Grant Blackwood

Grant Blackwood is an American thriller writer and U.S. Navy veteran — he served aboard a guided-missile frigate as an operations specialist and rescue swimmer — whose technical, procedural style made him a natural fit for continuing other authors' franchises. Before joining the Jack Ryan universe, he wrote his own Briggs Tanner series and co-wrote three Fargo Adventure novels with Clive Cussler. He first entered Tom Clancy's world as Clancy's credited co-author on Dead or Alive (2010), then became the primary author of the Jack Ryan Jr. spinoff strand after Clancy's death, writing the solo novels Under Fire (2015) and Duty and Honor (2016), action-driven entries following Jack Ryan Jr.'s Campus-based espionage work rather than his father's presidency. Readers coming to Blackwood through the Ryan books should start with Clancy's own The Teeth of the Tiger to meet Jack Ryan Jr. properly before Blackwood's contributions, since the Campus storyline builds on it directly. Blackwood has continued writing since stepping back from the Ryan series, co-authoring The Kill Switch with James Rollins and, more recently, the Luke Daniels series with Steve Berry, including The 9th Man (2023) and Red Star Falling (2024). He lives in Arizona and remains an active, working thriller novelist.