who was a retired colonel said to write a book about a character and to immerse myself into that world and that is where the rangers train and implicate. and getting my butt kicked from one end to the next with the jumping grounds and then you are upside down and then i have training with a sergeant in front of me then you go one hour nonstop on the circuit and that involves pushing and pulling but i also spend time

listening and also with the commandant they spent time with him i didn't want to write a military novel not knowing about the military. i wanted to know what these people did and also get into their heads and hearts. i think about this earlier you have to be a good listener as a writer. i don't really like to talk about myself i like to learn about other people. >> what is the most adventuresome or precarious thing you have done researching a book? >> probably some walk along is with the d.c. police. were the right along and then you are out of the car and then somebody stops so we walked down the alley me and another guy i think is street

name was peanut so we pass offense and there was a walking path but the board flew off and hit me in the hat ym falling back just like pushing through this base and he pulls off another board so he can get through i said what you doing? so he ran down the alley and ripped out another board and i said what is that dog? he said that his psychos dog who is psycho? he is a double murder the dog is crazy. so that was in the book true blue with one episode there is a character named psycho just

based on what happened. and fort benning was weird as well and that you have to do it. >> that the series came out in succession 201120122014 and 16 is that typical? that you have the stories and you want to tell them? >> also i wanted to stay involved in the character so the name was decker and in quick succession and have never been energized about a character and want to spend that much time with him. >> i want to talk with you first about returning to the

scene of the economically stressed town this was a coal mining town it sounds like you're grassroots so what is the story and drink virginia? >> the town that has seen better days. it is in west virginia. it is right on the border they are on the spine of the appellation. i totally made that up. no i made that up. it was a place with a military footprint. so there is an enormous dome they are sent to investigate this murder but this is left over by the military 40 years ago and nobody knows. so for me i like going into

small towns just to learn the history little by little to show that there are secrets nobody is aware of. it is like peeling back the layers of the onions. i love that. i like concocting stories and then people realize i never saw that coming. >> with the places from world war ii are there abandoned sites that have good material in them? >> all over the place. a lot of it was easier back then in the 60s and 70s when we were not as conscious as the environment to say we are out of here but epa did not exist until the 70s there was no epa before then.

so talk about self-regulating with the environment but it is easier and more cost-effective to move on someplace else but that does have repercussions. >> you said you did research work for this series of books more than the others? >> it is a complicated beast. all the acronyms and rules and regulations and traditions and just understanding that you don't have to trolled line -- drill down too much it isn't a textbook it is a novel because i would just like to know if i write the book do you believe i served in the military? i don't have to described in great detail or a particular

scope that is used on the sniper gun. or the duffel bag that he uses for munitions or the cut of his uniform on certain days but i had to get into his metallic -- mentality to realize this is his life and it is really hard to do that. a flipbook is where they do a lot of research but they don't want to incorporate into the story and then you get past the stuff and get back to the story. >>host: now we will take some calls first from massachusetts. >> caller: i'm here. thank you. david baldacci thank you. my question is fact versus

fiction. i am thinking there is a lot of evil in the world when you are writing and you have people out there saving the world from evil and i do believe that evil does exist. but i'm also wondering why there are all these characters that are always trying to tie the hands of those that are out there to save the world. >> those are good questions there are evil people out there some countries have more enemies than others we have our fair share and we live in a democracy with a lot of

civil liberties and rights and you want people to do their job to protect the country but you also have to achieve balance you don't want somebody to do something that would interfere with constitutional rights. so as a writer i have to make it possible and don't take shortcuts and people make mistakes so the idea that people are working and they are protecting us from evil and found that understanding and the one thing i learned in law school is that the slope is slippery and once you cut back on enforcement of people's rights then it is much easier to cut back on other rights and it is a slippery slope so protecting people's rights trying to protect everyone from evil but

i do love the challenge with the books that i write because complicated stories make for great fiction. >>host: you deal with a lot of murderers writing hundreds of ways for people to die in your book so how do you deal with that psychological dichotomy? >> that is a dark side of me i guess. when my kids were little i didn't have an office outside of the house my wife maybe get a cabinet so it could be locked because of all the crimes and murders of people that do bad things so that it could be locked up from the kids. but i am fascinated by it. i think it is a good way to write about books like that it is good to be scared from a safe distance you like to read

about them from a safe distance but would never want to meet the golden state keller but it is part of what i do and i want my books to be authentic and to feel real. i remember in bristol tennessee at the border ten years old at the shopping mall with my parents there was a used book table and it was autopsies from famous murders with all these pictures i read the whole book while at the shopping mall. i was turned off by the violence but i was intrigued by how you could apply forensic science to actually resolve these issues and help the family to get closure. it is a weird dichotomy and don't have a great explanation but it does come down to that i crave knowledge.

and to know about different subjects. >>host: texas go ahead. >> caller: hello. mr. david baldacci i love your books but my question is about the channel do you think you're writing about that? but i like all the different characters and how they were chained to gather and i have another question i want to ask you how did your book come about because i laughed and i cried and that was a great book. >> thank you. in the last six years i did a book signing and went to give my remarks and there was a

camel on the importance of what you think i want more of? he is part of the camel club. if i could think of a great story to bring them back with the super ensemble cast i will believe me i have not stopped inking about that i would like to bring them back but as far as one summer, that only happened because my son was having his confirmation and catholic church which is the last big catholic right before you get married and my wife sent me to church to save the pews for friends and family i was there early so i talked to the priest and i started thinking my dad passed away my youngest confirmed wife was

moving on it was my own mortality so the hour and a half i was alone in the church the entire story unfolded in my head i spent the next two months writing it. there are like where did this come from i said my wife sent me to church my editor just laughed and said can i ask you can you go to church more often? [laughter] >> south carolina go ahead. >> caller: the lady got in front of me asking about the camel and that is what i was going to ask. i read 90% of all of your books. if i take time i think it was

page 196 i think it is in my mind. but the driver of the van somebody was after him and on that one page was the best writing of any writing i have ever read. it was outstanding i love all of your books and absolute power and total control but what i like is you capture us within the first three pages but then we put everything aside to just read. but i love the fact that your chapters are shorter than most books and they do have. [laughter] i'm reading a book i think there was 13 page before it

even had a period at the end. then i feel like i can stop. >>host: we appreciate your phone call. overall these readers do you find that most of them read all of your books or that is a particular character? >> i think probably 20% like the characters like camel club or the rest maybe the book signings i have done over the last five years in particular people come in with handcarts of boxes of every single thing i have written i cannot remember the last time i had somebody they didn't have every single book i have written the majority now say i have read every single book the kid stuff. >> people are mentioning specific people in chapters

can you recall all of them back. >> yes i continue the plot and the characters. i don't use ghostwriters a right all the books. >> total recall. [laughter] washington go ahead. >> caller: i am just so excited but to hear the man i am deeply impressed with you mr. david baldacci and that is an incredible experience. i have two personal questions. how to use a married seems like you only sleep four hours. and then the books that said you were your favorite how do you look at another authors books or how do you decide?

and god lets you to be married i will hang up and listen. >> the first question we just had one kid so i would stay writing. the family was very important with me but she was very understanding quite frankly without her support none of this would have happened. so i definitely own her a debt. and your second question i get recommendations from friends and family and say you have to read this book. i get hundreds of these a year. tongue-in-cheek i said i don't have to read it but sometimes that will give it to my wife or a friend then my wife will

say you should read this. friend of mine used to be my editor at my publisher she sent me a book she published and set it you get hundreds of these but this is something you should enjoy. . . . . >> guest: one way is to support them. when i was a new writer coming up and other writers who would support me and give me the benefit of their experiences i love to do that with other writers. i have others who are best

selling writers and came up after me and i'd give them the benefit of the mistakes i made. >> host: brad meltzer, you support him, is there a writers thriller of writers circle or do you stay in touch with each other? >> guest: let me see. [laughter] we see at events and he mentioned brad doing an event with him and sandra brown at book, and in new york in june. i know the popular lighters that everyone enjoys and i'm sure i know them all from patterson till michael connelly to john grisham and occasionally do charitable events together. have done a bunch with grisham and when john came out with this book last year he called me up

and said i will be in dc and you want to do a podcast with me. so we did a podcast there together which was a blast. you see them occasionally. it's not like we hang out together or that show were there sitting around playing cards like in castle but we get together from time to time and talk shop and catch up. >> host: or the algonquin hotel in new york. lewis in pennsylvania. >> caller: yes, mr. baldacci, my comment is i got in to reading for my father when i was in grade school. he forced us to read so when we got to the dinner table we argued and he wanted fax not just emotions so that is how i got into reading. the movie, absolute power that i saw based on your book how close is that to your writing that they -- to they take liberty with it as far as the movie goes? >> guest: the first act of the film is right from the book. break into the mansion and what the burglar sees in the escape. after that totally changed.

clint eastwood wanted to be the hero of the film and back then clint was enough hero for any film. also the fact that in the book his characters killed halfway through and at least back then i don't think clinton died in any of his films. the one time he died back then but he was of so-called high plains drifter came back as a ghost and killed everybody so that is clint eastwood. he can't die. back then the screenwriter had to change the whole second and third acts of the film to keep bible the fact that clint easton would be alive. >> host: twitter comment from east hampton. [laughter] >> guest: hampton brown was an old client of mine and it was the coolest pieces of litigation i'd ever done and he was a great

client and we scored a great victory against pepsi-cola which is a whole other story. yes, having to borrow money from a cabdriver to get to the nbc studios and having to borrow money to get out of a parking garage because the gates are closed and i had no idea i did pay to get out. those things happen. when you go million miles an hour -- which i was in before that i never been on it television show and now everyone wanted me on. i was in the same body but totally different person. >> host: back to our hero in the series and gnomon plant couple questions about it. the relationship with general fuller continues but he has dementia. tell me about that family dynamic and again that he was story were telling their. >> guest: the great thing about the military is there's opportunity for action and weapons and high-stakes but that is all well and good but i needed to have emotional component. you can relate to the sky on a

human level just like everyone else even though he seems to have [inaudible]. having a father who was a legendary combat commander who you always walked in the shadow of now to be a shell of what he was. that is for me, a strong company guy that would knock him down to his knees. always know that he can never measure up to the old man but that was the albatross around his neck. it's hard for them to bring reconciliation. the emotional baggage in the book was the relation between john junior and senior. he can no longer be senior and because of that john junior could no longer be john junior. >> host: the color wanted him to have a relationship but in this book he's dealing with the dementia and the relationship with his brother and the whole story is about the disappearance of her mother. there's a family dynamics going on without much room for emotional personal relationships. >> guest: no, it's not.

veronica comes closest to being the woman that could be with him a long time but that's a tricky balance. i had the same problem with king and maxwell. some people were graphic about what they wanted and i said do you remember there was an old sitcom with bruce willis and cybill shepherd and it was a great tv series until they fell in love and got into bed together and then it fell apart. magic would wait. that's the trial for me that the sexual dynamic intention is a great thing but once it gets resolved then it's like okay, done. >> host: you don't do explicit sex in your book, why? it seems like sex cells in society today. >> guest: i like to leave it to the imagination. the scariest thing i have ever seen in the film was the shower scene from a psycho. it was almost no violence but in

your imagination. you let the mind go, your good. >> host: next is call from irene in virginia. you are on with the author, david baldacci. >> caller: hello. >> guest: hello. >> caller: i have been a fan of yours for many years. it began with absolute power and to wish you well and in between. i have read your books at the english and in german. i would like to ask you i have written a book and it's about my experiences as a child in germany in world war ii and it entails events about my family and where we lived, what we experienced -- we lived next to the swiss border so we were fortunate however, we felt the effects of the war and saw bombs falling and burning planes coming down et cetera and i went into quite a bit of detail and

then going on to coming to america and saw the statue of liberty and which was extremely emotional for me to see so what i would like to know -- everybody who has read this is encouraging me to, by all means, write a book and publish it. how do i go about this? >> host: i bet you get that question all the time. how do i become you? >> guest: a couple of ways. if this is a nonfiction piece there are agents that -- you need an agent if you want to get to a mainstream publisher. you can find their names and writers digest and get names of agents they will tell you if they specialize on nonfictional memoirs which is what the subject.

send the macquarie letter with the first chapter in two or three other sample chapters and say this is my life and this is the experience and keep it longer than a paragraph and send them to her the chapters and i guarantee you they will read the chapters back to you at some point. then having an agent that can represent you going forward with the publisher or these days if you want to publish yourself you can self publish online with amazon or barnes & noble or other places. this book sounds interesting and may do mainstream publishing. that's why i. >> host: last question for me about john fuller and that is in gnomon plant 2016 the main character is paul rogers and he is the subject of military experiments on the human being to increase soldiers capabilities on the battlefield. are there such things as a product of your imagination? >> guest: these are all things. the skeletons are already in effect. those are already deployed.

it's making the mind more lethal on the field and more precise and they are doing that research as well. there's a whole cottage industry other with billions of dollars and the monitor is do the impossible and do it as fast as possible. we have highly qualified intelligent people with billions of dollars of their back doing also the things i wrote about in gnomon plant. >> host: the flipside is there's a lot of work going on to repair soldiers were injured on the battlefield and learning about bionic with that work. >> guest: absolutely. a lot of the soldiers injured were in iraq and afghanistan wars and that have been been on they all would've died because these were non- survival wounds 30 or 40 years ago and now you get treatment on the battlefield that stabilizes people and airlifted out and they had this amazing work done and to bring

them back but the same time talking about soldiers and they got their life but they have challenges now. they might have lost all their limbs or legs or whatever and a lot of traumatic playing at her brain injuries. i did a book signing seven or eight years ago and their different places in walter reed one is for the amputees and one is for the tbi. i talked to one man and he had been injured and i he was not a tbi candidate but had been lost both of his legs. i was asking how are you doing and what is your name in all this is in response and i could see he was struggling and pulled his doctor aside and said that

he's not a tbi and so he and he said this guy has been blown up. they are all tbi's. all of them. we just call them amputees because he lost his limbs. can you imagine getting blown up. his brain got rocked around and install a hundred times. war has got to the point where yes, we can fix the soldiers but it leaves them with challenges going to the next seven years of her life. >> host: to spend time sitting veterans question. >> guest: yes, i do. i've been to the air force base in germany, i go to walter reed and i want to continue. in the iraq and afghanistan wars and [inaudible] about the 5000 plus that died in the war and talk about the hundred thousand that are injured. these are people who put their lives on the line, 18, 19, 20 -year-old people. >> host: next is joe in montana. thank you for waiting. >> caller: yes, i asked doctor

brooks because i read them on airplanes and i get so engrossed in your books and i forget about any fears i have. it works like a charm. the question i wanted to ask you is if you come from richmond how come you don't have an accent? my wife lives near monument avenue and she never lost it even in montana. >> guest: i use to have a southern accent and it has its own exit like carlson and savanna do. my wife was born and it naval base outside chicago so she's lived all over including atlanta. when we go to richmond my wife will tell you she puts on the richmond voice and her richmond voice is who is your family and where are they from? i think my accent over the last 30 years has been smoothed out because he lived in the dc area and i traveled a lot. if i'm in richmond for any period of time the drawl comes

back. >> host: judy is in texas. hello, judy, you are on. >> caller: hello. mr. baldacci, i have been enamored with [inaudible] and i was wondering you don't write enough about him. are you planning any more books in the future? >> guest: he will be back. i have a lot i want to write about him. i think i hit my stride with him but he's got a lot of baggage. even though in no man's land you saw and he solved the mystery of what happened his mother he has things ahead of him. his character is a lot more room to grow and i have not even touched the relationship with his brother yet. his brother got out of prison and the escape but it's always been one book since. he will be back, guaranteed. >> host: will talk about one

standalone book, wish you well. tell me of the story of wish you well and why it's important to you. you speak about it emotionally. >> guest: that is by far the most personal book i've ever written. even the story is fictional and every element of the lives of the people in the story is based on my mom's life growing up in a southwest virginia on top of the mountain. [inaudible] in 2004 they finally put running water up to ramses richmond she lived there in the 30s and 40s the youngest of ten and had a hard life. >> host: we have a couple pictures that you included this book as you talk about it. >> guest: she had siblings but a difficult life and it made her incredibly strong person. my mother was a force of nature. i was thinking about writing a story because i'd heard the stories for my mom and my

grandmother and she was a teacher and i remember going to her bedroom before i go to school and talk with her and we would talk about the civil war and she had a great uncle who fought in the war and it was the only thing she really had was in 1861 springfield rifle that my great, great great uncle had carried in on the carry [inaudible] i have that in my office at home and my grandmother said the only thing wrong about that was they fought for the yankees. i would pull her chain and said yeah, but grandma did they win and that was a long-running battle between us. that was my way and i sat down and spoke to my mother with multiple interviews and hundreds of pages of notes in her recollection of events that happened several years before were pristine.

i cannot tell you what i was doing yesterday and i asked her about that and said when you grow up like that you never forget it. you just don't. >> host: what did she think of the book? >> guest: that was one of the most dramatic moments of my life because i wanted her to love it and she did. we both cried when she finished reading the book and i was like thank you because she nothing else mattered. she did not live to see the film that i think she would've liked the film because it was a betrayal of life was like back then. >> host: i'm going to ask my producer to put the man in the checkered shirt back on the screen. special person in your life. >> guest: yeah, it was my grandfather. he passed away before i was born so i never knew him but his name is columbus rose. anyone who reads my books and they see on the copyright page that it'll say whatever year and that's the where i got the name

from my name for my company from. he was a 6-foot four who died before i was born and his name was [inaudible]. nobody could pronounce any of those names so everyone at richmond called him mike. >> host: what generation was he in the united states. >> guest: he was an immigrant who came across from italy at the turn of the last century. through ellis island and why did he end up in richmond? new york was far too cold. a lot of them got on the train and got off at the first stop in the self and that was richmond, virginia. there's a huge italian community in richmond virginia because of that. >> host: will take more calls and then learn about how wish you well the book and movie became a foundation for the baldacci. kathy is in florida. >> caller: hello, mr. baldacci. how are you?

>> guest: i'm fine. how are you customer. >> caller: i'm so glad to hear that you're doing more john poehler because i have enjoyed those. i do encourage you to bring the camel club back when you get there. my concern is you don't write to cook enough because i've read all your books and i have to wait so long for another want to come out. i have not read the fallen and i went to the library to get it and i am 92 on the waiting list but i will wait. it will come. i do enjoy your work and you write so beautifully and i continue to continue with this wonderful talent you have. that is all i have to say. thank you so much for listening. >> guest: thank you. it was a wonderful comment and i'm glad you enjoyed the book so much. i did try to write as fast as i can but my wife keeps telling me to slow down. >> host: kathy is a library user

and library seem to be on the decline. >> guest: i'm a big proponent of libraries and have been forever. they made a huge difference in my life. i think the use of libraries is going up and the funds we used is for them are going down. these days libraries are community centers and they go to banks to get online and they go in because their job resumes up to their and they had to evolve. the problem is we're not funding them in their fear books on the shelf and fewer librarians working. investing in libraries and education is putting great money to great use. i know what book reading meant to me and maybe the than i am today and it's a well-rounded person that you would want to have in society. all the founding fathers without exception were voracious readers who were entirely's letter writers and letters they wrote in the document they drafted were intelligent, well written

and that is why we have this great country. why should we not be well read because this is what got us he here. >> host: josh jones and writes on reading the fallen right now in the memory man is my favorite series going. number did a mistake or where in college and for the nfl. >> guest: it will be my old football number in high school, number 68. it wasn't i was not nearly as big as decker but that would've fit what he did on the playfield. >> host: charlie, in california, hello, charlie. yes, hello. mr. baldacci, i started reading your books and i get mine from the library also. i had a question. i just finished king and maxwell [inaudible] >> guest: yes three in the psychoanalyst that treats her and they have a consequence

where the father had down the rosebushes outside the house when their traumatic adults receive happened or whatever but i wanted to know did i read when one of your earlier works something in reference to that in another character that had mental 80 back in the to the rosebush down or is that something i read in a child books jack reacher? >> guest: postpetition you were talking about what i did with michelle maxwell is a memory reconstruction of what happened between her parents when she was a little girl and the reason why she's ocd and loves garbage everywhere particularly in her truck to cover things up. those with a novel will understand what that means. as far as i remember from -- that only happens in simple genius so if you have a recollection from it in your mind it might've been from

another book or series and i was feeling time my visa in the novel. >> host: secret service also has difficult challenges over the past five or six years with scandal within the organization and top officials all had to leave so what is going on with that. >> guest: secret service is interesting in that they have to endure large amounts of tedium to keep their focus complete to deal with a few seconds of crisis. that is hard and difficult to do long-term. at the same time that is their job. i've looked at a lot of things that happened over the years when obama was president and the bullets been fired in the white house and people only finding out about it later in agents going off and doing things when the traveling overseas for total

breakdown and command. i think what happened they needed to have a total housecleaning. obviously when training and readiness for duty breaks down your tremendous problem. i don't know are complacent but we can go off and have fun but it's crazy and i think a lot of agents who didn't do that and these are the bad apples we care about our totally ashamed about what is going on because of the time they were the gold standard in a number -- organizations are made of people and people are human obviously and make mistakes and bad judgments. but they are human and can turn it around. >> host: susan in illinois. >> caller: hello, i just want you to know that when i read your book i become one with your book and i need to have nitro by my bedside when i sinbad and we that.

>> host: that's a good. [laughter] >> caller: that's how i get so involved that i have feeling in my chest. when you write your books do you yourself become part of it. >> guest: that is a great question. the answer is unequivocally yes, i do. when you read the book excitement and you need to grab nitro for your testing i go through all of that i go through the emotional gamut when i write it and i get nervous and excited and even though i know i'm writing and reading it and know how it will end its the emotional connection as you write the novel. >> host: how about jan in kansas, what is on your might. >> caller: yes, can you hear me. >> guest: yes. >> caller: question about putting. do you outline or do you note interns or do you know the exact ending and negative thing.

>> guest: i let it grow organically and let it evolve. i use outlines but i was thought if i outline the book from start to finish than it would be to neatly together and i would tie it to conclusion. as a reader you wage the last page first to find out if i was okay but if you know that then it's not nearly as exciting as it could've been for not knowing the ending to a novel i'm working on is a good thing for me. >> host: the wish you well foundation. when did you start it and what to do. >> guest: we founded it in 2000 and what we do is we fund literacy organization initiatives across the country so we have a board of directors that meet four times a year and get about five or 6000 grant applications year from organizations all across the us including public school systems. we up as many of those is can and it our mission semen is to

eradicate illiteracy from the us and we fund programs in all 50 states and will continue to do so. most of those are the money into this and we've stepped up donations mother people and we get donations as well but i know with literacy what it's meant to me and it's not just about enjoying a book on a beach but if you can't read at a sufficient level you can't be an effective member of democracy. you just can't be. we live in an information age where is this on the last election were lost in the few real skills are not high enough in her cognitive skills are not high enough you cannot difference between what's real and not real and someone else is only what you think. for me to make america's greatest public and we need to be a nation of readers again. both socially and economically. even today if you are a mechanic you need to have strong reading and cognitive skills with computers and diagnostics and it's not just -- and information age and reading is the forefront

of that. also have a collection partnered with feeding america so all my books -- there's a big white box and fill it with gently used books and it shipped to the local area food bank where the books are collected. we've collected nearly 2 million books. people were seeking food assistance are also have poor reading skills and that's why they have job prospects but getting books into the home is getting. >> host: on average how much to give away quick. >> guest: each year hundreds of thousands of dollars. each year. >> host: is a hard to give away money to spend to know. >> host: i bet you get more applications than you can possibly -- >> guest: absolutely do. there's very little government money for the dollar see. as someone in the field about that and they said well, it makes perfect sense. explain to me. the government starts funding adult literacy and their defective acknowledging that the k-12 program doesn't work in this country and they would

never do that. most of the nation a donations come from -- >> host: did you work together. >> guest: yes, we did. she was a great proponent and raise more money for literacy than any other organization well over $1 billion. they did a lot of great things. >> host: you gave a big donation to your alma mater and over a million dollars in what was that money for. >> guest: that was down a couple of things. the great thing i thought is about financial assistance for people starting to go science but there was another fund we set up for exploration learning. for we made the donation for the 26 election my wife and i paid for the students to travel to the new hampshire primaries and they got to meet the candidates, interview them, them aside and talk. part of this money will allow students to travel the world to engage in these exploration

learning expenses and travel to south america to learn something about the focus of their or political campaign. i thought, you know, you don't have spent all four years of five years of your life sitting and not interacting with the real world. we get students right from the get-go to learn and study and get a degree in what could be better than that. >> host: for those of you in other regions of the country, catherine is in fort walton beach, florida, go ahead. >> caller: hello, mr. baldacci. what an honor that i found you today. i am blind in one eye and going blind in the other and i have an eye doctor and he signed me up for [inaudible] and i listen to you on tapes. >> guest: that's great. it's a great way to read a book. it's a obviously a different sense but that's okay because i

love to listen to books on audio and it's a whole different experience and something i can't deliver with the written word on the page but it's another dramatic way to experience a great story. ... i never intended that. certainly editors have made comments about how characters were described or a particular person in the novel. i've never had them tell me we don't want this character in a book or we don't like the story

but editorial relationships are very important to me and i have a great editor who has been editing my last 20 books and we have a great report. >> host: who is that? >> guest: mitch hoffman. mitch and i have gotten along so well and i employ them to edit my books. mitch is a great guy and i love him to death. i don't want to start over at this point in my career. at this point in my career it's very light to the publisher will tell me, they want me to write the books and they know after 40 odd novels that i know what i'm doing but that's not to say you shouldn't listen to editors p. don't always have to agree with them and they are the king or the queen of the story and you can do it want but it's good to be respectful. all they are trying to do is

make the story as good as possible. >> host: we are going to hear from barbara in st. petersburg, florida. >> caller: hello mr. baldacci. contrary to the other callers i have never read any of your books. i've always been kind of a nonfiction reader however listening to you now this couple of hours i can't wait to read your books. it's like which one would i start with? >> guest: for first-time readers i tell them a fun story that has a great villain and a great heroin is called the winner of the third novel that i wrote. he wins the national lottery so he can pick the winners. he will make you rich. all you have to do is play and nobody will ever found in -- find out. it's a crime to do that but i can make you rich and a lot of people find out when they do

there are consequences. people who have read the winner, we love loving the story. i think you'll enjoy it too. >> host: speaking of flatteries on facebook janicek manassas question. when i read your books it's like watching a movie where the readers have soft spots. question can one participate in an auction? >> that is probably over the course of 20 years. united way the cancer society we auction off a name in the novel. a senate to a lot of different organizations. since i was a lawyer you have to

sign an agreement that basically said no matter how vile and disgusting and despicable it has to be in perpetuity and if you don't sign the document you don't get the book. i have a lot of fun with the characters in the books. i try to make them interesting and memorable. i remember one in the book i'm working on now he paid almost $20,000 for it and the money went to buy books for every middle school and high school student in nassau county florida i went to a couple of schools when i was down there in february. he was great. he drew me aside and he said can you do me a favor? can you make are evil? i said well i don't know and that his wife comes over and says that would be great but just don't make me evil, okay? i was psychocam going to have to thread the needle. >> host: we are going to take a short rake and one more hour to go in our three our

conversation with best-selling author david baldacci. we hope you will stay around for it. we will continue taking your calls in the third hour. we will be right back. >> when i was 10 and my brother was seven. it all changed in the blink of an eye. >> hello children. welcome to virginia. >> my dad died in that accident and he and my mom were arguing. >> week can't forget it but we have got to go on. >> one company is looking to make a substantial investment here.

>> the coal company is not going to get my farm and destroy the mountains and were in the land. >> you don't exactly own land. you just kindd of take care of each other. >> believing in something you can find your way off my property. ♪ >> this land was provided for me all my life.

>> host: we are back at our three with david baldacci and this is "in depth" him once a month feature on the tv where we talk about the author's life and work. since we are spending three full hours to find out how they were and why they write. so please do have david baldacci with us this week for three hours. let me ask you about this. we keep getting calls about "the camel club". >> guest: "the camel club" is so unique. it's a group of older guys and not the conspiracy director of the mile of her stone whose name is john carr used to be a very lethal assassin for the u.s. government until things went wrong in the came after him and he had to disappear. one work library congress and one was a computer whiz and one

was john rosen asked military. they are conspiracy theorists and they have to work together to solve them. "the camel club" i think it was because they was a unique premise and i took time delving into every character's background to make them very real. i was walking past, when i first got to d.c. i want to learn about the city so i was walking past the white house backed down pennsylvania was shut off to vehicular traffic. that's when i closed up pennsylvania avenue. there were protesters in lafayette park and there was one lady who recently passed away and she was protesting against nuclear proliferation. fast-forward 10 years and that emory stuck in my head for 10 years. i'm going to have my oliver

storm pa protester with a secret back story and that's when i started writing "the camel club." >> host: the first book is dedicated to the secret service and the character john carr oliver stone has relationship with the people that control the grounds of the white house. >> guest: he does. as i call it in a later book "the camel club" i asked the secret service agency why do you call it that? he said that surterra. if something bad happens there will be to pay enough for the secret service calls it hells corner. whether they are a threat or not there is a relationship with a little skepticism. the secret service has a job to do but one of the characters in "the camel club" is alex. he helps them with some of the cases. >> host: these take lives

mostly lace mostly in d.c. and that's her stomping grounds. you said earlier you like to create external places. so there are a lot of readers in this area and they know if you put a restaurant of the wrong part of town so how do you do that? d watt the streets to make sure you have everything right? >> guest: i absolutely do. this terrific event happened in hells corner so i went to lafayette park. remember flip phone cameras? i mucking around lafayette park and i'm taking videocassette to make sure that everything that they see his were supposed to be so i can write about later. it has to be flawlessly choreographed like a film. so i'm walking around this place and are remember back then there was this guy just like a warrior with the spirit he had dreadlocks. a very nice guy.

he is a beautiful caribbean accent and highly educated guy. i'm walking around and i'm saying to myself as i'm walking around -- a bomb to go off and as i said that the guy heard me and he said you were crazy. this is a guy in a loin cloth telling me i'm crazy. i didn't want to make the mistake of your in georgetown and five minutes later you are in bethesda in your car which everyone knows is pretty much impossible. >> host: in the first "the camel club" the very important part of the national information's center the nic does it do what you say which is basically data-driven a mission to find and sometimes kill

opponents of the country? >> yes. every country has something like that. we need to protect ourselves against enemies. they are very data-driven and they have a whole assortment of assets they can deploy. it's like war on the cheap. you can send up a single assassin to cut off the head of the snake. some of the stuff we have done to try to topple dictators. that's a foreign policy that we have used in the past and we always look for ways. you've seen the term regime change. what is a regime change main? everything is on the table they say including regime change. how do you change a regime? you take the guy out. you just take them out.

>> host: you also educate us in a scene about how much data is compiled on every one of us by the government. educate yourself about the patriot act, your health records and your phonecalls all being collated. guess who we have 17 agencies in the essays including the intelligence agencies which is like the cia but bigger and they are doing something all the time recently i've been thinking about it they have almost as much information as facebook does about all of us. we are an information driven society in right now we talked to experts in the field, the next war is not going to be on the battlefield. it's going to be cyber warfare.

the russians probably did $2 trillion worth of damage in this country. >> host: does it provide -- were you? >> guest: absolutely. i have to be careful i don't get behind the eight because technology is changing fast. keep in mind i'm one guy sitting in my office. i'm fighting against millions of highly intelligent people who work 24/7 trying to come up with ways to do things, kill somebody , get more information. they have all this technology behind them. i tried to hold my own at times but it's a tough fight sometimes. >> host: let's go to canopies and waiting miami. >> caller: hello mr. buck.g.. my question is given this world of trump and you have that liberal and a conservative point of view focusing on his personality versus his policy.

what is your basic take in terms of government corruption. they all have controls and an agenda. and why individual responsibility to ask why do we tolerate giving more and more of our freedoms away. i don't want you to get yourself into -- but in terms of liberal conservatives spectrum could you just kind to give me a feel. i've read most of your books and i just want to get a feel on where you go down like with this dispute between the president and the justice department in maybe some of that plays into some of your books but your personal viewpoints i would be very much interested in. thank you. >> host: my latest novel has a

coal in their. it's where the title of the book comes from. i'm not talking about any particular person but people come and go and institutions that we create stand the test of time. what we have today in my personal philosophy is no one thinks about law. that's how the founding fathers -- and the institutions we have weathered the he had the justice department supreme court the congress or the executive branch were built to stand the test of time so no one should be able to bring those institutions down. richard nixon would have been impeached because the tapes had shown he did something wrong. bill clinton lied under oath and the house of representatives

would not convict him in the senate. the current president, donald trump, for me investigations need to go forward. if something was done wrong consequences have to follow because no person is above the law. that's what makes us different from iran and china and north korea, although places that we and the united states of america based on the rule of law. or me everybody has to be judged by the same criteria. i want people to be on a level playing field that the institutions we have should be allowed to do their job. they are doing something wrong they should be held accountable as well. >> host: related to that charlotte williams nichols on facebook asks based on the fact that your stories revolve around american government government corruption conspiracies etc. how do you explain such popularity in other nations? >> guest: that's a great

question because a couple of years ago i got a new publishing contract published in arabic. it was published actually in iran and they liked the fact that was happening that books of mine could be published in a country. it's very autocratic and a theocracy. i think people are intrigued because of the countries in high places do bad things. everybody knows america. the average citizen will know more about our politics than american citizens do. the world revolves around what we do as a superpower. i totally get that the people are intrigued by everything about america. american movies that deal with the subject matter very popular. they are all there.

it's great and a citizen writing about this country. host the do you ultimately see yourself as a patriot because he been when you have characters the good guys always win. >> host: >> guest: to me i like having that closure because i want to understand that if you do bad things there'll be some type of punishment. as a lawyer i can tell you justice depends on how much you can spend on your lawyer. if you have a good lawyer you're in good shape and millionaires frequently have committed murder and none of them aren't death row. the vast majority on death row are impoverished. for me the consequences of tramping over evil is very important. validates the stories that i write about.

host the one other point while we are talking about the president's in our country president pop up and many of your books as characters but you can never identify them. >> guest: i don't want to get into that. it's not something i feel comfortable doing. i met the presidents personally. host the do you consider any of them friends? >> guest: absolutely. i've known bush 41 for a long time and bill clinton as well in george w. and barack obama. they have all read my books and enjoyed them. as far as identifying because then you put yourself in a box with the label. >> host: lee in rockville, maryland. >> caller: yes, good afternoon mr. baldacci. thank you for appearing on c-span. very interesting. you were the inspiration for my

becoming a novelist mr. baldacci do you remember marion barry? he is to be the mayor of the capitol of the free world? >> guest: yes, i do. >> caller: right out of college when i graduated i worked for the district of columbia government when i was 21, 22 years old. i worked there for 10 years so i worked at the knott house. the mayor of the free world had many vices and i read your book. i saw the movie and i'm a big fan of clint eastwood and then i read your book and i thought hey i can do this. i worked at the knott house. i worked for the mayor of the capital of the free world so i sat down and i typed up a manuscript. i called it capital city and lo

and behold we got a new york publisher to publish it. they published it a year and a half ago and you mr. baldacci were my inspiration because i almost always read nonfiction. i'm a big fan of robert caro and other nonfiction writers and jeffrey toobin. he has written a lot of nonfiction but i have never read a novel since i was an undergraduate. you were my inspiration. i sat down and for everyone in the 90s it was very easy to write. i wrote capital city and lo and behold we got a new york publisher. >> host: thank you. that's a great story. >> guest: congratulations. >> host: you have spent a lot

of time interviewing with us but also calling into radio shows and doing book events. you don't need to do that anymore. do what? >> guest: it's a symbiotic world, the relationship in the book world and there are multiple components. their publishers, their writers, their readers and librarians. we all support each other. i like to go out and support readers and talk about the books and see the love they have for the written word. it's the difference between a bookstore existing and not existing. that's makes them sustainable and we support each other so it's like this fragile ecosystem. if you take out one piece of it

it all comes falling down. i feel like it's my obligation because i know how hard they work. >> host: writing such a solitary profession. does getting out of the public recharge her batteries? >> guest: i get to make people laugh and tell me about themselves. my wife says you got to get out or of her otherwise you're going to be much fun to be around. >> host: joe is calling in. >> caller: good afternoon thank you for having david baldacci on today. i met david at a roundtable at a university number of years ago. talking to him was really interesting. i had told him how i had absolute power and he also told a cute story where he and his

wife were out to dinner and a woman coming across and asking him who he was. turned out it was the right -- and the wrong genre. i also wanted to mention he talked about his literacy and being able to fund it and i wanted to tell him that he probably knows this but most libraries when you donate to them i know in the public library they actually come you can take your money and you can actually designate it to go to the literacy program which i do. i wanted to thank him for his work in doing that for people who are not able to read and also to be able to get more people out there and more books

to people who can't do this. i just wanted to thank him for that and for the countless hours of being able to read his fantastic works. >> guest: thank you very much. we definitely know that about libraries. we fund literacy programs. we feel like were big partners with them and thank you for the work you do. i remember the brown university roundtable. we had a great discussion. >> host: great falls montana, hello. >> caller: thank you for taking my call mr. baldacci. i and an aspiring writer. i'm 49 years old and just starting to my question to you is when you are coming with the genesis of your stories and novels do you find it easier to come up with an interesting character first and work the story around that character or do you you come up with the plot and the story and work the

characters into that plot? >> guest: that's a great question. i would give an example. i had the idea for the guy they could fix the national lottery. i thought who is going to inhabit this plot? i need to have a heroin and simpler folk characters so i wrote the plot first and then the characters. certainly the series the characters come first and i build the plots around the novels. the best books i have ever read i remember the characters very well. that's an impression that leaves you. if you have mediocre characters people are going to care about what happens to them.

you have to make sure the characters are memorable and the people can relate to them and people will care about what happens to them. if you have that they will finish the book. >> host: what role does michelle plainer business? she might be watching. >> guest: she knows the story. we were in florida and we had a place down there. i bought a car and he lived in florida. i wasn't there and michelle was. she went to the dealership to sign the papers. she is signing the document and he said so what do you do? michelle signed documents and she looks up and she goes what do you do? everything else. and it is so true because without her it wouldn't get done

she is a voracious reader. she reads even more than i do and she's a big critic. i don't know -- i wonder did tell me what is wrong with the book. she instinctively knows. is this twist going to work as it didn't work for me. that's what i need her to do and she is my first and my best critic as a partnership, really is. >> host: in terms of being a wife partner are you easier to have around when you are writing or when you finish a book lacks. >> guest: if i'm writing when i'm between stories i get grumpy and crotchety. i lived to tell stories. it's a lifestyle. i can't separate myself from the writer. if i'm not immersed in the story and i haven't thought about what i want to work on next i will walk around and i'm not pleasant. michelle knows to leave me alone

>> host: it seems like you are never not writing. >> i am mopey for about a day. very sharp period of time. >> host: how many books do have in the work said any one-time? do you have a couple of going? >> i would lose my focus. right now i'm working on the last installment. been writing those simultaneously each day for the last year. >> host: will talk about the next book. let's take a call. karen and crooks, colorado. hi caroline come you are on. >> caller: i just want to thank you so much. i have several authors that i have followed and that i have read and they all seem to become predictable. you are never predictable and i

love your books but i love reading your books and when i travel you are always on audio and i thank you so much. >> guest: thank you very much. i try to get out of my comfort zone. i try to write every book that i write like my first novel. there's a great antidote to complacency. on facebook yolande dan -- santos questions. one saying i love baby jane and the other thing i read your baby jane series and i became a big fan. when are you releasing book for? these are young adults. is it difficult for you to write so much adult fiction?

>> guest: took me five years to write it and a lot of it was fits and starts. >> host: why fits and starts? >> guest: i love fantasy. you need to keep reinventing yourself as a writer. i have never written fantasy and it's a complete total exercise of your imagination. for four and a half years it was fits and starts and fits and starts and thinking about it and not getting anywhere. after six months i had written 150,000 words and i send it out under a pseudonym. i didn't send it out under my name. scholastic audits and because of the way was written the tone of the language i went up to see them and i got there and they are like doing there? i said you just bought my novel.

you know clifford the big red dog? i swear clifford fainted away. it was a way for me to challenge myself but fantasy is so cool. the book, the next book will be out in the spring. >> host: thank you so much for being with us for three hours. while we listen to our next call we will have you fixed it. marjorie and pratt northbridge and -- west virginia. >> thank you so much mr. baldacci team -- mr. baldacci in what you are saying about giving books away to feed the hungry. that's a great -- marvelous thing to do. my nephew wrote his first novel when he was 15. it is a political thriller and i'm wondering how you go about finding publishers and how did

you first find a publisher? >> guest: it's a great question. having an agent would be a really good thing to have. get your publisher and get your book where it needs to go. when i hear about a hot book i go down to the bookstore. right after their spouse the person they will thank us. and so i got a list of agents that way. i set up a query letter and i was hoping one of them would call me back. i was fortunate enough that all of them called me back and want to be my agent after reading the power grab. you can get names from lots of different sources and they will tell you whether they are fiction or nonfiction and if

they represent first-time novelist but a lot of them don't you can get it on line. they have addresses. send a query letter. showcase your writing and you will hear back from them, guaranteed. >> host: you've talked about how the books that changed with e-books over the course of your writing career. whether it other significant ways the business has changed in seconds what do you think of all the book festivals popping up all over the country? >> guest: the book industry has for 200 years it didn't change at all. one thing when i first had writing it's a consolidation. there are many avenues out there way back when self publishing might you went to xerox machine

and made copies. these days you can go on amazon or barnes & noble and all the social media platforms and publisher self and get the marketing and advertising. that has really changed and now there are more self-published authors that never would have been the case even 10 years ago so now people can pursue it. one thing to you -- people's attention spans are very short these days and when i first started up there were no self loans. there were no ipads. these days of books have to compete with all of that stuff. now there is a lot of talk about can we add video components to books? there other elements of what we are competing against. i just think the written word is very powerful so i'm hoping we don't pray to make the square of

book into a round peg. i think that would be a problem. the industry has to change and i think change is always good and getting people involved in the book industry not just writers but the publishing side is a good thing. when i go to a place that has an old festival i say i'm going to tell you -- never take this for granted. i'm not going to go this year because i have to do this right to do that. all other industries 874 shows and we have the pulitzer and the national book awards. it's listed on page d7. as an industry we need to be better about self voting

ourselves and handing out awards to people and being better promoters. all other industries do a much better job than we do. >> host: oyster bay, new york welcome. >> caller: thank you for taking my question. mr. baldacci when you develop a new character are you in mind that this is a character that there might be a series on and if so how do you make sure that they are not so narrowly defined so they can broaden out in future books? >> guest: good question. i didn't know this was going to be a series by the book i wrote called split second. two former secret service agencies are detectives. i realized i had been tapped into them and i hadn't talked about their back stories in the background.

i wrote another book and another and another. later on i knew "the camel club" was going to be a series from the get-go. rubin roads and shot and the others on needed to be built into them potential back stories that can explore and exploit a future book. i added that in from the get-go. allowed secrecy and things you didn't know about their lives. i further exploited that an future novels. in memory man i continued to exploit it going forward. it's a very focused and intentional set up knowing i'm not going to be done when the first book is done. i'm going to keep going. >> host: you talked earlier about how the military opened its doors for you to learn about

it and federal agencies. how about the president? today help guide your writing quick. >> guest: certainly i've gone to the white house many times when bush 41 and bush 43 were in office. i've met bill clinton several times so i see the potential he has is the former president. the routine is and how they come in and go out. i've been in white house correspondents there. that's all the public parts of the job. i've had conversations with them about things they had done when they were president and things that the public wouldn't necessarily know about. some of it they have to think about so they will say thank you for telling me all the secrets. hanging out with them and seeing how their life is really were

things that i've used in books and were able to use those facts >> host: we have 20 minutes left from three hours with "in depth" -- david baldacci but if you have a question on line you can get it in if you are lucky before the end of the program or send a tweet. donna from chambers bill, pennsylvania. hello donna. >> caller: had hello. mr. baldacci i just wanted to say thank you so much for your interesting books. my sister from panic near richmond gave me my first book and it was signed by you and she said i think you will enjoy it because you enjoy reading. i read it and i was amazed and i was caught. i love intrigue so i love your books. >> guest: thank you very much. with all my books i traded hit

the ground running. i want to waste time i want to immediately immerse you into the story and have something interesting happen on the first few pages. i like books where if you like the writer is in control and not the reader. if you are on your tip toes and you don't know what's going to happen next you carefully categorized this person is good in this person is bad and i know what's going to happen to them. if i can knock you out of those categories and put you on the edge of your seat you'll come back for the story. >> host: in my survey in reading i would say you are generally not sympathetic to rich people. >> guest: [laughter] i am sympathetic to rich people if they treat others with respect. i'm not saying there are people that don't do that. i've met a lot of people but

they don't necessarily end up in my book for a number of reasons. i go back to the quote of absolute power. of a lot of money can corrupt people feeling like they are above everyone else. i've a blue-collar background originally from virginia. my life hasn't changed in that regard and i look at everybody as a person. >> host: how did you prevent your kids who grew up in a. privileged lifestyle by this point from having that problem? >> guest: we made sure that our kids -- the schools they went to private school, no we

are not doing that. parents were friends of ours and they went to school with them and we live in neighborhoods and we s9 was talked we taught our kids everyone deserves respect and compassion. that's the way you are good person. none of the stuff you have is actually yours. it doesn't belong to you. he did work for it. we never gave our kids ever anything. they have jobs and they work further on and they support themselves. they know mom and dad are there if they needed that they have their own independent lives. we raise them without focus in life. this is our life you get to be part of it when you are little but then you have your life. you have a happy life and we will love you to mom and dad

aren't lifejackets. >> host: south carolina, you are in the air. >> caller: thank you for taking my call. can you hear me? >> guest: yes i can, thank you. >> caller: are you familiar with the writer john -- >> guest: absolutely. i loved his pseudonym. i think his last name is cornwall but he's was an intelligence officer during the cold war. i have the first edition signed that my wife bought me many years ago. i won't even categorize him. a great storyteller. he writes amazing books that put you right into the heart of the situation. the stakes couldn't be any higher. john is one of the best.

>> host: cindy and fairmont florida. hi cindy. >> caller: hi to my favorite book is the forgotten. how did you get that theme and how did you write that vote? >> guest: we had just gotten a place down there. i saw the area and although oil platforms were there. this whole intrigue that was happening offshore and onshore in the areas in florida. he had other family members and was someone who -- his mother helped raise him.

his dad was in the army and couldn't spend a lot of time at the sun. this is a way for me to show him in another likely this is a military guy who did the impossible was here he was helping an old woman who really was a second mom to him. something really bad happened and he wants to make sure that justice was done for him. >> host: inez in guilford to hampshire. what's your question for david baldacci? >> guest: were in the car lot and we managed to get your books on cd. the first two were -- and health corner. [inaudible] i meant just did a morning about -- >> guest: perfect recall are

there two ways to get it. mary lou tanner was born with it she looks at and doesn't forget anything. or dramatic rain entry. the brain is a organ that can heal itself. when that happens sometimes weird things happen. it can also cause sensory -- and that's where you get a condition called synesthesia where you associate a particular sensation with the color. people will see numbers and colors so the number seven is - it all comes from the tbi that he endured when he is playing

football. i love the brain and figuring out how it functions in trying to push the envelope is great stuff for storytelling. >> host: you are on your last set and you made reference to your next book and it's also new character who is adlai pine. who is sadly pine? guess the adlai pine is 35 years old. she works in the hinterland of the west where she's probably the only federal agent for 300 miles and she prefers it that way. i wrote the first or of this book in longhand. felt right. the very first line listeners are trying in the mean he my name zero. wherever you start you are dealing with two different people. that's the way the word count works out and for adlai pine it

was a disaster. somebody was counting on her and hit her sisters were ahead. she has grown up without her twin and this is the first time i've ever had a series where the lead protagonist is a female. i've written about lots of female characters in my novels but adlai pine the name popped into my head and herb background pops into my head and i'm 70,000 words into it and i'm super psyched. >> host: how do you get the authenticity and a woman character's voice? >> guest: strong independent women which are the ones i read about -- i have never met one in my entire life. my mother was a force of nature. my sister was strong independent

woman. we have raised a very strong independent daughter so my whole life has been surrounded by women. my grandmother was a very influential part of my upbringing. i find it natural to write in a female perspective because i've seen in my whole life. i've seen how they react and how they deal with other people. i tell people i have such a healthy respect for the other gender because i realized decades ago that men are the weaker sex. other than physical strength -- and a way i like the female point of view. she is the lead agonist and i like the fact that it comes from both perspectives.

i'm a great listener and a great observer put it love watching people. >> host: wayne is in michigan. guess that this is wayne smith from michigan. i just wanted to say i wrestled in high school and i just wanted to tell you we have a lot of folks that that scene have accomplished a lot of things in life but we talk about your accomplishments and where you were sore just wanted to use colin and send my regards. >> guest: well thank you so much. >> host: what relationship is that? >> guest: from high school. just talk to my own wrestling coach. we get together and wayne was on the team. it's a blast from the past.

>> host: you russell venue played football. whether sports did you do? >> guest: those were the only two i did in high school but i wrestled in college. i have played since i was a kid. i play with my son now but i'm too old to keep up with him. he is 22. i think he tolerates dad at this point. he doesn't hit as hard as he can just take and keep me in the game. >> host: welcome christine. you are on the air. >> caller: hi, how are you? >> guest: hello. >> caller: i was going to ask you if it doesn't sound the gate gets stuck a lot with your plots. i've been grumpy for the last four or five months because i've been writing what i should be a memoir. i got to where i can't put them

paper and i'm having a really hard time. i have not read the book before. what i do better if a made it less personal and didn't write a memoir? >> guest: writers need to be flexible. if you really want to write a memoir from your perspective you can do that and you might be able to work it through. i get writer's block. writers block is a misnomer. is the process where you're still thinking about what you want to do. how do you get to that? aegis work on it every day or you go do something else and work on it for a while until you figure it out. if you don't want to delve down into personal is for you be flexible enough to move on. you can make up stuff and get through the personal accounts the mite have been traumatic for you and then move on and continue the story. >> host: joanne is up next in bridgeport connecticut.

>> caller: i just wanted to let you know that i love your books but i'm more partial to the series because i love the recurring characters and the different facets of the characters. i was just wondering when you come up with a premise for a plot for one of your series does it ever happen that you feel that it's better suited to a different one if you're serious? >> guest: that's a great question that has happened to me. i have thought of plots and i thought this is going to be a john poehler or will roby predicate deeper into the plot in aiken tweak it. that has happened to me but the fact that i have so many series going i can be interchangeable and if i tweak the story little bit i can go in a completely different direction. >> host: i think will roby is the only one. >> guest: we first met him in

hugh grant. he's the regime change guy. he's the guy cut the head off of the snake. he gets around. i had to make him likeable and some when i took great pains to do that. when you show him doing what he does with great professionalism and great tenacity and showing the human side of him. you pull the trigger and it affects you and it's with you all the time and it affects who you are and what kind of life you can lead. he can vary -- be very much of the learner and he can't relate to people. he is a fascinating character.

>> host: our last caller as virginia from rock port pennsylvania. hi virginia. >> caller: hello. i love to your "the camel club" series and i couldn't wait or the next book to come out. why did you kill him off? i mean couldn't you have stop for a while and brought him back later? >> caller: if you are talking about oliver stone at the end of the book when he goes off the cliff and it's done for him. he's into more books. at the end of hells corner other than milken everyone else was alive. i can bring them back fiction wise. i would love to bring "the camel club" back in a fight to with thinkable qual plot to put the men i would bring them back at. >> host: you are 67 years old

they have a lot of writing years ahead of you but you already have a huge body of work. what would you like your legacy to be as an american writer? >> guest: i want to be the guy that he would be hard to put me in a box and hard to label what kind of a writer i was. i have written fantasy and personal histories. i've written dramatic family stories as well so i like to be the kind of guy that when you open the book you never know what you are going to get. if you look at the word formula in the dictionary you will never see -- . >> host: thank you for spending three hours with us. >> host: >> guest: thank you, i enjoyed it.

.. wish we could get you to always come forward a little bit. be friendly and neighborly good evening i'm bradley graham co-owner of politic and pros along with my wife melissa murveg teen and behalf of everybody here at george washington university. >> good evening. i'm the co-owner of politics and prose and on behalf of everyone at tnt and here at george washington university, the queue for coming. this evening spent a