Brad Taylor: On Real-Life Threats Inspiring Thriller Novels

Brad Taylor, Lieutenant Colonel (Ret.), is a 21-year veteran of the U.S. Army Infantry and Special Forces, including eight years with the 1^st Special Forces Operational Detachment – Delta, popularly known as Delta Force. Taylor retired in 2010 after serving more than two decades and participating in Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom, as well as classified operations around the globe. His final military post was as assistant professor of military science at The Citadel.

Brad has written 16 New York Times bestsellers and is a security consultant on asymmetric threats for various agencies. He lives in Charleston, S.C., with his wife and two daughters. Find him on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

In this post, Brad discusses the research that led to his new thriller novel, The Devil’s Ransom, his advice for other writers, and more!

Name: Brad Taylor
Literary agent: John Talbot, Talbot Fortune agency
Book title: The Devil’s Ransom
Publisher: William Morrow
Release date: January 24, 2023
Genre/category: Thriller
Previous titles: End of Days; American Traitor; Hunter Killer; Daughter of War; Operator Down; Ring of Fire; Ghosts of War; The Forgotten Soldier; The Insider Threat; No Fortunate Son; Days of Rage; The Polaris Protocol; The Widow’s Strike; Enemy of Mine; All Necessary Force; One Rough Man. Novellas: Exit Free; The Ruins; The Infiltrator; The Target; The Recruit; The Dig; Black Flag; Gut Instinct; The Callsign.
Elevator pitch for the book: Pike Logan races to stop an insidious attack orchestrated by a man who knows America’s most treasured secrets.

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The plot of this book came from some research I was conducting about the Israeli company NRO and its Pegasus malware surveillance tool. I learned the UAE was using the tool to track journalists, dissidents, and even U.S. citizens. Bad enough, but the men using the tool on behalf of the UAE were United States ex-intelligence personnel working for something called Project Raven.

While NRO claims they only license Pegasus to vetted nation states, the tool is scary in its ability to be misused, and the fact that former U.S. intel operatives were executing the action became a germ of a story. As I conducted the research on malware in general, learning about zero-click and cyber vulnerabilities, I hit on the massive and growing problem of ransomware.

In the last couple of years, ransomware gangs have shut down our pipelines, taken the world’s largest supplier of meat offline on two different continents, held numerous hospitals hostage, and literally caused the entire country of Costa Rico to grind to a halt. The groups are all shadowy and it’s impossible to determine if they’re operating independently or being bankrolled by another nation-state. In the end, it was a better story, so I went that way with The Devil’s Ransom.

Basically, I write one book a year, so a year. No, the idea didn’t change once I decided on the threat.

Not that I haven’t seen before. This is my 17th full-length published novel, so at this point, I’ve already seen everything that would have surprised me. As for learning, I always learn something new about the publishing process with each book I write. This time, I’d probably say it was the collaboration on the cover design.

Originally, I had no intention of including Afghanistan in the story. I was asked by my publisher early on if I was going to touch on Afghanistan and I said, "No way," because the ending of that war was a little raw for me. But then I read a story about the Bactrian Treasure being lost and the new Taliban owners hopping mad about losing it. That was just enough to get my creative juices flowing.

The Bactrian Treasure is real and was discovered by a Soviet archeologist in the upper steppes of Afghanistan in the late 1970s. It was a unique find because the tombs held treasures from across the silk road, spanning the globe, from Serbian daggers to Chinese emeralds. Nobody knows who the people were in the tombs, but it was a big find.

When the Soviets left Afghanistan, the treasure disappeared. Nobody knew what had happened to it, with most thinking the Soviets had simply stolen it on the way out the door. Fast forward to 2001, after we toppled the Taliban, and a guy came forward with a key to a safe underneath the main bank in Kabul. He'd hidden the treasure and kept it secret all those years.

Fast forward again to the present day, and the treasure was lost again, with the Taliban swearing vengeance to find it. That was enough to get me to incorporate Afghanistan into the story.

Honestly, I just hope they get enjoyment from the story. When I get an email from a fan saying they stayed awake all night to finish the book, I feel I’ve succeeded. I had no overarching secret objective in writing the manuscript—but hopefully they can also come away with a healthy appreciation of the nuances nation states face when confronting the various threats in cyber space.

It sounds trite, but honestly, it would be to simply write. Too often I get asked by aspiring writers how to get published and what to do about social media and other platforms when he or she hasn’t yet finished a book. The writing is the key. Everything else is secondary to that.

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