Ryan Pote
Blood and Treasure
The destruction of the International Space Station and the discovery of an ancient scroll are inextricably intertwined in this debut crossover thriller from a former Navy helicopter pilot.
The Writer’s Dossier 6/18/2025 – The Ryan Pote podcast interview
The Writer’s Dossier 7/22/2025 – The Ryan Pote Dossier interview
DOSSIER: You’ve done some pretty cool things as a Navy helicopter pilot, even some swanky joint interagency special operations stuff running down a few drug cartels. What’s the biggest lesson you took from that experience, and why was working for a JIATF better than hanging with those heady guys from JSOC?
POTE: The biggest lesson: nobody truly knows what they’re doing. Intelligence isn’t just handed to you, like in the movies. We had to develop our intel ourselves, work targets ourselves. We were setting up our own operations completely organically. But working in the JIATF was great, it’s the wild west in Central and South America and you’ve got a lot of assets to work with–other partner nations, like the Midnight Express. I wouldn’t say it was better, we trained some JSOC teams on HVBSS operations because at the time we were considered the most proficient because we did it everyday. They were fun to play with, but we operated very differently.
DOSSIER: HVBSS = Helicopter Vertical Board Search and Seizure (badass stuff!)
An Unbelievable Path to Publication
DOSSIER: Your debut thriller, BLOOD AND TREASURE, has some of the very best pre-publication press we’ve seen here at The Dossier. Blurbs from Mark Greaney, Brad Taylor and a bunch of other top Dossier members are really impressive. How did you break in with the bigs when you’re trying to also climb the ranks to someday take the #1 thriller writer spot?
POTE: I had an interesting publishing journey. I wrote 5 books (of them Blood and Treasure), I had over 400+ rejections (this book included), then my agent at the time dropped me. I gave up. Then Mike Maden, a friend and writing mentor of mine tried to talk me out of it and then introduced me to a friend of his, former editor at Putnam Mark Tavani, who’d been fired in the wake of the PRH-Simon Schuster deal collapse. He became an agent and was looking for clients. We met, Mark read one book, then all five. He wanted to rep me. We went out with Blood and Treasure and got one offer–Tom Colgan. I’d love to say I had something to do with all the praise, but really it was my agent and editor leading the charge. They really believed in this book and there was this energy about it. They both wanted to put it out there to a solid group of bestselling authors and then, honestly, the authors themselves read it out of the kindness of their hearts–like nobody was forcing them. I’m truly humbled by everything they’ve said about the book. I don’t dwell much on those things. I put my trust in God, so, I just try to be strong, and do the work, leaving the rest to Him.
Who Needs Sleep?
DOSSIER: Where and when do you like to write? Do you have a view of a New England coastline or a parking lot of a Boston-area fish-packing plant?
POTE: I write before work, Monday-Friday only, 4am-7am. I write wherever I can, really. Just a laptop. I’ve always been an early riser, 4-6 hour sleep guy. I have two little kids, so I have at times written on my laptop with a baby sleeping on my chest. or, in my bed in the dark with my 4 year old son sleeping between us. I never write at night or on the weekend or during the day. My mind works best in the morning. I set a timer and just go until it goes off, then I get to the rest of normal life.
That Dream Job
DOSSIER: Before the Navy you were living in Hawaii as a dive instructor, a bartender, a live musician, and a biofuel researcher for Shell Oil of all things. Even though you’re a fed now, as well as a big debut author, if money weren’t an issue, which one of those jobs would you go back to?
POTE: That’s an easy one–hands down, I’d be a dive instructor again. If this book path works out, you’ll all see me doing it again for free. I mean, I had so many other jobs in Hawaii because the pay was so little, I was basically doing it 14 hours a day for free anyways, HAH!
The Last Word
DOSSIER: You’re working in government contracting now, and although the area of prototype aircraft development contracts sounds riveting (we’re still smitten by our love of government contract CLINs here at The Dossier), are you working your way up to getting on the next flight to Mars, or do you just want to stay grounded and take over as this planet’s biggest thriller writer?
GUEST: No, this job wasn’t an ambition at all. I’m actually technically an investigator, within IG. After I couldn’t fly anymore for the military or the FAA, I fell into this very niche position that is kind of like an NTSB accident investigator meets IRS auditor meets program manager. So I don’t deal much with the nuts and bolts of the contracts. I deal with oversight and execution of experimental test flight and ground operations, test pilot training, and then audit defense contractors for breaches of contract. I just happened to be uniquely qualified for it after a brief stint at JAG, and was in the “right place at the right time”, and they recruited me. I’ll be happy if I get to keep writing in any way, and if it will eventually pay the bills, I mean that’s the goal, right.
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