S5 EP226 | Chad Boudreaux Brings Suspense, Secrets, and Thrills in Mob Justice

Hello My Happy People,

Today I am joined again by thriller author Chad Boudreaux. Chad first appeared on the podcast in Season 4, Episode 193, where we discussed his career as a Washington, D.C. insider, his legal background, and his transition into writing thrillers. If you'd like to learn more about that part of his story, I encourage you to go back and listen to that episode. You can find a link below. 

Today, however, we're focusing on Chad's latest thriller, Mob Justice, his future plans as an author, and the direction he hopes to take his growing catalog of suspense-filled novels. We also spend some time talking about family and the realities of building a long-term career as an author.

What I enjoyed most about this conversation was getting to know the person behind the impressive résumé. Chad is a fascinating guy, and he made interviewing him not just fun, but incredibly easy. It was one of the most natural conversations I've had in a long time, and I think you'll enjoy getting to know him as much as I did.

If you enjoy thrillers packed with suspense, memorable characters, and unexpected twists, you'll definitely want to check out Mob Justice and join us for this fantastic conversation with Chad Boudreaux.

Chad' Interview S4 EP 193

Chad's Website

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Chad on Substack

Transcript

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Dianne Burckhardt 0:01

You're listening to BookBanter with Diane Burkhart, your Book Talk podcast. Join me every Wednesday for real conversations with authors and publishing insiders, where you get to connect with the humans find the books you love. Let's get on with our show today. Well, hello, my happy people. Today is June 10th, 2026. And today's interview, I chat with a returning guest. This author was first on the show in season 4, episode 193, where we talked about his background and how he transitioned into writing amazing thrillers. That interview is still available if you would like to check it out before you listen to today's conversation. Because we continue his story from there. We talk about how he has grown his catalog of published works and discusses where he hopes to take his career as an author while still juggling a demanding day job. I cannot wait to share this interview with you. His work is amazing and he is really just a fun guy to chat with. So let's not waste any more time. Let's get right to today's interview, but be sure to stick around till the very end because I have got some great announcements for you that include a few freebies for our followers. But for now, please welcome to Bookbanter with Diane Burkhart, the incredible thriller author, Chad Boudreau. Since you have been on the show before, you know the way that I like to start these out is just to have my guests tell everyone who you are and what you do.

SPEAKER_00 1:35

Hi, I'm Chad Boudreau, and I am an author of three books, all fiction, and in my daytime job, I'm a chief legal officer of a Fortune 500 publicly traded company.

Dianne Burckhardt 1:49

You have been on the show back in season four. It was episode 193. In your first time on here, we actually did delve into your professional career and how you kind of morphed into being a thriller author. But we're gonna leave that for people to go back and listen to your first episode for all of that information. Today I want to focus on your writing.

SPEAKER_00 2:11

Right.

Dianne Burckhardt 2:11

The first time that you were here, we were discussing your novel Homecoming Queen. This time the spotlight is on your current book, Mob Justice and where your career is going now. One thing about your books that I find really interesting is that your stories all move through very different worlds from the Justice Department in Scavenger Hunt to a small town in Texas in Homecoming Queen. And now with the Chicago outfit in Mob Justice. What is it about these very different environments that inspire your storytelling?

SPEAKER_00 2:44

So I started off in DC for uh right after 9-11, and I was just mesmerized by all the activity and energy there. So Scavenger Hunt, the debut for me was at the main justice department there. And I had worked there, so I was familiar with the place, still am. And it still kind of mesmerizes me. I, you know, even with all of the political turmoil that we find that department in now, it's it's still a very important place for our constitutional republic. When I finished Scavenger Hunt, I had probably five other stories in mind. One of those stories was a thriller that took place really in my hometown. So Homecoming Queen is a love song to my hometown. And I really just didn't think twice about it. I knew I knew about you know Corpus Christi and in the book. It's called Miranda. But then after I published Scavenger Hunt and was almost done with Homecoming Queen, there was a really an outcry for more Scavenger Hunt. And so Mob Justice starts off right back at the Maine Justice Building in Washington, D.C. with the same protagonist, Blake Hudson. And this time Blake Hudson finds himself going to Chicago and getting involved with the Chicago Mafia. So even the book that I'm writing now, book number four, will be a scavenger hunt series like Mob Justice, and you'll see a lot more of the Main Justice Building, DC, but we'll go to other places as well.

Dianne Burckhardt 4:15

That's one thing that I was really kind of shocked about because on Scavenger Hunt on Amazon, you only have about 110 ratings, but on Goodreads, you have over 7,000.

SPEAKER_00 4:25

Yeah. So one of the things that we're doing now, just in terms of publishing strategy, is we're making books available for lower cost. And I think that will probably drive up some of the rating numbers on Amazon. They're not where I want them to be. But you're right, on Goodreads, Scavenger Hunt has done very well. And I hope Mob Justice follows that course. But in the meantime, we're very focused on how to get the Amazon ratings up. So that's something that we've kind of filtered into our calculus.

Dianne Burckhardt 4:57

Yeah, that's one thing with Mob Justice that I noticed. You only have like 14 ratings so far on Amazon. But again, in Goodreads, it's almost a thousand. And in both places, you have over a four-point rating out of five in both. I mean, you you've got great ratings. You're just not getting as many as you should because honestly, your work is so amazing. I can't believe that you're not into multiple thousands on all of them.

SPEAKER_00 5:24

Well, thank you for that. We we're we're trying to address that. And uh, I agree with you about the the ratings. I thank you for commenting on the book like that. I would like to get it out to a larger readership. So we we're probably gonna be doing some discount book sellings and we'll see if that works. We weren't able to do that under the old publishing house that we used, and so now we can do that, and I'm I'm hopeful that it's gonna pay dividends.

Dianne Burckhardt 5:49

Well, and considering your day job, do you actually have the time to go out and do regular meet and greets and book signings?

SPEAKER_00 5:56

I do. So I prioritize work, obviously, because I have to. It's a full-time job, but you know, my family is very supportive of me getting out and about. So I do book signings, I do a lot of podcasts, I do a lot of written interviews, just anything to get the product out.

Dianne Burckhardt 6:15

Even though the settings are very different in your books, there is always this recurring theme of corruption and influence and power operating behind the scenes. Is that something that you consciously explore in your fiction, or does it just sort of develop naturally?

SPEAKER_00 6:33

I think it's intentional, but I definitely have a gravitational pull towards that dynamic. I think, you know, I grew up reading Robert Ludlum books, and I think he focused a lot on that. And then just being in government, there's always this pull between doing the right thing or not, and a lot of times the right thing is black and white, and a lot of times it's not. So in my novels, you'll often see, well, in all three of them to date, you'll see really me trying to explore that dynamic where when we watch Fox News or MSNBC or read a you know an X tweet, you know, it's you always hear these people trying to opine on things that are they feel are clear-cut. And for those people who are actually in theater behind the curtain, if you will, it's not always that way. So my books are never political with a capital P. I mean, Republicans and Democrats and whatever you are can hopefully read it and not be distracted by politics. But I try to put you, you know, in that theater where you're having to think about the decisions that somebody are having to make, life and death decisions that are not always clear-cut.

Dianne Burckhardt 7:50

And I think that is one thing that you're very good about doing is a lot of your work is done in a political theater, but you aren't in party politics.

SPEAKER_00 7:59

Yeah, and sure. And I have my own politics, and some of my beliefs are stronger than others, but I don't try to push those on my readers because my readers, I can tell you, are come from both political aisles and everything between and around that. So it's uh I don't I don't want to be a somebody who's pushing my political beliefs because my book is supposed to be entertaining. You're you'll hopefully learn something along the way about you know what the characters are doing and how they're doing it. And that is, you know, probably based on real life and how it works if I've done my job. But my job is not to push politics. I that's not why you go pick up one of my books.

Dianne Burckhardt 8:36

And you do a very good job of that in your writing. I mean, it it doesn't come across as even voicing a specific point of view. You're just telling the story that happens to be in a political theater. It's very well done.

SPEAKER_00 8:50

Thank you. I spent a lot of time on that. And I have beta readers who come from, again, all political stripes. And if I find myself, you know, coloring outside the lines, if you will, they're gonna make me aware of it.

Dianne Burckhardt 9:03

Your books move very quickly. There's also a lot of legal, political, institutional detail underneath everything. How do you balance realism without bogging down the fast-paced thriller aspect?

SPEAKER_00 9:17

Well, there's a cutting room table and a lot of stuff that gets cut out. So I write with a lot of detail. I want to make sure that the reader is placed in an area that's real. So, for example, mob justice. For a lot of mob justice, I was able to write based upon what I knew as having worked at the department and you know in a later life on certain uh of the legal issues, but I've never prosecuted the mafia. And one of the key tools that that are used to prosecute the mafia is is wiretapping. And I didn't know a whole lot about wiretapping, and so I went and I did research on that. I talked to the experts, people at the FBI who knew what they were talking about, and I found there's like a whole new language that I just learned that people use in wiretapping and also just tools of the trade. And so I got really detailed into that, and then I read the chapters that that included that, and I did a lot of cutting because the reader didn't know every didn't need to know every little aspect of it. So I do pay a lot of attention to that. This my my editor is very good at making sure that the book moves and moves very quickly.

Dianne Burckhardt 10:30

And I think that's probably something really important with considering your background, having worked in government, law, and corporate leadership. Do you think your real world experience changes the way you approach the power dynamics in your fiction?

SPEAKER_00 10:46

I don't know. I hadn't thought about it like that. I mean, I obviously you bring to the canvas, if you will, to the to the paper, to to the keyboard your experiences. And for me, I I certainly come in with certain biases. I certainly come in with, you know, a worldview about how I think things should work, even in the apolitical sense. But when you're dealing with the characters that you have before you, particularly in a sequel where you're dealing with characters that people already know, they kind of take on their own life. And so a lot of it is, I think, based upon what I've lived. But when it gets to Blake Hudson, for instance, my protagonist, he takes it in different directions. So that's that's part of it. It's fun.

Dianne Burckhardt 11:32

With Homecoming Queen, it felt like a much more personal and emotionally driven story. While Mob Justice operates kind of on a more larger institutional kind of scale, did your writing process change between these books?

SPEAKER_00 11:47

No, it was just the story that that drove it. I'll be honest with you. I have daddy issues and stuff comes out of my book sometimes. And and Annika Raven certainly had daddy issues that she had to overcome. But I, you know, that character for me was all of the powerful, you know, women that I look up to in my life, from my mom to people that I've worked with, and all the bad characteristics for me kind of bundled up into one character. And it was, you know, really, I was thinking about my hometown when I wrote it, and it was personal. It was it was uh, you know, just a different story, though. I don't think my my writing changed in any way, just you know, a different point of view on a different story.

Dianne Burckhardt 12:30

Now seems like a good time for you to give us your synopsis of Mob Justice.

SPEAKER_00 12:35

Mob Justice is a thriller where we see Blake Hudson back in action at the Department of Justice, and he has been reprimanded of sorts for his role in Scavenger Hunt. And as a part of that, he has moved to the organized crime strike force within the department. And that force, that strike force is commissioned to prosecute the mafia in Chicago. And so I have revitalized the Chicago outfit, which was Al Capone's group, and then also resurrected the Northside gang, which was the rival gang before Capone took over and pretty much decimated them. So Blake finds himself right in the middle of it, and one of his charges is to help prosecute the consigliary for the Chicago outfit, which just also happens to be a former Supreme Court clerk, just like Blake. And so, as a part of that, you see that dynamic between those two, and then hopefully it's uh hold on tight and enjoy the ride story from that point on.

Dianne Burckhardt 13:37

Now, without giving away any spoilers, was there a particular scene or storyline in Mob Justice that you particularly enjoyed writing?

SPEAKER_00 13:46

Yes, my favorite part of the book is when Enzo Renzi, who's the consigliary I just mentioned, sits down with Blake Hudson at a Chicago steakhouse. It's kind of a last-minute meeting that that comes together. And through that, and first of all, a prosecutor would never do that if he did not want to get in trouble. But Blake kind of steps out of the lines for this meeting. And I loved writing it because it was it kind of reminiscent of the scene in Heat where De Niro and Pacino sit down, and there's the respect, the good guy and the bad guy. And at this table, it's not so clear like who's doing the right thing and who's doing the wrong thing. And you kind of see the lines blurred, and you see two particular uh characters that are in the theater who are closer than they ever thought they would be in a lot of areas of their life.

Dianne Burckhardt 14:41

We already know that Blake Hudson comes from your scavenger hunt book and has made this reappearance in Mob Justice. Do you see yourself continuing this character on in more books down the line?

SPEAKER_00 14:54

If he survives Mob Justice, yes. No, it's he's uh he's a special character for me. And the first one that came to mind when I started writing fiction, he's you know a brilliant young lawyer, but often finds himself in a lot of trouble. And he uses his skill set, his entire tools to to overcome some naivete occasionally, but you know, he's got a good heart and a good mind. And uh the the readers who read my books, they they really tend to enjoy him and they they want me to talk a lot about him. So, yes, I think he he may not be the main character in in future Scavenger Hunt books. He he might make some cameos from time to time, but he'll be the character that really drives the series.

Dianne Burckhardt 15:39

For Blake Hudson, is he modeled after anyone or an amalgamation or just pure fiction?

SPEAKER_00 15:45

He's definitely an amalgamation of several different lawyers that I worked with at a young age. I like Blake, I started about when I was 28 at the Justice Department in the Maine Justice Building. So I kind of had a foundation based upon my experience there. But it's interesting you asked the question today. On Saturday, I attended a funeral of my first boss at DOJ. He uh lost his his life to Alzheimer's, and it was really one of the first times that our group came back and met. We met in Atlanta, and it was just looking at everybody and seeing everybody again for some of them for the first time in several years, it really made it clear to me that all of their different personalities to some extent were probably a part of Blake Hudson.

Dianne Burckhardt 16:32

Is that a way that you kind of carry your past with you?

SPEAKER_00 16:35

I don't know if I would characterize it like that. It's definitely let me put it this way writing about Blake Hudson and the Department of Justice, which allows me to write about almost anything because it's a behemoth organization that has its hands in everything. It really kind of helps me carry on the past, is is what I would say. It's it's um it's more of uh keeping it alive, maybe. Maybe that's the question you asked, but I I think that's probably more of it.

Dianne Burckhardt 17:07

As I was snooping through all of your social media getting ready for this interview, one thing I noticed stands out very clear. You are very open with all of your information about your work history, the places that you came up through the ranks, but there's very little about your personal life. Is this something that just kind of evolved as you were putting together your professional writers' websites and social media, or was that intentionally done?

SPEAKER_00 17:34

I don't know if it was intentionally done. I mean, I love my family. I've got four kids and uh an amazing wife. And, you know, they, like I said before, support me in my book writing. I think part of it is I don't necessarily want to drag, particularly my children, into this. You know, they're again, they they're happy that dad writes books, but they have their own lives, and I don't want them out on social media because of what I'm doing. Quite frankly, people are interested to some extent in my personal life, but they're more interested in my professional life. So that's that's always been the focus.

Dianne Burckhardt 18:07

Well, now I did notice one kind of personal photo of you with somebody named Judge.

SPEAKER_00 18:14

Judge was my first baby. He was the uh he's the only real character in any of my books. He's a great Dane and scavenger hunt. He was given to me by my wife when we were seniors at Baylor University, and he spent law school with me, and we took him to DC with us. I used to run him on the mall without his leash on, and it would scare people to death. But he was so trained that you know he never he never scurried away. But uh, we lost judge to cancer, so it at an early age. He he died at seven. Oh great Danes don't live that long anyway, but seven was too early. So I pay an homage to him, and he's he's back in mob justice as well. He uh he had a scare in Scavenger Hunt, and one of the funny things, maybe it's not so funny, but I found it very interesting. When I do particularly smaller book signings, people will come up to me and they they tell me, you better be glad you did not kill off judge because I would away, giving you a terrible rating. So I know now not to mess with the pets.

Dianne Burckhardt 19:18

Oh, yeah, that is the surest way to anger a vengeful mob or any reading group. If you do anything to hurt a dog, you are asking for trouble.

SPEAKER_00 19:32

That's what I've learned. And I'm I'm glad because um Judge is not going to be in danger anymore. Judge actually has a a more uh prominent personality in mob justice. He's he's a little moody, so it's uh I've gotten some good feedback on that as well. Dogs are good for books.

Dianne Burckhardt 19:49

Oh, definitely. When he was around, was he helpful to your writing process or disruptive?

SPEAKER_00 19:58

Judge was always helpful because great Danes, they're very cuddly, they're huge, intimidating to people. People think they're gonna, you know, barrel over everything, and sometimes they they're clumsy. But uh, I have a chocolate lab now, and he's very disruptive. Judge was much more of a come lay on his pillow and sigh and just look at me while I write. So he was he was definitely helpful.

Dianne Burckhardt 20:23

What is the name of the new dog?

SPEAKER_00 20:25

Uh Winston Boudreaux is my chocolate lab.

Dianne Burckhardt 20:30

I love that name. That's great. What is next for you?

SPEAKER_00 20:34

My fourth book is gonna be third in the Scavenger Hunt series because it's tentatively called Borderfall. It'll be a book largely about Jacob Reed, who was the CIA ground branch character in Scavenger Hunt, and he has been deployed down to the southern border to help with some threats that are going on there. It'll encompass a lot of the work that I did at the Department of Homeland Security dealing with border security. What I really want to do is I want to take the reader behind the scenes yet again to really introduce some of the issues that you never read about or see on television related to border security. Again, it'll be apolitical. It'll come from both sides because that world comes from both sides. But it's about one-third of the way through, and I'm really looking forward to it.

Dianne Burckhardt 21:26

Is there any kind of storyline that you would see yourself going into that might be outside of the political arena again, like you did with Homecoming Queen?

SPEAKER_00 21:36

I think the Scavenger Hunt series is going to be based upon threats that are happening, whether they're cyber threats or just be bad people doing bad things and people responding to those. So it always has, I think, a subject matter nexus that is less, let's say, character driven than a Raven's plight in her life. But that said, my characters, I tried to make sure that they're fully developed and that people can kind of live through them through the story. And I think with Blake and his relationships, you know, particularly with Natasha, I can definitely see me exploring that. And so I won't uh you know give some spoilers for mob justice, but there's a dynamic there that's growing and may be able to expound on that a little bit more. But I think just probably watching Blake grow as a character from novel to novel will be probably stretching more than what I had in mind when I started. But since he's such a powerful character and well-liked character, I can see him getting older and having to deal with certain life issues that maybe you didn't see in the first book or two.

Dianne Burckhardt 22:52

I have to tell you, I did start reading Mob Justice. I haven't finished it yet. But just from the beginning of the book, I think that people need to be warned a little bit that if they're not good with adrenaline, they need to read this book with a little caution. I actually could feel the anxiety rising as we're going through these action spots where Enzo doesn't know what's behind him, and then he gets that surprise. And then what's happening in the hospital? As that whole adventure in the hospital kind of builds and builds, it was really like a roller coaster ride of adrenaline.

SPEAKER_00 23:32

Well, I'm glad I did my job because that's what I'm looking to do. The one thing I really have to be cognizant of is that I do allow the reader to breathe somewhat. And so, but I look, I get up in the morning and I get on the treadmill or I work out and I have fast-paced music going on, and I go immediately from working out to to writing. That would explain a lot. A lot of that is is what you see there. But I don't, I don't like I used to love reading Tom Clancy. He was so detailed, but he was just so much better at taking you down a long path before you know you get back to the action. But the books that I that I am drawn to are the ones that they're hard to put down because there is that adrenaline rush. And so I I try to make sure that again the reader has time to learn about the characters and everything. But I want I want everybody to learn about my characters while they're in action and do things as opposed to by what they say all the time. But yes, I'm I'm very intentional about making sure because I probably I probably have some ADHD, so I need to have to have focus on what we're doing here, but I I like the action-packed nature of it.

Dianne Burckhardt 24:42

Well, and you do it so well because it's not just you go up and it stays up, it goes up and down, just like you're going on a roller coaster. It's like you hit that high spot and then you relax for a little bit. Then you hit that high spot again. So you're just riding around this thing, going through that cycle of relax and hit that energy, and it's just incredible. And you do this through the story and through your characters and through the descriptions, and it's just so vivid. It is very easy to imagine all of this very clearly, like I'm just watching a movie as I'm reading this.

SPEAKER_00 25:16

That's good to hear because I spent a lot of time in Chicago. I actually was perp walked out of City Hall because I had wanted to. There's an underground tunnel system in Chicago that most people don't know exists, and the mob used to use it to pedal hooch. But there's only one elevator bank that takes you down to those tunnels now, and it's at City Hall. And I waited around, went to a couple of concerts, you know, was not very disciplined in getting to City Hall. And I went on a Saturday when it was closed and it was locked, and I was frustrated. I was in a t-shirt and shorts, and I walked around the building, and the justice of the peace there was marrying people. They were in tuxedos, most of them. And I slipped in with them and I walked around to where the elevator banks were, and a security guard was not too happy with me. And uh, she asked me what I was doing, and I said, I just need to find these elevator banks that go down because I'm writing a book, and she's like, get out of here right now. And like she's like perp walking me out. You know, I said, Can you at least tell me where the elevator banks are? And she goes, They're right there. And so I turned around and, you know, I tried to visualize everything, see it, you know, the hospital scene. I actually went to that hospital, and nobody in that hospital looked like me. I was really like sticking out, and I was taking pictures, and they told me to leave as well. So I'm getting into a lot of trouble writing these books. So I'm glad that I'm putting you in time and space because uh taking some risks there.

Dianne Burckhardt 26:44

See that good research comes through. It was worth it.

SPEAKER_01 26:48

Yes.

Dianne Burckhardt 26:50

So now seems like a good time to do our five quick questions that never turn out to be quick, but I just hold out eternal hope it will happen someday. Are you ready?

SPEAKER_00 26:59

Ready.

Dianne Burckhardt 27:00

Now, since, as I said before, you don't have a lot of information on your social media about your personal life, these are going to be get to know you as a person kind of questions.

SPEAKER_00 27:10

Great.

Dianne Burckhardt 27:11

So, question one, what is your favorite dessert?

SPEAKER_00 27:14

My favorite dessert is cheesecake. And I like the traditional cheesecake with nothing on it, the New York style. And then I also like the Oreo cheesecake.

Dianne Burckhardt 27:23

Oh, see, you get along with my husband really well. Those are his favorites too. So, question two. When you actually get a little bit of downtime, which I can't imagine you get too much of that with everything you do, what kind of movies do you tend to gravitate to? Do you like high-stakes thrillers like what you write, or something completely different?

SPEAKER_00 27:45

I really like the high-stakes thrillers. I gravitate towards those when I'm in in my house. Um I also have a farm, and when I go to my farm, I like to watch westerns.

Dianne Burckhardt 27:57

Oh, nice. So, what is your favorite western?

SPEAKER_00 28:01

Lonesome Dove. And it's not even close. That's a good one. Also, one of the best books I've ever read.

Dianne Burckhardt 28:08

Now, have you ever seen Support Your Local Gunfighter?

SPEAKER_00 28:12

No, haven't.

Dianne Burckhardt 28:14

If you like James Garner, he has that one and Support Your Local Sheriff. Those are great. They're comedy westerns.

SPEAKER_00 28:21

Good. I I do like Garner. I'll have to check that out.

Dianne Burckhardt 28:24

Yeah, they're fantastic.

SPEAKER_00 28:26

Now, for Mob Justice, I did watch I think virtually every mob movie ever made. So I had to be careful. There are some there are some very discreet references to some things that happen in those movies, but you really have to be into that to pick up on them. So I didn't want to make it too pokey, but there are some references to things that happen in those movies that the experts in the field will be able to pick up on.

Dianne Burckhardt 28:56

I'm going to have to watch out for some of that as I finish the book. Question three. We've already talked about Judge. What was the first dog breed that you ever owned? And do you have a preference?

SPEAKER_00 29:11

My first dog was a mutt. I think he was somewhat of a Pekinese and something that we could never discern. And his name was Sparky.

Dianne Burckhardt 29:21

Aww.

SPEAKER_00 29:21

When I got into college, for some reason I fell in love with the Great Danes, and I told my now my wife, she was my girlfriend at the time, that I really wanted a Great Dane one day. And so for my birthday, right before we graduated, she showed up with a small box with holes in it and said, You got to open this very quickly because there's something alive in there. And uh when I opened it up, I thought he was a black lab. And then I looked at his paws, and his paws were huge, and I realized it was a great dane. And so my first thing is I love this gift, best gift I've ever received. And then, second of all, I was thinking, How in the world am I gonna take care of this thing? They do get rather large. You know, I love my chocolate lab. He he's not as emotional as the Great Dane. He's he's not as cuddly, and I don't know what other words to use, but he's he's got his own traits that I that I like. But he's he's kind of done with you after about you know a minute and a half, and he's off to the next thing. Great Danes, they linger.

Dianne Burckhardt 30:25

Become like a blanket. One of my cousins had a great dane, and she said that that was the best and warmest blanket she'd ever had.

SPEAKER_00 30:33

Judge would sleep at the foot of our bed, and at a you know, early in the morning, most mornings, I would wake up and when I'd look over to the side, he was just sitting there staring at me, ready to get up for a walk. Let me sleep 30 more minutes, please.

Dianne Burckhardt 30:52

Question four. If you could completely disconnect from work and writing and everything for one week, what would you do with your free time?

SPEAKER_00 31:03

I would go to Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, I would hang out on the beach, and I would fish.

Dianne Burckhardt 31:10

That is very specific. Do you get to do that often?

SPEAKER_00 31:13

I don't. I used to be able to do it and now I can't, so I'm I'm missing it a lot.

Dianne Burckhardt 31:19

I can tell that there's a little bit of reminiscing there.

SPEAKER_00 31:23

Well, the food's great, the I mean the scenery's great, the fishing is amazing. I I like dabbling in Spanish. I'm not fluent, but when I go to when I used to go to Cabo, after a few days there, I'd start dreaming in Spanish. And I hope one day to be able to become fluent because I love the language and there's a lot of people I know that speak it. But yeah, Cabo San Lucas is in my first book, and it's there for a reason. It's it's one of the most beautiful places on earth.

Dianne Burckhardt 31:51

Have you ever been to Chile?

SPEAKER_00 31:54

I have, and and actually I took my family, my family, once my mom, my mom died when I was 38, and I remember marching in the house and saying, We're gonna travel now. Life is too short, we're gonna invest in international travel. And we have for the most part, we had to take a hiatus for COVID like everyone else, but for the most part, we travel and for spring break for the kids. We went to Chile and we did horseback riding in the mountains, in the Andes Mountains.

Dianne Burckhardt 32:27

Oh, nice.

SPEAKER_00 32:28

And that was one of the most memorable times I've ever had in my life, much you know, and also with my family. But I I am definitely in love with Chile. Food there is great, along with you know, pretty much everything else.

Dianne Burckhardt 32:41

Did you try locos while you were there?

SPEAKER_00 32:44

I don't know if I did or not. What is that? A baloney. Okay.

Dianne Burckhardt 32:49

See, I know a little bit about Chile because my husband's Chilean.

SPEAKER_00 32:53

We had a tour, we went and got, I think it was like TripAdvisor's number one tour guide, and he was very good. And when we were done with our horseback riding, he had a whole set of tables right there on the on a river that was going through the mountains with all sorts of food and wine and everything. And so we got to try a little bit of everything, but I don't remember exactly. It's been a while since we've been. I don't remember everything that we had there.

Dianne Burckhardt 33:23

There is some amazing seafood that I had never seen before. Of course, I come from Kansas, so it's not like I grew up with seafood. But since I've been with my husband, who is very into seafood, because he grew up in Viña de Mar, right on the coast, and he's always introducing me to seafood. And when we went to Chile, oh my gosh, the seafood there is just amazing.

SPEAKER_00 33:46

Well, we went to we went to Chile and then we were supposed we were in Santiago and then we were supposed to go to Buenos Aires, and the entire country's transportation system was shut down. They were protesting and we were we were stuck. And we got on some, I would call it like a southwestern airline, southwest airlines flight for South America, and we ended up not going to Argentina that day again because it was closed, but we went to Monto Video, Uruguay. We went to a small town called Colonia, and I didn't even know this town existed. And it was like we were stuck in a different world, and latitudinally, it's right across from Buenos Aires. You just take a ferry over. But we stayed there that night. We had an amazing meal. We stayed in an amazing place. I think it was we paid pennies on the dollar for everything while we were there. But I'm just we got lost, ended up on a chicken bus like from Montevideo to Colonia, and my kids did great. We had a fantastic time. I would have never planned that trip had we not gotten stopped. But that was a it was a great trip for us from Chile to Uruguay to uh Argentina.

Dianne Burckhardt 35:02

Sometimes those unexpected detours give you the best stories in life.

SPEAKER_00 35:07

Yeah, as a dad, you know, looking after small children, they can be a little harrowing, but my children think, you know, it's head on a swivel. Yeah. You know, make sure you're paying attention to your surroundings. But we we were well received by everyone there. They were they were very nice, and we we had a great time.

Dianne Burckhardt 35:25

So now for question five, we're asking everyone the same question because we're making a list to go in our year-end book buying guide to help people find books for the holiday shopping. So your question is what book to movie adaptation do you think has been the best that you have seen so far?

SPEAKER_00 35:43

The Born Identity. Ooh, good one. Robert Ludlow's Born series into Matt Damon's portrayal of Jason Bourne, uh David Webb is his is his real name, I think. But that that one was that one was different because the book was amazing. The whole idea behind it I thought was fascinating. And then the way that they carried it out, not only in Bourne Identity, but then Bourne Supremacy and Bourne Ultimatum, all I think all three of those were are really tough to beat. The um the only other one I would mention is uh Jack Carr's Terminal List, the Terminal List Dark Wolf, is probably the best Netflix series I've ever seen. It's so good.

Dianne Burckhardt 36:29

I am not familiar with that one. I'm gonna have to go look that up this afternoon.

SPEAKER_00 36:34

Definitely worth your while.

Dianne Burckhardt 36:37

So now why don't you go ahead and remind all of our listeners who you are and where they can find your books?

SPEAKER_00 36:44

Yeah, so I'm Chad Boudreau, and again, I I write thrillers, and I can be found at uh chadboudreau.com, ch a d b-o-u-d-r-e-a-u-x dot com, and you can learn more about me there, and you can pick up my books and learn more about my books there as well.

Dianne Burckhardt 37:04

And I have to admit, even though you've been on the show twice now, I still have a hard time of remembering which goes first, the E or the A.

SPEAKER_00 37:12

Yeah, E-A-U-X.

Dianne Burckhardt 37:14

See, I always have to look it up every time that I do it because I keep switching those two letters.

SPEAKER_00 37:20

Yeah, if you just go to Google and you get close, I think you'll find it.

Dianne Burckhardt 37:24

It works for me.

SPEAKER_00 37:25

Perfect.

Dianne Burckhardt 37:26

Thank you so much for coming back on the show. You have been absolutely amazing, and I love your work. I can't wait to see what you do with your next book.

SPEAKER_00 37:34

I appreciate that, Diane. That's that's uh very encouraging and places like this that make me want to keep writing. So thanks for inviting me.

Dianne Burckhardt 37:42

And of course, whenever you get your next book ready to go, you're welcome to come back again.

SPEAKER_00 37:46

I'll be here.

Dianne Burckhardt 37:48

So there you have it, folks. That was my incredible interview with the fantastic thriller author, Chad Boudreau. Be sure to follow him on social media so you never miss any publications he has coming in the future. If you love thrillers that keep you on the edge of your seat, you will want to check out everything Chad publishes. And I am not even kidding about that. Now, next week I have another returning guest. Sheila Lowe was first on this show in season three, episode 132. If you want to listen to that in preparation for next week's conversation, it is still available online. Since her first appearance, she has become a good friend, and she even wrote an article about me for her day job. We talk about that, and of course, we talk about her amazing catalog of published works, from a very personal memoir and educational books on how to analyze handwriting to her fictional work, more specifically, the latest addition to her Claudia Rose Forensic Handwriting Analyst series. I am thrilled to get sat down again with professional handwriting analyst and award-winning author Sheila Lowe. Be sure to mark your calendars for that one and come back next week. Now, before I let you go, I wanted to get back to those freebies that I talked about earlier when we started this podcast. I wanted to let you know that the newsletter subscribers are currently getting access to two free chapters from paranormal romance author D.S. Stevens' first book in the Haunted Heart series, Langston Watch Hotel. If you don't want to miss out, be sure to subscribe to the newsletter at Burkhartbooks.com slash subscribe. You can find a link to that in the description of today's podcast. But you should act fast because you don't want to miss out. Next week will be the last week the hidden page will be available to newsletter subscribers. So if you want to read those chapters, you need to go join now. And remember, you can always unsubscribe later, so what do you got to lose? You should also be following us on Facebook at BookBanter Productions for our Spectre Sundays. We are currently introducing our followers every Sunday to the cast and crew of the reality TV show in the Haunted Heart series, called Spectre, of course. We have new posts every Sunday sharing actual case notes from the real ghost hunting adventures author Dia Stevens went on during her college years, as well as cast and crew of the Haunted Heart series that will be present in the world through all of the books. So be sure to join us in our newsletter and on Facebook so you don't miss out on any of the fun. Well, I think that's more than enough for today, folks, so you know what that means. It's that time. It's time for you all to go forth and be really happy. We have so much stuff we're giving away to you. Thank you for joining us today. Be sure to subscribe to BookBanter with Diane Burkhart on your favorite podcast streaming service. Because if you love books like we do, you do not want to miss a single episode of this podcast.