A Navy SEAL has nothing left to live for and everything to kill for after he discovers that the American government is behind the deaths of his team, of the aircrew sent to rescue them, and of his family in the States.

James Reece will use everything he's learned in over a decade of constant warfare toward avenging the deaths of his family and teammates. With breathless pacing and relentless suspense, Reece ruthlessly targets his enemies in the upper echelons of power without regard for the laws of combat or the rule of law.

This first novel is a great introduction to the characters that Jack Carr will bring to bestseller lists in future novels, and to the screen with Chris Pratt starring as Reece is a multi-season show on Amazon.

Really enjoyed this book. Jack Carr is the real deal. You can tell by the incredible amount of detail that this is a like the author himself has lived. What is really interesting is that the are certain parts of the book that are redacted. Which is both frustrating and cool.
The story is concerned with James Reece a SEAL commander, well respected by his troops and a staunch family man. While on deployment he and his men are sent on a bad mission from higher up. Everyone is wiped out except from James and one other. Shortly thereafter, he come to find out that he has a brain tumor that has been causing excruciating headaches.
Returning home, bad things begin to happen. Boozer the other soldier, supposedly commits suicide and then a group of Mexican thugs shoot up his home killing his wife, little girl and unborn son. realizing that this can't be coincidental.
After some digging, Reece finds a conspiracy that reaches to the highest levels of government. But, all Reece wants is revenge for his family and his men.
This book hums!

Wow reading all of these different reviews after I have read this book makes me wonder what people would have given books written from the cold war era or even the early Tom Clancy books that were filled with a lot of the same stuff though I must say written with a little more swag. This book written by a former Navy Seal deals with his team being wiped out along with the Rangers that came in to rescue them. This part reminds a little of a CH-47 Chinook call sign Extortion -17. This took place in 2011 when where it was shot down with 30 Americans losing their life including 17 from Seal team six, this after the Bin Laden raid. The main character James Reece after losing his men which he was to also to have been killed, is home. Now though he loses his family in a gangland shooting. He then realizes that there is something bigger going on. While investigating him is also trying to find the people who order his family and team killed. He begins to take them out one at a time except for the gang and at the end. Could this happen yes to the first part because it has happened. To the second part would one man go on a killing Speer he would probably be caught or killed. Would the government test a drug on soldier’s yes they did this in the sixties and is documented. Looking past all of that this was a fast and exciting read. It was a book a story, not fact but just to read. I did not read any politics into it because I just don’t and I am tired of everyone looking at a way to bash an author. I am not an author but someone who likes to read books and that was what this was just a book. The book I read before this was about the Korean War so that was history, fact this was not. If you like a fast-paced story that is full of action this is for you. If you are going to look for something else inside of it go to the political section and one of those books. Overall a good book.

As a debut action thriller, Jack Carr's The Terminal List was an entertaining read. It was however, a little unbalanced between action, story and character development. The action sequences acme fast and furious, sometimes they were a little too over the top, and quite often included way too much technical detail for me. The story premise was good, the execution of it seemed choppy to me. I believed most of the dialogue to have fit the characters and the situations. A bit more complexity to the characters would have helped me connect to the story, The hero was a little too heroic - he was almost super human - and at the opposite end, the villain was a bit cartoonish. I do think the basics are here for a character driven series and Id like to give jack Carr's writing another try.

Published by Atria/Emily Bestler Books on March 6, 2018

If you’re a fan of gun porn, where shootings of human beings are described with religious reverence and guns, scopes, and ammunition are treated as sacred objects, you might like The Terminal List. Of course, you’ll have to endure the protagonist’s complaints about California’s “crazy gun laws” that restrict your right to drive around with a box of weapons in the back of your pickup truck. The protagonist is so devoted to his guns that he hates walking around the Naval Special Warfare Command without one and has convinced himself that “the enemy” will attack the naval base because personnel aren’t allowed to carry handguns when they visit their superiors. Paranoid much?

James Reece has a bug up his bum. When he was still a Lieutenant Commander and Navy SEAL, his team was ambushed in Afghanistan, giving Jack Carr a chance to write a clichéd “my war buddy died in my arms” scene. After the mission goes tits up, he’s investigated for subversive activities, including an email he wrote that advocated an illegal assassination scheme. To Reece, thinking outside the box is a sign of good soldiering, even if that means thinking about illegal assassination schemes, but the Secretary of Defense has ordered a cover-up of the ambush and can’t have Reece being treated as a hero. Plus, Reece has a brain tumor, as did two of his men, a coincidence that can’t really be a coincidence. Another of his men committed suicide, but Reece believes he was murdered because the guy would have used his favorite gun if he wanted to off himself. All of this sets up a truly bizarre conspiracy plot that wouldn’t be credible even if it made sense.

Carr sets Reece up as a devoted husband and father with an adoring wife and a young daughter who worships him. Of course, the police find his family dead just as he arrives home from war. They were murdered by four guys with machineguns because that’s supposed to make the murders look like a gang killing. Seriously? Because gangbangers invade houses in nice neighborhoods and kill everyone inside with machineguns? In what fantasy world would the police believe that? The real intent was to kill Reece, but he wasn’t home and the hired killers were apparently too stupid to notice his absence before launching their killing spree.

No longer in the military, Reece is after revenge. I just read in a better novel that “revenge is the core of evil.” Reece has not reached that level of evolution. He believes he was spared so that he can carry out the divine purpose of killing people. Nor is Reece as introspective as Mack Bolan of the Executioner series that started the “highly trained soldier commences a personal war of vengeance after his family is killed” genre. Reece doesn’t think about much of anything that doesn’t involve his beloved guns.

Killing and torture seem to be Reece’s only skills, and while he’s insufferably proud of his superiority to other males, his one-dimensional alpha nature makes Reece a dull boy. But he loves his mama, so I guess readers are supposed to love Reece. The guy is so full of himself that he’s difficult to stomach, and his simple-minded view of the world does not make him an appealing character. Nor does his willingness to kill innocent women (Mexican hookers, of course) if they might wake up and “compromise his mission,” which at that point involves murdering a home’s occupants. Reece’s attempt to position himself as a protector of American values is repugnant. Psychopathic vigilante killers are far removed from American values.

Carr leaves most of his political commentary to secondary characters, like a reporter who was harassed by the government because she “exposed” Benghazi and his spy friend who thinks Snowden did “incalculable damage” to national security by leaking secrets (even the NSA doesn’t believe that), although Reece does manage to condemn the “liberal political leanings” of an Admiral who only holds his position because of a “far-left Democratic president.” Has the U.S. ever had one of those? The words “Deep State” don’t appear in the novel, but they lurk just beneath the surface.

Radicalized American Muslims are among the novel’s cartoon villains (one of them, of course, is a cab driver, because no stereotypes is left unwritten in The Terminal List). Other villains include “bad hombres from Mexico” who live in a Tijuana “shithole.” They aren’t necessary to the plot, but they’re red meat for Carr’s target audience.

Carr’s prose isn’t the worst I’ve encountered, but his dialog is stilted and his style is uninspired: “It was time for Reece to do what he did best. It was time to start killing.” Carr reserves his most eloquent writing to describe the hand-loaded ammunition that Reece’s father gave him as a birthday present. If there is anything at all to like about The Terminal List, I couldn’t find it, although people who have never read a thriller before might appreciate the glossary at the end.

Atria has published some wonderful books, but they really scraped the bottom for this one. Still, Guns & Ammo and the Washington Times gave it good reviews, so I guess there's a market for simple-minded gun porn.

NOT RECOMMENDED

This was one hell of a debut for author Jack Carr. From the plot, characters, action, and motivation of Reece, this rocked on many levels. A SEAL who lost everything he cared about; now bent on revenge, but mostly to avenge those wrongly fallen at the hands of ambitious, crooked politicians. James Reece shines as the next star in the thriller market.

The Terminal List is a fast-paced, action-packed thriller. On his last combat deployment, Lieutenant Commander James Reece’s entire team was killed in an ambush that also claimed the lives of the aircrew sent in to rescue them. Sixty-eight servicemen died on this mission. Reece knew he would get the blame for the catastrophic failure and he was resigned to take the blame he knew was his. After weeks of questioning he was finally cleared to go home to his wife and 3 year old daughter. On the day of his homecoming, Reece learns his family was murdered in a home invasion. Could it be a coincidence? His whole family and whole SEAL team dead? Reece discovers that this was not an act of war by a foreign enemy but a conspiracy that runs to the highest levels of government. With nothing else to lose, he goes on a revenge killing spree.

This would make an awesome movie. Full of action, intrigue, bad guys, and a protagonist you are rooting for throughout the story. Definitely a page-turner.

I highly recommend this book.

Thank you to NetGalley and Atria Books for supplying me a copy of Jack Carr's "The Terminal List" in exchange of an honest review.

The book tells the story of revenge after Janes Reece’s family members are killed on the day he gets back from combat deployment. He searches out to find people responsible for the deaths. The revenge list is developed and he goes out to kill them all. “It was time for Reece to do what he did best. It was time to start killing.” And he does. The book is kind of atypical since all of the killings are different. Some of them and the description might be considered gruesome. He really has some unique methods for killing. Outside of the initial scene of the ambush there are limited lengthy fights. Really enjoyed the book and some of the incites incorporated into the story telling. There is a glossary of military terms used in the book that was helpful. All of the letters gets confusing. There are comments about how the book needed to be reviewed and approved by the Department of Defense. There are a few redactions towards the end of the book and glossary which may be included only for effect. Give it an A and waiting for next book if there is one.

Thank you to Atria books for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

A tale of vengeance committed by Lieutenant Commander James Reece in retaliation following the ambush of his seal unit and the murder of his wife and daughter.
A fast read that I enjoyed. I did find myself skimming over parts of the story the involved detailed descriptions of some of the military hardware.

This book is fantastic. I highly recommend it.
Thank you Mr. Carr for introducing us to your incredible new character James Reece.
How much tragedy can one man endure? With nothing left to lose, he sets out on a mission of revenge and God help anyone standing in his way. The names of those responsible will be added his “list” and oh yes, there will be bloody hell to pay for what they have done.
The book is chock full of twists and turns like a crazy / fun roller coaster ride, you do not want it to stop. The book’s explosive action filled sequences will have fans of action salivating and should come with a warning label “not for the faint of heart.”
If you enjoy kick-ass characters like Mitch Rapp or Evan Smoak to name just a few, you will feel right at home with James Reece. You must read this book, you will not be disappointed.
Thank you very much to the publisher for providing me with a copy of the ARC via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

The Terminal List is a revenge novel. The author sets it up so that the avenger suffers so much calamity that the reader cannot help but justify the means he takes to avenge these wrongs. The calamity he suffers includes leading men into battle who are being ambushed, thus some 68 soldiers die. Why? To cover up the fact that some of them had been victims of a drug trial that resulted in brain tumors. The triail was approved by the Admiral in charge of the victimized SEALS, as well as various capitalists who wanted to profit from this drug. They were all in cahoots with the Secretary of Defense. She wants to be President. But, the avenger obviously does not die in the ambush. He returns home to learn that his friend, the other survivor of the ambush, had supposedly committed suicide. Then his family is brutally murdered- his wife and daughter, and, we learn, his unborn son. Who wouldn't trek across the country with murder in his heart after all of this? And wouldn't you know it? It's the liberal Democrats who support these bad people! Yes! Can you believe it? I had best not tell you more lest someone stakes out my house, sniper rifle at the ready!
Thanks NetGalley, for the ARC.

Fantastic read! I didn't want to put it down and in fact I tried to stay awake so I could finish it the first day. A brilliant piece of fiction that will terrify you, have you rooting for the SEAL and his friends, and leaves you wondering just a little bit for quite a few different reasons.

I received this ARC in exchange for an honest review.