Thriller in the Courtroom: A Marc Ross's Leap from Law to Literary Success

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome to the Living the Dream podcast with Curveball. If you believe, you can achieve. Welcome to the Living the Dream with Curveball Podcast, a show where I interview guests that teach, motivate, and inspire. Today on the show, I am joined by A. Mark Ross, an international award-winning author who has taken the leap from high-stakes corporate law into the world of global thrillers. Mark's latest novel, Attacking the Dragon, has gained recognition by multiple international book festivals, and it dives deep into the intersection of global business, politics, and East-West relations. So we're going to be talking to Mark about his book and about his career as a corporate lawyer and everything that he's up to and gonna be up to. So, Mark, thank you for joining me.

SPEAKER_00 1:09

Thank you, Curtis. It's a pleasure to be here. Look forward to it.

SPEAKER_01 1:13

Why don't you start off by telling everybody a little bit about yourself?

SPEAKER_00 1:17

Sure, sure. As you said, I am a corporate lawyer. Uh spent many years uh doing that and still do it, although I spend a great deal of my time these days writing. Um, in the case of Attacking the Dragon, which is uh focused on China, that ties into my work because I have spent a lot of time in China on a number of trips. So I've learned a lot about China and uh what it's like there and the places in the book or places I've been. People are sort of amalgamations of people I know. Uh so that's uh you know how that ties in. And I live in uh New York City, so I'm gonna watch the Knicks tonight later and root for them. And uh that's a basic idea.

SPEAKER_01 2:12

Well, you had a successful career in corporate law, so what encouraged you to make the pivot into writing thrillers, especially later in life?

SPEAKER_00 2:22

Well, when I was in college, I thought about becoming a writer and uh did did some writing at the time. But at that point in my life, I felt that if I couldn't be a top-notch literary writer comparable to the great writers of that time, uh Saul Bellow, a Philip Roth, people like that, that I didn't want to do it. So instead, I went to law school, went out to Stanford, and uh and then practiced law here in New York. Uh a few years ago, during COVID, when things slowed down a bit, I sort of started messing around with writing again. And at this point in my life, having had a fulfilling career and still having it, I felt that I didn't have to be the best literary writer uh around in order to write. So I began to uh write thrillers and uh enjoyed that very much.

SPEAKER_01 3:25

Well, talk to the listeners about your latest book, Attacking the Dragon. You know, tell us uh why you decided to write it and what we can expect when we read it and where we can get it.

SPEAKER_00 3:36

Sure. Well, first of all, um the dragon referenced in the title is China. And the story revolves around the fact that a secret terrorist group is carrying out attacks on China's uh members of China's Communist Party, as well as and more focused on China's global expansion. And China's global expansion is basically carried out through what it calls its Belt and Road Initiative, which is basically China uh facilitating infrastructure projects in many countries. These are airports, railroads, uh dams, a whole list, litany of uh different projects. And China has done these projects in over 140 countries. And as I noted, it's its main means of expansion in terms of developing ties. I refer to it personally as a type of economic colonialism. Uh one of the ways this works is that China will enter into an agreement with a foreign country, and most of these, but not all of them, have been in places like uh Southeast Asia or Africa and in South America, but there are also projects in uh Europe. There are a number of them in Portugal, for instance. And what will happen is a Chinese company will build an infrastructure project using Chinese resources and local labor. The country gets the money to pay the Chinese company by borrowing money from Chinese banks and then pays the contractor. So at the end, the company the country ends up with the project. The money has circled from China to the foreign country back to China, and the foreign country now is oh now owes China's banks and financial institutions this money. At this point, uh China is owed over 1.2 trillion with a T trillion dollars from these projects. A number of them have uh gone bankrupt. China has taken over several, several have been uh recast the debt since they couldn't make the payments. And on top of that, a number of the prop projects have had many problems. There's a railroad uh in one country where the amount of traffic that was required to make it successful hasn't been there. In another case, the railroad was supposed to go a certain distance, but it only got part way, so it's a bit of a railway to nowhere. In um the Americas, they built a dam which uh leaked, so they had to take it out of uh commission in effect. I don't know, frankly, how they did that. Uh, so it's it's very much their means of expansion, and the terrorists here are attacking these projects selectively with the goal of forcing China to retrench back within China and undercutting its global expansion. Two Americans, an American businessman who travels frequently to China, and an American ambassador uh to an African country, get involved because they get caught up in each in attacks. He is injured in one attack where over a hundred people are killed. And in her country, where she's the ambassador, many people are killed when a dam bursts as a result of sabotage. So they become involved and they look to hunt down the terrorists while they become uh he becomes a suspect himself from China's uh equivalent of the FBI called Ministry of State Security. So we have a hunt going on within a hunt and many false identities as we continue to try and track our way up the chain of terrorists to ultimately find out who is behind this.

SPEAKER_01 8:04

Well, talk about why you chose to focus uh on the rise of China as a simple central.

unknown 8:12

Sure.

SPEAKER_00 8:13

As I said, I've I've been to China a number of times uh over the years, so have a reasonable understanding of certain aspects of China. I've traveled to first-tier cities, second-tier cities, even some third-tier cities, and have lectured to and met with many uh Chinese professionals, uh executives, even party officials and government officials. So I felt that I had a uh good knowledge about China, at least good enough to write uh a thriller book, not not necessarily a hard fiction book, and I wouldn't I wouldn't call myself an expert, but enough for this purpose. And you know, this was a case of writing something that I knew about as a starting point. In addition, there are there are a number of books in the West, thriller types, action, adventure, war books involving China. In virtually all cases, though, China is the aggressor. It's a Chinese Navy attacking Taiwan or attacking the American Navy, uh, Chinese hackers, China ruining infrastructure projects in America, things of that sort. I wanted to write something different, so I decided to make China the target rather than the aggressor. And in this book, they are the target. Uh so then it seemed to me that the most logical target uh for for anyone looking to attack China would be these foreign infrastructure projects, rather than, for instance, trying to attack China's mainland or its its army or something like that. So that's what led to the original ideas for the book.

SPEAKER_01 9:58

How do you focus on writing an entertaining thriller? Or how do you balance writing an entertaining thriller while focusing on political and economic realities?

SPEAKER_00 10:11

Well, you try and work them in uh as realities. Uh, you know, you I keep an eye on what is going on. For instance, just today, our uh Federal Aviation Commission uh just released a report about a suspicious aircraft disaster in China of about four years ago. There was an airline called China Eastern, which still runs major Chinese airline, and a Boeing aircraft that was running domestically within China uh crashed. It is the conclusion of uh the American people who became involved that this was due to a struggle in the cockpit between the pilot and the first officer. So uh, but China suppressed all information about this, fearing uh social uh negative social images. So, this, for example, will serve as a basis for not necessarily a similar event, but a similar consequence and concern in my in the follow-up to this book, which I'm writing, uh, where China is concerned about these sort of things because it undercuts its image of uh invincibility. So that's the sort of thing I look to do.

SPEAKER_01 11:38

Talk about the title Attacking the Dragon. Um, what does it symbolize in the context of the story? Because it is a powerful title.

SPEAKER_00 11:47

Yeah, well, as I as I noted, the dragon is China, so our terrorists are attacking China. Um there's little more to it than that, and that it uh when I ran the title by various people who I looked to for input, they all liked it very much, and we actually ended up with a really good cover uh for it, which has a dragon on it, and my main protagonist is a businessman sort of walking towards it, confronting it. Uh, you asked me before where uh your listeners can purchase this. They can purchase it in either paperback or uh Kindle book on Amazon, or if they'd like, they can purchase a paper, a paperback copy, which is autographed by me on my website, which is amarkross.com. And I'll just note that mark is spelled with a C, so it's A-M-A-R-C-R-O-S-S.com.

SPEAKER_01 12:55

All right. Well, talk about what it means to you for your book to have received uh multiple awards and and recognition internationally.

SPEAKER_00 13:06

Well, it's it's obviously very gratifying. Um, and my publisher has been the most active in terms of uh entering the book in various contests, and so I'm very appreciative that she did so. Uh, and it means a great deal. I was just at a uh writer's conference for the last two days, and when people were talking, and uh the subject of awards and festivals and things like that came up. The fact that in the case of this book, I have a total of six different awards from different festivals, and in terms of my first book, I also have an award. Um, people are impressed by it, and prospective uh partners, publishers, etc., are very impressed by it because it's an indicia that you know what you're doing, at least to some extent.

SPEAKER_01 14:04

Talk about some of the biggest challenges you face when transitioning from love to fiction.

SPEAKER_00 14:11

Well, one of the biggest challenges was not using my legal writing style in writing fiction. Uh, it is a completely different style, and uh, I've had to adjust to that. Uh, my wife criticized me initially all the time for using what she considered to be too much legalism in the writing. Uh, beyond that, it's a very different sort of thing. As a lawyer, like most professional service providers, you're paid for the work you do. So if you spend an hour working or you do a project, you're going to be paid for it. And uh, you know that unless your client um doesn't follow through. If when you're writing, though, you have no idea whether there will ever be a payoff on it. So, and whether no matter how many hours you spend, you don't know whether in terms of money they will be fruitful. Uh, I think most writers today are not in it just for the money. Uh, if you are, you're in for a great deal of disappointment because there are very few writers who only uh have the have the luxury of only writing. You know, some of the biggest names like Clancy or people like that, Dan Brown, all they have to do is write. But most other writers, a few tiers down, uh, you find that they have other jobs. They they may be uh editors for other authors or things like that. So I don't feel that I'm unique in straddling two worlds at the same time.

SPEAKER_01 16:02

For readers who are new to geopolitical thrillers, what message do you hope they take away from reading your book?

SPEAKER_00 16:11

I hope, well, first of all, and most important, I hope they enjoy it. I write uh for people to enjoy what I've done. And if they don't enjoy it, then I have failed. Uh so that's clearly the most important thing. And when I read books, if I don't enjoy it, then I consider that author to have uh failed. Uh, but in terms of the takeaway beyond that, I think that for people who are not familiar with China, there's a lot they will learn here. Learn about China's global expansion, its Belt and Road initiative, etc. It'll also, though, give people, I think, a nice feel for what uh life is like in China, in terms of what the cities are like, hotels. I have uh scenes set in places where I have been. So I know what they're like, and I think it serves as a very good introduction to people, for people, uh, to what it's like in China.

SPEAKER_01 17:20

Tell us about any other upcoming projects that you're working on that people need to be aware of.

SPEAKER_00 17:26

Well, excuse me, uh, I'm actually involved with several. As to Attacking the Dragon, I've begun to write, but I'm still at an early stage, and writing a uh sequel to it. I'm not going to give away the ending here of Attacking the Dragon, but I will say that it's set up for a sequel. Uh, and our hero, Wes and uh Maria the Ambassador, are continuing the hunt from the first book. Uh, in addition to that, though, I wrote an earlier book called The Conscripted Extremist, uh, which also uh won an award in uh a major uh book contest. And that book, there's a script for it right now in uh in Los Angeles with several studios and independent producers, and I'm hoping that that will be made into one of these limited edition uh streaming shows. Of course, you know, there's no not only is there no certainty, but the odds are very tough of accomplishing that. But hopefully we'll see it happen. And at the same time, I'm writing a sequel to that, and I'm also uh working on uh putting out into the world a business thriller. Thriller sit in the business world where uh deals go bad and uh business people resort to more like mafia tactics to accomplish what they need. So there's a lot going on.

SPEAKER_01 19:08

All right. A markross.com is the website. Mark is spelled with a C. So close this out with some final thoughts, maybe if that was something I forgot to talk about that you would like to touch on, or any final thoughts you have for the listeners.

SPEAKER_00 19:22

Well, um, I would love it if listeners would support new writers, uh, myself and other people, rather than just reading uh the big names. I think there are a lot of us out there and we're looking for the opportunity. And this is this is a challenge for us. Uh, we are many of us are uh people who are doing this after doing something else. So it's almost like a second career. Uh, many people who are young who are trying to do this, it is very difficult, and the odds on success are very low. So I hope uh people understand that and provide support for writers. I know that people love, you know, to watch uh social media, TikTok, etc. But reading is very important. It's important to the authors and it's important to people to read. Uh so I hope people will keep that in mind.

SPEAKER_01 20:28

Yes, it is definitely important, ladies and gentlemen. And as Mark said, please support the new writers. Visit amarcross.com. Mark is spelled with a C and check out Attacking the Dragon and follow rate, review, and share this episode to as many people as possible, especially those people out there that love political issues. Also visit www.curveball337.com to keep up with all things living the dream. Drop us a voicemail, and who knows, we might play it on the show. Leave us a review or any comments you have about any suggestions for the show, and share the website and the show to everybody that you know. Thank you for listening and supporting the show. And Mark, thank you for all that you do, and thank you for joining me.

SPEAKER_00 21:17

Well, and thank you, Curtis, as well.

SPEAKER_01 21:20

For more information on the Living the Dream with Curveball Podcast, visit w dot curveball337.com. Until next time, keep living the dream.