Jack Carr On 'The Devil's Hand': 'I Was Researching About The Weaponization Of Infectious Diseases Before COVID Hit'

(CBS Local)-- Jack Carr has been a Navy SEAL and a New York Times best seller. There aren't too many people who have held both titles before. Carr spent decades in the military and has become one of the most popular thriller novelists in America. In fact, one of his books is currently being turned into an Amazon series starring Chris Pratt.

CBS Local's DJ Sixsmith caught up with Carr to discuss his new book "The Devil's Hand," time in the military and what we can learn from history in regards to the coronavirus pandemic.

"I was very lucky with this book that I didn't have to travel. For the first one I had been to Iraq and Afghanistan and I had been to some of the other places I had described," said Carr. "For the second one I had been to Africa, South Africa and Mozambique. For the third one, I traveled to Russia. For "The Devil's Hand," I was lucky that a lot of it was academic research. It was mostly US based and I had been to many of the places I was writing about. I was researching infectious diseases and the weaponization of infectious diseases well before COVID hit. I did the outline for this novel in August 2019. The real theme of this book is what the enemy has learned from us by watching us."

Carr's book focuses on what our enemies have learned about us during two different periods from 1971-2000 and 2001 until today. The author and former Navy SEAL dives into what other countries around the world took away from our response to COVID, our presence in the Middle East and the racial reckoning that occurred last summer after the death of George Floyd.

"As I'm writing, I was thinking what is the enemy learning about our response to COVID, watching the civil unrest in our cities over the summer, watching a very contentious political season because they are not just looking at that as passive observers. They're looking at all that, taking notes and applying that to their future battle plans. All that got woven into the novel."

While Carr no longer identifies as a Navy SEAL, but his time overseas made him the man he is today.

"I think of myself as an author now and being a SEAL was something that I did," said Carr. "It's not something I am now. It will always be a big part of who I am and I incorporate that into the novels. I took the emotions and feelings behind certain events downrange and I applied them to a totally fictional narrative. The books end up being therapeutic in a very authentic way."

"The Devil's Hand" is available April 13 from Simon & Schuster wherever books are sold.