5 Best Jack Carr Books: Thrilling And Intriguing Novels You Must Read

If you love thrillers, you must get to know the military world and experience intense political thrillers by exploring the 5 best Jack Carr books.

Jack Carr is a New York Times bestselling author who is a retired Navy SEAL sniper. He uses his knowledge of special operations to craft thrilling political and action thriller novels. Though he is a new player in the reading world, his numerous positive reviews show that he is poised to be one of the best writers of the modern generation.

For 20 years, Jack Carr was the team leader of special operations teams. He served as Platoon Commander, Troop Commander, and Task Unit Commander in the Naval Special Warfare division. He then became a junior officer who led assault and sniper teams in Iraq and Afghanistan before moving to platoon commander in the Philippines. Finally, he ended his military career as a Special Operations Task Unit Commander, helping withdraw U.S. forces from Iraq.

Carr not only has his military training to draw on, but his mother was a librarian. This background taught him to love books, reading, and writing. He was born in New Brunswick in 1975. Today, Jack Carr lives with his family in Park City, Utah. In addition to his work as an author, he is the host of the “Danger Close” podcast. Everything he does ties back to his military knowledge and training, and many reviewers feel this is what makes his printed work so engaging. Carr’s work as an author has just begun.

If you are interested in learning more about his writing, here is a list of the best Jack Carr books, in order, that you can read.

Best Jack Carr Books

1. The Terminal List

The Terminal List is Jack Carr’s debut novel. He published it in 2018, and the vivid characters and excellent plot caused it to have an almost immediate following. The Terminal List follows former Navy Seal James Reece. When his team is killed in an ambush, and he finds his close friends and family murdered the day he comes home from battle, he is left with nothing to live for. Yet discovering the conspiracy surrounding these deaths that runs deep into the government sends Reece on a path of vengeance.

Carr uses his understanding of Naval special warfare in this book as he follows Reece through his warpath. It is highly suspenseful, which keeps readers turning the pages. He also adds the plot twist of a concussion that led to some amnesia to create a sense of mystery in his political action thriller.

This first novel from Carr has been so famous that it became a Prime Video miniseries on Amazon. The series stars Chris Pratt. If you’re searching for more thriller novels to add to your reading list, check out our guide on the best Dan Brown books!

“In Judges, Gideon asks God how to choose his men for battle. The Lord told Gideon to take his men to the river and drink. The men who flopped down on their bellies and drank like dogs were no good to him. Gideon watched as some of his men knelt down and drank with their heads watching the horizon, spears in hand. Though they were few, they were the men he needed.”

Jack Carr

2. True Believer: A Thriller

True Believer, which Carr published in 2019, is the second book to explore the experiences of form Navy SEAL James Reece. The book starts with a series of terrorist attacks in the Western world, which James Reece is asked to help with. The story finds Reece in Mozambique, hiding from the CIA. When the government finds him, the President initiates a pardon in return for help with the newest terrorist threat. Reece does not want to work for the government after the events in the first book, but he finds himself without much choice.

In the pages of this book, he travels the globe as he strives to find the true traitor. Along the way, he discovers an assassination plot that he must also unravel. This sets the stage for future work as a spy and partnerships with the government, which would be the plot for several of the forthcoming books. New York Times bestselling author Lee Child said this about True Believer: “This is seriously good. I mean – seriously.” With this new book, Carr positioned himself among the country’s top writers of political thrillers.

“Somewhere a True Believer is training to kill you. He is training with minimum food or water, in austere conditions, day and night. The only thing clean on him is his weapon, and he made his web gear; he doesn’t worry about what workout to do – his ruck weighs what it weighs, his runs end when the enemy stops chasing him. The True Believer doesn’t care how hard it is; he only knows that he wins or he dies.”

Jack Carr

3. Savage Son

Savage Son is book number three in the Terminal List series. This one starts with a woman on the run in Siberia, running from a treacherous CIA officer who has found a safe place to live among the Russian mafia. With that description alone, readers can see that Savage Son embraces the political thriller genre. This book introduces Kati Buranek, an investigative journalist, as one of Reece’s friends. He also partners with Raife Hastings, a Navy SEAL teammate, in his race against the Russian mafia.

The main plot of this story is the deadly game where the CIA traitor strives to end Reece’s life once and for all. This book, like the others in the series, pulls from Carr’s combat experience. He shows what life is like for a modern special operations soldier navigating our modern world’s complex political landscape. Carr published this work in 2020.

“The consolidation of power at the federal level in the guise of public safety is a national trend and should be guarded against at all costs. This erosion of rights, however incremental, is the slow death of freedom.”

Jack Carr

4. The Devil’s Hand

The fourth book in his series, The Devil’s Hand, brings in a young president with a secret, a regional superpower building allies in Europe, and a bioweapon with the power to destroy the world. This is the plot that makes an engaging political thriller. Its publication during the time of COVID plays heavily into the plot. The Devil’s Hand is known for being a very intense work. It has many twists that keep readers engaged from the very first page. It also masterfully weaves in current events while maintaining the reality of being a fiction book, making modern readers love the novel.

One of the exciting features of The Devil’s Hand is that it does not introduce Reece until late in the book. It was also well timed with its publication in 2021, which was quite timely with the global events, including the pandemic, that tied in well with the book’s plot. If you’re searching for more thriller books to binge on a weekend, check out our list of the best Carter Brown books. You can also search for thriller authors using our search bar at the top right of the post.

“Your country is on its knees, Commander. Your response to COVID surprised even our brightest minds. Close down your schools and businesses and destroy your economy for a virus with less than a 0.3 percent mortality rate? With that kind of a response, what would you do with a respiratory virus with a ninety percent mortality rate? I wanted to call the operation off; you were already doing such a good job destroying yourselves from within. All we needed to do was sit back and watch as COVID, race riots, and identity politics further divided an already weak nation; it’s just a matter of time.”

Jack Carr

5. In the Blood

In the Blood is the fifth novel in Carr’s Terminal List series and his growing list of publications. It opens in the African country of Burkina Faso, with a woman boarding a plane after an assassination. Within moments, the plane is shot and crashes. When Reece, a former Navy SEAL sniper, starts seeing the victims’ names, he realizes a conspiracy is underfoot. Reece travels across the globe to find the woman’s killer. Along the way, as with any good political thriller, he finds his life in danger.

The book continues through many twists and turns while he tries to find the killer and protect his own life. It adds plenty of military prowess and strategy, as is common in Carr’s books. In the Blood hit the shelves in the spring of 2022, making it Carr’s newest book, and it receives high praise. The Real Book Spy says, “Now, though, Carr deserves to be mentioned alongside all-time greats like Flynn, Thor, Clancy, and Silva…rather than just be compared to them. I know it’s only May, but it’s hard to imagine anyone topping this book in 2022.”

“One day Syria would push Israel back to its pre-1967 borders. They had made gains in the region, kicking the Americans out of Iraq, but Israel still existed. Their American masters were on their knees, sent running from Lebanon, Iraq, and Afghanistan. They were now focused on domestic problems, riots in their streets, political division, and an economy crippled by the pandemic. They even made themselves again dependent on foreign oil, oil from the Arab world. Self-inflicted wounds.”

Jack Carr

Looking for more? Check out our round-up of the 23 best crime thriller authors you must read!