Ladies and gentlemen, we invite you to meet the priest.

Welcome to 1947, the Meet the Press podcast.

My guest today is author Brad Meltzer.

You may know him from his bestselling thrillers like The Inner Circle or The Book of Fate.

Its latest book is called The Escape Artist.

And it's out now as part of his research for this book.

He got unprecedented access to the Dover Air Force space.

Of course, known as the Military's Mortuary, unofficially.

The facility where doctors have a deep understanding about how the body performs in high stress.

And what he learned there became a plot point for his book, but in addition to his novels,

Brad is also the author of a surprising series that has nothing to do with assassins and plot twists.

He's written a series of children's books, profiling luminaries like Rosa Parks, Jim Henson,

and Amelia Earhart.

Brad, welcome to 1947.

And I should say, Brad has been a big presence in my kids' house.

And my kids reading library with these books that you've done and you've been very generous with them.

So, of course.

I want to get to all of that.

But first, how did you get into wanting to write about political thrillers?

You know, for me, the X-Factor on every page is the writer enjoying what they're doing.

You got to love it.

You can have a great plot.

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