He Turned Down the CIA… Then Wrote This Thriller | Robert Danger Workman

Welcome to author conversations. I'm Chris Dabbs and today I'm joined by Robert Danger Workman. Yes, Danger Workman, I think you'll find, and easily author of assassination attempt Alone Wolfe Now, let's be serious for a second because Robert writes gritty, hard-world action thrillers, which are built around power, corruption, political theatre and characters who do not exactly tiptoe through life. No, no. So, at the centre of this novel, his New York private investigator, Nick Wolfe. Now, Nick's a man pulled into his most dangerous case yet when the murder of his longtime mentor points towards something that's far bigger than just one crime scene.

So, as Wolfe digs deeper, the trail leads into a conspiracy that could reach the highest levels of American power, believe it or not. But this is not just a lone hero story. The book also gives real weight to a group of strong independent women around wolf. Now, that's from electoral wolf and trouble Wolfe to Ivan Jackson, Natalie Cox, Avalon, Centre and Donner. Now, they're not just there for the hell of it, they're there to bring influence, resilience, humour and danger of their own and on their own terms.

So, after that intro, Robert, welcome to author conversations. How are you doing? Thank you, Chris. I'm doing quite well. I think you can see it's a nice data. Be talking to someone about books. Yeah, absolutely. I can see this and I can see your ranch behind you. I'm very jealous because obviously that's all I've got as a studio with me. But there we go. Okay. So, let's jump in then straight away because I think we're going to enjoy this conversation. Now, you've written three action thriller novels, but you've also written three nonfiction books as well.

So, you're quite prolific as an author, right? So, tell us about the books. Old of them. I'll try to make the nonfiction short because we're really going to talk about the novels and so's their what they're brought in center now. But I kept getting fired. I was a salesman. Well, I was a writer on my life and all my friends, they knew what they're going to do in their lives. This friend, he's going to be a mechanic. This guy's going to be an attorney. They're going to law school. This guy's going to be accountant.

They all knew pretty much going into college and I was a writer. What am I going to do? My very first paid writing job. I got paid to write sales training literature. I do nothing about it. I was an academic. I knew nothing about it. But they gave me all the research. All I had to do was take the research, read it, and then write a little 1000 page, 1000 word piece on that subject. I thought it was fascinating. I wrote about how to call people to get appointments, how to make presentations, how to ask closing questions, how to actively listen, how to do all.

I went into the office one day of my boss and said, hey, Joe, do you think I could, this is really fascinating stuff. Could I, do you think I could try this selling our programs? He says, you a writer want to go into sales? The next day I had an office, a secretary and a desk and a phone. And that's all I need. Anyway, I learned from the best guy you could possibly learn from from the get go. So every job I ever had, I was number one sales guy. I'm not brag. I mean, I was number one out of 800 people in one team out at 300 people and another team out of 100 people and other than I was consistently number one.

And every time consistently, I got fired. Took about three or four or five years, but it was because the account base was established. The revenue stream was there. Yes, they loved me as their rep. But if I was gone, somebody else could step in that maybe was brand new and could do it for a third of the price that they were paying me the money for. I'm making too much money. So about a boom, about a being, that company's going in a new direction and you're not part of that direction. So I wrote a book called hired gun.

I realized, you know what I am? I'm a hired gun. You got a new company. It needs revenue. It's like the old west town needs law and order. They'll pay any amount of money to get the guy fast gun into established law and order. But then he's there too long. He's too powerful. They're afraid of him. They get him out of there. Same story with every excellent salesman you got. So I wrote three books based on that concept, hired gun, which sold from I got it in airport bookstores because I wanted to sell the traveling salesman.

I had an every airport bookstore from Miami to Anchorage and it sold out. I sold 10,000 printed copies. Matter of fact, there it is. The original hired good. It is people. Yes. Oh, okay. Right. So yeah, hired gun. So it's sold out. It did very well. Started launching a career. And I brought out the wonderfully creatively tighter title hired gun two. And then I brought out selling the most dangerous game. That was 10, 15 years ago when I retired from that business, which afforded me to be able to live out here.

I started riding the novels I always wanted to write and just couldn't get to because I was in the city. I was making money. I was driven. I had I didn't have time to be creative. I had to work. So now out here, I get here one year and I've cranked out two novels. And after three years, I finished the third one. And now I'm riding the fourth one. It's a lot different out here to write than it is in the city. I mean, I live in downtown Dallas in a warehouse that I bought. And I just was a hermit crab built it up around me and lived there.

I tried to ride at night after I worked. But I mean, I had sirens and police and people banging on my door to buy drugs. And I just, oh, kinds of I got that. I got out. Now here comes a book. And before I finished the first book, I wrote this first chapter of the second book. And before I was halfway through the second book, I wrote the first chapter of this book, "Assassination of Tab," which was Jack getting murdered. And yes, it's really set to take place. This new book is set, "Assassination of Tab" takes place on the Cestors Centennial, upcoming.

And it's in past tense. So when you read it, you're reading a first person past tense, neon-wired black and white detective thriller that hasn't happened yet. Now July 5th, it'll all seem correct. But yeah, he stumbles on. He just goes to work out. Stumbles on. He goes upstairs to the gym. Work sees the homicide detective. He knows there. And wonders why he's there. And his best friend has been murdered. And all he knows is my best friend, my mentor, my sensei had been nifed in the back. Ice picked in the back.

So it's just almost a personal vendetta. I'm going to get the killer. Know you're staying out of this. Know I'm getting the killer. One thing after another leads to different things that tell you the reason why Jack got murdered is he was on the discovery of a big impending event, which is the assassination of the president on the Cestors Centennial as he speaks to the nation from the base of the Statue of Liberty. How are they going to do it? They have no clue. Who is going to do it? They have no clue.

They know what, when, where, and why? They don't know who and they don't know how. And that's what the book. Hey premise. Love that. I love that. I just timely as well. Isn't it? Of course. Well, you know, go ahead. No, no, go on. You will say, well, I just when you said timely, you just, it just triggered. I'm sorry. I couldn't help but respond. They keep feeding me material. These books are easy. The material is easy for me to write about. I just wrap my story around what's happening. I almost feel like I'm plagiarized.

My first book, "Mactual Impregneless" was all about pizza gate, the pedophiles in Washington DC. And I named them the Berkner House crew, the secret organization that runs the world financially. And how he takes those down. That's our first exposure to Nick Walton. In that book, it centers around his rescue of this child that he met previously. And that child happens to be the son of the world's wealthiest widow who has 640,000 acres in South Texas as a cattle ranch and was recently widowed by the owner of the biggest fracking oil company in North Texas.

So it was like a marriage of South Texas cattle in North Texas oil fracking. And so she's this multi-billionaire on the cover of Forbes Fortune. He meets her. She falls for him. He rescued her son. The next book begins with their marriage. It is called "immigration invasion." When I wrote that, we had 20 million people coming across our southern border, Willie Nellie. So I stated there is an alamo at the southern border. On the southern border, there is an alamo. It was used when they filmed the movie by John Wayne, the alamo.

It's in a town called Brackettville, Texas. The whole alamo village is there still reconstructed to be a replica, three-quarter replica of the whole compound. It was a tourist site for a liar. So they end up defending against an invasion that is focused at that point at the alamo, with like a thousand volunteers against 40,000 combined Chinese, Hamas, and Mexican drug cartels coming across the border to invade and take joint-based San Antonio. And then fire missiles at the US from inside the US where they can't be tracked.

So he and Electra, his new wife, are on their honeymoon, going down to South Texas on a train. And the next thing you know, they're at the alamo with machine guns defending against this invasion. And then there's assassination attempt. So these things just keep coming up and I go, how can I wrap a book around that? Yeah, well no, that sounds great. Obviously something that you really enjoy doing, right? So you can't argue with that. I mean, I was going to ask you about sometimes, you know, you're writing, these to be kind of, well, how can I say, I don't know, you walk a fine line, I think, between valid social comment, don't you?

And to totally absurd. I mean, that's what they say. I've been told. Yeah, betting a train down to South Texas, please, with machine guns and stuff. But I don't know what the laws are like there in South Texas. Well, it's the third brigade of the Texas Army. Texas has its own army. And the third brigade of that army, its responsibility is 1,230 miles of the southern border. Mostly road construction and emergency but it is the Texas Armed Forces Army. And the third brigade is right there. And so who do I, you might like this.

I have the commander of the third, the general in charge of the third brigade of the Texas Army in my book. It's General Reese Willoughby, he's Scottish. He married to Texan 10 years ago, they moved over here. So he is the general over like 500 Texas Army troops at Bracketville, ordered by the governor. And then some volunteers like period re-enactor volunteers with their cannons, Black powder cannon, and other volunteers that come. And about 1,000 guys find out and show up at the Alamo did defend.

And so they're showing up with whatever they got. I got all with coutes with their duck guns shooting down drones from the corner. But you know what, that's probably what it would be like, right? So I mean, you know, it's not that absurd if you think about it. If there was a call to arms, everyone would go with whatever they had, right? Yeah, yeah. And so, you know, you've got an army there. You've got an army with army stuff, but you already got 500 guys. You know, you got other guys show up, but they bring what they've got, lever actions.

Yeah, you're right. I walk a fine line. Well, brilliant. Well, let's go get onto Nick Wolf then because he feels like a very old school kind of private eye, right? And he's dropped into this modern political world of which he knows nothing, I guess. But what kind of hero did you actually want him to be, if you know what I mean? I'm really happy with the way he turned out. I really am because, uh, you know, when you start, right, I didn't think I was going to write several books. I wrote one book, Maximum Precious.

That was my book. And I hope who is he and what is he and where does he operate on it? And what's his background? All of that is in there. But each book, each book that I write stands on, I wrote it to stand on its own. So if you only pick up immigration, then you go, wow, this was fun to read. But the trail, the the arc goes through the books. They meet, he and the electric meet, they get married at the Alamo, the Alamo happens assassination attempt. They they are married, but she wants him to get out of the case because it's too dangerous and he's not going to because he's going to get the guy who killed Jack.

So it it arcs through and now in this fourth book, she's fed up with being the wife. She he gets to have all the fun. She's convinced him to retire so that he's not in danger anymore. So who's running around trying to solve this fourth case? Electra. Not knowing what the hell she's doing, but getting into trouble. And that's the name of his sister, trouble. It's just the Electra. Yeah, Nick Wolf's sister is trouble wolf and she is a pointillist artist. She's got an artist mentality just blew out there, but she's a pointillist artist with a Tommy gun.

And she can draw your portrait with a Tommy gun on his play to steal at 25 feet. And that's not totally out there either because in the 1900s, the fabulous topper wanes were hired by Winchester to show off their new Winchester repeating rifles. And they toured the US drawing Indian chiefs in full head dress on tin plates with their rifles. So she's just brought it up to date. So she chives in every once a while with her Tommy gun. Which is great, right? So that's exactly what you want, right? Yeah, women with guns who are artists?

Hot women with guns. These women are beautiful. I mean, in assassination attempt, Avalon is the world's hottest top stunning drop your jawed model. And she's got the hots for Nick. There are a couple of competitions of Nick, his wife, Electra, who's also stunningly beautiful and Avalon. Those I had fun writing. Yeah, I bet. I bet he did. I think that's the subject of another book. Sorry, another interview at some late night one, probably. But why was it important to you then to make sure that women weren't just like background figures or you know, like in a James Bond novel where they end up dead usually.

Why why did you want to move away from that? That's very good. Because in my life, they have been. I mean, I've gone through my life and achieved a hell of a lot of good things. But pretty much every time if I look at who was supporting me getting that thing done, it was some really sharp, competent female person. And I've worked for several as well. I never had a problem working for a female boss. If they were competent enough for me to work for them and I admire them, you know. And I had some of these people are a malgames of people that I know.

Some of these characters, like I have a lot of this one with a little bit of this and a little bit of that thrown in and there she is in the book. They're not, they're not foreign to complete fictional characters. A lot of these events and a lot of these people are real. They change the names to protect the guilty. But no, that's great though, isn't it? That you can draw on your experiences of strong, well, women, strong men, you know, all that sort of stuff because you've obviously right in a way that is sort of like neo-noir, right?

So what's the use of a black and white kind of thing? You know, this, this, this, this, this cigarette, this city streets, this hard boiled dialogue and danger around every corner. So I mean, what attracts you to that style now more so than say the, the nonfiction? I don't know where I picked it up. But I was only like 17, I'd say 17, I picked up "I the Jewry" by Mickey Spillane and Reddett. It just grabbed me to where I couldn't let loose of it. And when I went to college, I was on a track team and you're all living together in the dorm.

I'm there the first day. I got 40 friends and they filed out, you know, I was talking about stuff or talking about things we like or do and they, within about a month, four or five guys, they'd meet in the hallway and they'd be quoting lines from either Jewry at each other, you know. And I remember I got fast-nast out of reading a lot of Mickey Spillane books. I like the first person narrative. I think it pulls you really in the story. It limits this perspective, but it limits it. So you're discovering along with the character.

I like that, right? I don't like third, I think third person's too easy. I mean, if I need something to happen, third person, okay, over here meanwhile, this guy, this character, I'll invent him and he's doing this. This guy doesn't know about that. Okay, you can do that, but I'd rather have you focused on the discovery, the involvement of how does he find this out and how does he move forward? What accident falls in his lap? That he normally wouldn't have, you know, things like that. So I remember talking to my mom, highly, highly, highly intelligent, one of your highly intelligent, strong women.

She's president of the American Association of the University of Women in Washington, T.C., you know, it's very smart. And she read every act of the Christy book three, four, five times. She read every Leo Sayers book three, four, five times, just all these mysteries. And I asked her, I said, what would you say is the difference between the mystery books you like to read and the ones I like to read like Mickey's Filet and Raymond Chandler? She said, well, my books are a little more intellectual.

Thanks, mom. It's so true. It's so true. They are. I mean, the time still stuff, right? Yeah, but I like, I like smashing the guy in the jaw with your fist and skin in your knuckles. You know, I like that. So, I like to read, I like to read books for guys who like to read books and I like to write books for guys who like to read books. And there's new ones on audio book. It's been submitted. You know, they take, they take 10 days to approve it and post it and everything, but it'll be everywhere.

Amazon Spotify, iTunes and audible. Hopefully this week. And that will be fun. I'll tell you why because the guys who produced it, it's voice, it's, it's author narrated. So, it's me. You're going to hear me as Nick Wolf. But they got, that will actually work, right? I mean, you know, I think it's what I know how to intonate what he's thinking or saying because I wrote it. So we'll see if I did it in good. But they got a voice actress who did seven female roles. The ones you named. Everyone is a different voice actress.

She did a lecturer like a billionaire, beautiful woman. She did Donna like a Bedford, Stuyveson, Brooklyn, secretary. She did Avalon like a French model from Marseille. I mean, I listened to, I want to hear this book in its entirety. I haven't heard it chapter one to 47 yet. I want to hear it just for the female voices in her play, you know. So, well, I think by the sound of it, because I, I mean, I've narrated a few audio books myself and I know how difficult the characters are, right? So, yeah, wow, that's incredible.

So, okay. So I'm really interested though. You mentioned about Nick and you mentioned writing books, tough guy books for guys that like to read books, right? So, what did you discover about Nick Wolf then while writing this book, you know, obviously, so third, right? Or fourth, so I'm just saying sorry. That surprised you most about him. I mean, where did he go that you just didn't consider he was going to go? You know, when I write him, I write him thinking. You know, first person, you got to lose every leverage you can have at your hands.

So, I give the reader inside into his thinking. When I do that, it's in italics. So, you'll have a whole paragraph or maybe just three words in italics, you know, like in this one he's thinking, I don't think she bought it, did she? Anyway, I have Minotalix and what did surprise me and it was in the very first book, a matter of fact, since you bring it up, it surprised me how deep his feelings could go. When he decides that he's going to rescue this kid that's been kidnapped on the national news.

He's the son of a lector white, the billionaire, as he's been kidnapped and he just played catch with him in the rain the day before he jumps on a train back from New York to DC to find him and he goes underground literally to find and in writing about how he thought about this kid and then what he thought about these other kids that he rescued in the process like Dude doesn't encages. That surprised me. That was fun to learn that range. He's not just a top level superficial, tough guy with a fist and a 45.

He's a guy with all of that plus much more. I mean his daryngear that I call it is a sawdoth 12 gauge pistol. That's his daryngear. He's a big guy. That's his daryngear. He's 6'4" 2" 43" but then he's rushing at the body guy says oh yeah, he's thinking let's see how you handle the bugs of Russia. 6'4" 2" 43" pounds and it's center the girl and she kicks him, breaks his jaw. She broke my jaw. You just love your own books. This is great stuff. It's fun to write. Yeah, oh god in assassination attempt.

I told people I'm writing. I have some people that like to read the first two and I said I've told them oh god I put him through hell. That poor guy. He just held this book. Oh my gosh. Well do you know what? Obviously this is great. We're having great fun here but we're lucky. Unfortunately running out of time. Wow. Wow. It's incredible. So let's get to this end right for readers coming up for your work. You know for the first time what kind of ride should they expect from assassination attempt alone wolf because you said that you can come into each book separately right?

Yes you can come into any book this effort. If the theme of immigration invasion that appeals to you more grab that one. It's a book on its own. But yeah I will tell you what my I love to read the reviews because most of them are favorable but I don't care if somebody gives me out I tell people at like bookside of your mouth I don't care if you give me a one or two star review. Give me a review but just make it honest. You know like hey the other thing this book's good for is a door stop. I would probably put that up as my post it and pin it at the top as my first review you know.

The one I got said and I distinctly remember it. What did I just read? Is it set tire? Is it action? Is it mystery? I don't know but I do know this it was a wild ride so I would tell anybody any one of my books if you're going to pick it up get ready for a wild ride. Excellent we see Robert that is that is it because okay now I've got the great question for to end with right so did you ever worry this ride that you were writing did you ever worry that the story was going to go too far or is that exactly the point and that's what you're off to.

Oh no because the first three books first one happens to October six months later they're married in the White House Rose Garden second book. It's only six months later. The third book is not even a year later they're still newlyweds when it's July 4, 2026 because they got married on June of 20 yeah of 26 so I haven't even transpired a year yet in the character arcs here and there's still technically this the next book the fourth book is it's a Christmas book it's called Christmas Colt 45 it's set in LA this time so we go from New York to Texas to LA and everywhere basically so you get your influences from all over well this is Robert they did a good website for it's just my name Robert Dash Workman.com everything's on there more than you want to know.

Look at you preempting my next question right. Sorry. So okay hang on a second Robert danger workman you have been great to be with for the last half an hour or so and I tell you what thank you for joining me on author conversations. I've been Chris Dabs but the book is assassination attempt alone wolf a gritty political thriller featuring private investigator Nick Wolfe a murder investigation that spirals towards a national conspiracy and a cast of powerful characters who bring danger or loyalty and sharp social comment to the page.

You can find Robert's work through his Amazon author page and look for assassination attempt alone wolf wherever you get your books and obviously the audio books can be coming out soon and can you just tell us again what your website is Robert. Yeah just Robert Dash Workman.com. There you go perfect perfect. Well I hope you enjoyed having this conversation with me Robert and if you enjoyed listeners and viewers then please follow author conversations for more interviews with writers about the stories, ideas and experiences behind their books but what I would say is that as we've been hearing Robert wants to hear your comments so make sure that you comment down below leave a review on the book and leave a review on the interview make your voice heard as it were so thanks again once more Robert danger workman for joining me on author conversations.

Thank you much Chris and thoroughly enjoy. See you soon. Bye. If you enjoyed this conversation you can watch more author conversations here. [Music]