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UNEDITED TRANSCRIPT

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Well, good morning, good afternoon or good evening. It is Wednesday, October 9. I thought I would do something a little bit different than the Paul Truesdale Podcast. Today. We have hurricane Milton in the neighborhood, and I finished a book series. So I thought I would talk with you a little bit about that, and maybe you might enjoy it, a legacy of thrillers. Scott Pratt, Joe Dillard and family collaboration. So Scott Pratt, P, R, A, T, T, he's an acclaimed author behind what's known as the Joe Dillard series, and he left an endearing mark on the legal theorem thriller genre, I would say, before his untimely death in 2018 so he's been gone for a while now. His novel sold literally millions of copies, and it really quite skillfully blended courtroom drama with a real complex series of moral dilemmas and his personal struggles all set in the backdrop of the state of Tennessee and their legal system. Now, the Joe Dillard series in particular stands out for its authenticity. It's a lot of emotional depth, and it's also well, it's shaped by the qualities that Pratt owned life. Essentially his wife's battle with cancer, and she eventually passed away. They had a very close bond, and he worked very closely with his son Dylan, The Joe Dillard series, a legal thriller with heart. So yeah, it it's a at the heart of Scott pratt's Success is the Joe Diller series, and he's written a few other things, but it follows a criminal defense attorney named Joe Diller. Of course, it navigates to murky waters of quote, unquote, Southern justice. And this the series begins with a book called An innocent client, where Dillard has he's tired of defending criminals and he's eager for a case where he can believe his client is innocent. The theme is one of moral conflict. It carries throughout the series, this moral conflict, and Dillard is often confronting his own ethical boundaries. His professional life is tightly woven with his personal life, especially with his his wife and Caroline, who suffers from multiple sclerosis now. Pratt writing style is pretty fast paced. It's easy to read. It's filled with different twists that will keep you on your edge.

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Dillards cases often involve intense, high stake criminal cases. But what sets the series apart is the emotional weight his personal challenges, particularly

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Caroline's illnesses. That's his wife in the book. So fans of legal thrillers, Joe Dillard definitely offers more than just courtroom drama provides a pretty rich character study of a man who's torn between his duties as a lawyer and love for families. While I really did enjoy the overall book, I found the last book, Justice loss to be somewhat less engaging than the earlier ones. The legal drama remained strong, but the emotional, personal developments didn't quite resonate as deeply with me. In addition, Justice loss is still a solid addition to the series. It closes everything out, but you should know that it had to be ghostwritten with his son and another individual because of Scott's death, and it kind of is what it is, from traditional to self publishing, reinventing a career. Yeah, let's talk a little bit about that. Scott's pratt's path to success really wasn't all that straightforward. And I like that, by the way, initially he published his first three Joe Dillard books with Penguin, but after struggling to find a real commercial foothold, foothold, I'll say he reclaimed the rights, and along with his son Dylan, they entered the world of self publishing, which is, I think, really cool. Together, they reestablished their books on Amazon's Kindle platform, and thanks to some really creative marketing, including book bub, that's B, O, O, k, b, u, B, BookBub, bub promo