User Reviews
Rating: really liked it
Update July 2, 2022:
I just finished all 8 episodes on Prime video also called "The Terminal List" (Chris Pratt, Constance Wu, Taylor Kitsch). It was so gooood! If you like to watch action thriller, DO NOT miss this one! Now the wait for season 2.🍿🎬
2019
LOVED it! LOVED it!
Hallelujah, James Reece is the Punisher! An awesome first novel is full of action. The pace is great from front to back there is no downtime. I was a bit concerned that it'll be too technical, but it wasn't. Pure good vs evil. Need a longer list in the next book because I didn't want it to end. A book this good, I'll read anything Carr writes.
Thank you Jack Carr for your service. 🙏❤️
Rating: really liked it
”His thoughts were focused beyond the grave. Sorry buddy, Reece thought. We never should have gone on that mission. I knew it and we went anyway. But, the truth of it is, we were set up before we even deployed. I’m the only one left. They took Lucy, Lauren, and our unborn son, and I don’t have long. The bastards that killed you, killed us all back in this country during our work-up. Don’t worry, though. I still have a bit more time. I know who they are now and I’m hunting them. They don’t know it yet, but they will soon. I’m coming for them and I’m going to put them all in the ground.”The SEALS are the tip of the spear. They are the Spartan 300. They are the most dangerous weapon on the planet, and James Reece is about to show everyone just how dangerous he can be.
When Lieutenant Commander James Reece’s SEAL team is wiped out in an ambush in Afghanistan, it almost defies belief. How could this happen? How could their intel be this bad? This isn’t about the insurgents getting lucky. They were waiting for them. Reece was uneasy about the mission from the beginning. Usually his team found the missions and implemented them, but this mission came from the top down. As one of two survivors and the commanding officer, he doesn’t need a flow chart with a bunch of red arrows and green circles to know who the failure of this mission is going to be pinned on.
Something isn’t right. Is it the tumor in his head? Never good news, but it becomes more strange with potentially insidious overtones when he discovers that the other members of his team have the same tumors. So the healthiest young men on the planet all have the same tumor?
Something is definitely not right. Reece gets stateside and hasn’t even had a chance to see his family before they are murdered by a random act of gang violence. A radicalized Muslim tries to gun him down in the street. It is obvious that his being alive has proven inconvenient for somebody, but they have made one grave mistake.
They’ve left him alive with absolutely nothing to lose. As he follows the clues, he discovers that his tumor is a walking time bomb not only for himself but for those who want him dead. Unknowingly, he and his team were part of an experimental program to cure PTSD, and when the results produced tumors, suddenly his team was a hitch in a multi-million dollar bonanza. When someone considers their ruthlessness a competitive advantage and their greed to be their North Star, arranging for a few SEALS and their rescue team to be killed, well those are just pawns in a much bigger chess game.
Reece begins to make a list, and as that list grows, he soon learns that the malignancy that created all this death, really the assassination of Reece’s whole life, goes up through the military chain of command and all the way into the White House.
He’s the treatment, and there’s a lot of cancer to kill.
What is most impressive about this book isn’t all the accolades from some of the biggest names in the business, although the list is impressive, but the legitimacy of the writing. Jack Carr has been the tip of the spear.
”Jack Carr led special operations teams as a Team Leader, Platoon Commander, Troop Commander and Task Unit Commander. Over his 20 years in Naval Special Warfare he transitioned from an enlisted SEAL sniper, to a junior officer leading assault and sniper teams in Iraq and Afghanistan, to a platoon commander practicing counterinsurgency in the southern Philippines, to commanding a Special Operations Task Unit in the most Iranian influenced section of southern Iraq throughout the tumultuous drawdown of U.S. Forces.--From the Jack Carr Website”We love movies and books about revenge. Who hasn’t fantasized about clearing the board of all the people who have insulted them, made fun of them, or even tried to destroy their lives or career? I like to always say that the history of my life is strewn with the corpses of my enemies. It sounds really cool, right, and always gets a laugh, but for complete deniability, I want to make clear that I have no idea why certain people have disappeared. Karma’s a bitch as they say. :-)
Look at the popularity of the
John Wick trilogy. I watched two more of them than I needed to. I was pretty satisfied with the revenge of the puppy murder, and everything after that was just unmitigated carnage. Unlike John Wick, James Reece is surgical. He takes out the people who deserve to die. This isn’t about killing a hundred guys to get to the one asshole he needs to take off the board. Reece is smarter than that. He isn’t a chainsaw; he’s a tomahawk.
First Blood came out in 1982 and spawned the Rambo franchise, the ultimate revenge movie. I was fifteen years old when that movie came out, and it changed the way I saw and thought about the Vietnam War. It was the first time I had a reason to question whether the people working in our government were always working for the good of the people. Questioning the true intentions of the people who serve us in government is certainly a theme that travels from Rambo to Reece. We want to trust our government, but when that trust is broken, we have to serve notice to those perpetrators of distrust that we will strip them of their power and entrust it to someone else. There are certainly ties between David Morrell’s books and this book, and Morrell, not surprisingly, is a big fan. On the home page of Jack Carr’s website, there is a quote from Morrell that I completely agree with.
”He’s the real deal. Having lived the life he writes about, he absorbs the best of the thriller tradition and moves it forward. Thoughtful as much as visceral, he’s my idea of what a thriller author should be.” Yes, there are descriptions of cool gadgets and lots of cool acronyms. No worries, Carr has included a handy glossary of definitions in the back of the book to clue you in if you encounter a term that doesn't readily make sense. The reader certainly feels locked and loaded as he travels along with Reece on his revenge tour, but there are also well-written, poignant scenes. Coffins draped in golden tridents still give me a lump in my throat. There are thoughtful scenes and questioning scenes to the true purpose of his mission. There are the concerns he has for putting the few friends he can count on in danger and the raw disappointment when he discovers the treachery of those he thought he could trust.
Prepared to be thrilled, enlightened, and proud of our men in uniform. Politics should never be about them, but unfortunately, too many times they have been the pawns in the naked ambitions of others.
If you are looking for the perfect gift this Christmas for the favorite men in your life, this series will be a superb choice. They will love it.
I want to thank David Brown and Simon & Schuster press for providing me with a free copy in exchange for an honest review.
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Rating: really liked it
This book is totally for you if you dislike things such as: liberals, Muslims, America's acceptance of foreigners, Mexicans, gun laws, California and any military strategy that doesn't include "Kill Em All." There's even a very subtle swipe at African Americans, implying that the only reason they ever convert to Islam is when they are in prison and are not real Muslims. They're criminals, but not real Muslims.
Also, the women in the book are all very accomplished, and aside from the corrupt and presumably liberal Secretary of Defense, all have their bodies described in great, fawning detail. A blonde, petite journalist is of course described as "exactly what a journalist should look like." This book is pretty much trash.
Look, I know there are people out there that this outlook appeals to. Unfortunately.
Rating: really liked it
Having agreed to read this book on the recommendation of a friend, I was unsure what to expect from Jack Carr. Using elements of his past work experiences in the military, Carr creates and develops a wonderful character in James Reece, adding a thrilling adventure to propel the reader into the middle of something quite memorable. While serving as a Navy SEAL, James Reece watches much of his team die in an ambush ordered by a ruthless imam. Able to escape, Reece’s orders to return stateside cannot come soon enough. Before he is shipped back, an army doctor notices a tumour in his brain, something about which Reece is completely baffled. Landing in Southern California, Reece puts the idea of the tumour out of his mind, wanting to see his family before anything else. Arriving home to a ‘break-in gone wrong’ leaves his wife and young daughter dead, devastating Reece. With little left to do, he reports to his commanding officer and discovers that he is being blamed for the ambush. Meanwhile, those in the highest levels of the US Administration have been trying to keep some of their most covert plans under wraps, but Reece knows too much and must be eliminated. When Reece partners up with a keen investigative journalist, they soon discover an experimental medical program being tested on SEALs, something that creates a great deal of animosity and is the likely cause of the tumour. Add to that the murder of Reece’s family, and this SEAL is ready to eliminate all those who have used and abused him. Reece creates a payback list, vowing to hunt down everyone with a connection to destroying his life. Dodging the law and those contracted to hunt him, Reece is fuelled by passion and determination, using his past training and covert measures to bring some semblance of order to his life. A wonderful debut thriller, Carr pulls the reader into the middle of this story and does not let up. Recommended to those who enjoy military thrillers with a strong protagonist.
While I have an eclectic taste when it comes to books, I thoroughly enjoy novels that are well-written and filled with detail. Jack Carr uses much of his military background to develop a story that is both believable and full of nuances that allows the reader to feel in the middle of the action. Carr admits in the introduction that he has used much of his past to shape both the story and his protagonist, James Reece, but that he has freely used some literary freedoms, as well as the redaction requirements of the Department of Defence. Reece proves to be quite the character, who is a mix of military hero and scorned man who has seen much of his life come apart at the seams. His training makes Reece a man not to be messed with, though when his emotions cloud his mind, one can never know what will transpire. Reece pushes through all his adversity and focuses much of his attention on retribution, which becomes the central tenet of the novel. Other characters offer interesting flavours to the narrative, both military and civilian individuals. Carr utilises these characters well and thickens the plot throughout, keeping the reader enthralled. The story may not be entirely unique in its plot, but Carr does well in keeping the tale believable and full of intrigue. From the military parlance through to the grit of a man wanting justice, the novel takes the reader on a mission with only one goal, revenge. Gritty and emotional in parts, Jack Carr delivers a debut novel not soon to be forgotten.
Kudos, Mr. Carr, for an entertaining opening novel in this series. You have a wonderful way with words that is sure to keep the reader hooked.
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A Book for All Seasons, a different sort of Book Challenge: https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/...
Rating: really liked it
I will word things as carefully as I can. This was a very masculine book bordering on toxic at times. Yes. I get that this is a book about a navy seal doing navy seal stuff so there was certainly a lot of running, shooting, crotch grabbing (their own, most definitely not other people's), spitting and blowing stuff up. I have read lots of books like this and really enjoyed them. There was just a slight undertone in this that I felt excluded me from being part of the target audience. It seemed to lean towards one particular set of political views. I also never felt sympathy for James because he barely seemed to grieve before he became so bloody minded and vengeful. I love revenge stories when I can get behind the main character but this was not the case in this novel. Others have loved this series so it's just not for me.
Rating: really liked it
DisappointedCouldn't finish this thinly veiled hit piece on the Democratic party and how it "infiltrated" our armed forces. Hmm, I guess the infiltration part is somewhat true as there are a lot of Democrats combat veterans.
The book is inline with comrad KGB Colonel Putin thinking: Democrats - bad, we have nothing to say about Republicans :)
Basically if you are a "bone spur deferment" Trump cheerleader and enjoy watching Trump News that book is for you, otherwise skip.
Giving 2 stars as the book might have been actually OK if not for political garbage.
Rating: really liked it
Could have been better
*Spoiler Alert*
Lt. Commander James Reece and his team are in Afghanistan on a top-secret mission that quickly turns into an ambush, leaving all his men, save two, dead.
The Navy insists James is culpable.
Then it gets progressively worse.
He lands stateside only to learn that his wife and daughter had been killed in what appears to have been a hit. At the same time, the other survivor dies in an alleged suicide. Someone wants to erase James. Someone is messing with the wrong guy.
Look, there’s nothing like a good revenge story to get one through the flu and considering this is Carr’s debut, I thought the book was good enough, even though it sometimes got bogged down by the cornucopia of gun specifications (including historical background *sigh*) which was overwhelming and surplus to requirement, IMO. Additionally, James' character was preposterously one-dimension with emotions that seemed flat and superficial.
Overall, it was engaging enough that I'll probably read the next book in the series.
Rating: really liked it
Not a fan of death of innocents. I'd hoped this would be better. 3 of 10 stars
Rating: really liked it
DNF'd with extreme prejudice after 49%.
I think there is a limit on how much stupidity and boredom one man can take. I reached mine.
Again, a good concept- A SEAL member finds himself in the middle of a sinister conspiracy, after his team-mates are being killed during a mission, his best friends death is masked as a suicide and his wife and child are being gunned down at their home by gang-bangers. Why? Because some people high up the government are doing an experiment with a highly experimental drug that can subside the effects of PTSD, and he and his team-mates were guinea-pigs and now those power people will do anything to keep this experiments quiet.
As I mentioned, a good concept being slaughtered by really bad writing style. For starters, the pace of this book is so uneven, it's harrowing. At times it becomes fast and furious, only to slow down to a crawling-pace. The crawling-pace occurs because the author uses way-too-many flashbacks scenes, that serve no purpose at all- they don't further the plot nor do they shed any more light on the characters- they're just there to drag more time, because, let's be honest here- there is no plot here.
Furthermore- too much technical information about guns, guns, guns... Seriously, it's a gun-porn. The problem with all this useless info-dumps is that it takes any momentum the book is building and kills it dead- one to the heart and one to the head. Sure, some readers may like this technical stuff, but it's supposed an escapism book, not a manual on how to operate your guns!
The biggest affront- it's all tell, tell, tell and no show. I get it again- Reece is a remarkable soldier, with remarkable knowledge and expertise. As well as a hero should. But instead of hearing all time how good he is, why not actually *show* how good he is? He is always preparing, thinking, reminiscing, driving... But never actually does anything. The last straw for me was when Reece kills one of his targets- OFF PAGE! Are you forking kidding me?!
The action scenes- the very few of them- are mind-numbing, lifeless and plain boring. Again, it's as if you're reading a manual instead of actually living in the action scenes. The "Bad Guys" are all caricatures, really, with no character development, whatsoever. They're just Bad. The same with Reece- He's a good guy, a SEAL, who lost his wife and kid, and team-mates... And that's about it, really. There's no depth to anything here.
But hey, he's an expert sniper. Too bad the author spends an entire chapter describing how Reece tests his guns in the desert, instead of opting to show me how he actually does when it really counts and kills his targets off-page. Smart move.
Also, lost of Patriotism in this book, which opted to go in the lines of "Americans are good, the rest of the world is evil and everyone hates us"... Seriously, haven't we had enough of this bullshit already?
And of course, all the women here are attractive, all wear skirts and high-heels, and all are falling at the feet of our hero...
Was it too much to ask for an entertaining thriller without this kind of nonsense?!
One star. Zero, to be honest. Really disappointing.
Rating: really liked it
Revenge fiction.
And I’m not complaining, writer Jack Carr, himself a former Navy SEAL, tells a good thriller about a SEAL officer who gets betrayed and lots of bad stuff happens to him and his family and he goes out looking for vengeance as only a SEAL can.
Funny anecdote: A guy I was in the National Guard with was prior Navy. He had been a cook. He liked to tell a story about how he was NOT in special forces. Yep, pies in the oven, but unlike Steven Seagal, he was not going to kill everyone else. Apparently he and I were some of the very few veterans with no ties to the special forces community.
Anyway.
What sets this apart is the author’s technical detail, this is filled to the brim with the nuts and bolts of DIY warfare, as our hero James Reece goes off the reservation and exacts his retribution on those who have wronged him. Actually, to be fair, I can see where this would get tedious for some, but I found his attention to detail endearing and added depth to the story.
I’ve also read some negative reviews about how the writer has interjected too much of his political views into the novel and that has distracted from and or diminished the quality of the narrative. I get that too, and I could see where that would lessen the enjoyment of this otherwise good action thriller for some.
This also got very dark, and the serious violence may also turn some off. This is after all, though, a special forces operator going full commando on the bad guys so I set the squeamish alarm on silent and kept going.
But, for those of us left, Carr’s writing is smooth, and this is a page turner. While some of the action stretches the believability quotient, it is after all a military book and, like watching a Bruce Lee martial arts film, we must judge it within the confines of the genre. And with those rules of engagement, this was very good, and I’ll likely read more from this author.
Rating: really liked it
Golly, so many 4 & 5 stars. And here I am with a 2. And barely so. The thinly veiled political leanings went overboard, the author making it very clear who was who in the book. Give me a break. Just a little subtlety would have been nice. And the particular form of government conspiracy was simply inane. Giving Carr as much grace as I can muster with his first attempt, I thought the book was still poorly written and frankly, pretty dumb. (Carr was/is a SEAL himself so I give him high marks for his accuracy on SEAL training and expertise).
I know a SEAL. All combat special operatives have some form of PTSD. How could they not. James Reece was never portrayed as having PTSD. He was just angry as hell, and based on the moronic plot, he had every reason to be. But let’s be very clear here: there is no way on God’s green earth a SEAL would give up all he stands for by doing what James Reece did to people, revenge driven or not. Yes, the government did unforgivable things to Reece’s SEAL troop as well as to his family. Revenge ravaged Reece. But what the government did was also unbelievable, despite what anyone’s political favoritism may be. Maybe I’m just tired of the same old plot forms of late, but this plot was so poorly contrived I was given no opportunity to suspend my disbelief. If the author wanted another Mitch Rapp or Jack Reacher he sorely missed the mark. Mitch and Jack have their rough and violent edges but you still want to give them the high five. The violence of James Reece made him just downright unlikeable and for some ridiculous reason the author truly believes you will forgive Reece’s actions and cheer him on. You know, because he was a pissed off and righteous SEAL. Please. Oh, and don’t get me started on the book’s ending.
Rating: really liked it
Updated 12/28/2020 5 stars
I did a re-read (actually a listen an Audible) and didn’t think I could love this any more, but I did! The narrator really makes the book. Everything I said below is still true. James Reece is an amazing character.
This was a fantastic debut! It was an action-packed thriller with true authenticity that only comes from a Navy SEAL. while the endless descriptions of weaponry were a little more than I wanted to read about (and why it wasn't a 5-star for me) most former military people will appreciate his accuracy in the weapons. I loved the main character, James Reece. He definitely was not a super hero like Dewey Andreas or Scot Harvath. He is more like Pike Logan or Mitch Rapp. I am looking forward to continuing with this series!
Rating: really liked it
James Recces team is killed on a mission when he returns home, he finds his family dead. He is out revenge and won't stop until everyone is dead nonstop action Jack Carr at his best
Rating: really liked it
Audiobook - 12:04 Hours - Narrator: Ray Porter
1.5 Stars - "It was ok" - rounded down. I have "reviewed" my review and decided all my "I didn't likes" really make it a
1 Star - "I did not like it" review, hence the change!
There are several series in the "Assassination/Professional Killing" genre (or whatever you wish to call it) which I have enjoyed:
Gregg Hurwitz - The Orphan series;
Mark Greaney - The Gray Man series;
Barry Eisler - The John Rain series; and several others. Neither "The Terminal List", nor its author, Jack Carr, deserve to be ranked positively with any of the above-mentioned authors or their series.
I didn't enjoy this audiobook. As noted in my 'reading progress', I didn't like the somewhat amateurish dimensions of the plot, storyline or writing, and the narration was very average. I didn't like the opening gambit:
"This is a story of revenge..." (or something very similar). I didn't like the
"I was born to kill...", or other, similar, statements. I didn't like the gratuitously violent methods of killing, particularly in the latter part of the book. I didn't like the fact that the protagonist was barely challenged by his opposing forces and when he was, he prevailed effortlessly.
Finally, the main premise of direct, ultra high-level, government involvement in the development, testing, and distribution of an alleged anti-PTSD drug was preposterous. Equally so were the absurd methods used to cover-up the drug's effects and the resulting actions taken by the protagonist to avenge the loss of his men.
Rating: really liked it
The only problem I have with this book is that I did not read it earlier!!
This has got to be one of the best action/thriller fiction books out there. Mr Carr with all his experience and insider knowledge of special operations has written a masterpiece!! The writing is excellent and all his scene descriptions are great and really takes you to a time and place. His character development is also next-level and even characters that only has one or two paragraphs gets a bit of a back story which really ads value to the book, as does his attention to detail with the smallest of things he writes.
The main man, James Reece is also one of the best protagonists I have encountered during my time reading, and he is not the flawed hero as you get in some books, but someone that stands out as an honest to God hero that has a clean slate up until the start of his vengeance fueled crusade against some of the most evil villains there is. I like Reece's outlook on life and how he sees the world around him, also his skills and creativity while operating is magnificent and he really takes it up a level. His supporting cast of characters that help him is also very diverse and each bring some special talents to the table.
The twists in the end will also blow you away and I will definitely read the next books in the series. Well done Mr Carr and I cannot wait to start watching the series.
PS: Some scenes in the book will not be for everyone, so hope you have a strong stomach.
