Jack Carr

Jack Carr is an American novelist and former Navy SEAL who spent two decades in Naval Special Warfare, retiring as a Commander after service that included sniper deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan and two Bronze Star Medals with Valor. He drew directly on that career for his debut, The Terminal List (2018), which introduced Lieutenant Commander James Reece, a Navy SEAL who survives a catastrophic ambush and comes home to find the people responsible are closer than he imagined. The character anchors a series — True Believer, Savage Son, The Devil's Hand, In the Blood, Only the Dead, Red Sky Mourning, and the prequel Cry Havoc — built on real special-operations authenticity rather than generic action-thriller shorthand. The Terminal List became a #1 Amazon Prime Video series starring Chris Pratt in 2022, with a second season arriving in October 2026 and a spin-off, Dark Wolf, starring Taylor Kitsch. Readers new to Carr should start with the original novel rather than the show, which compresses and reshapes the book's plot. Most recently, Carr stepped outside the Reece universe to co-write The Fourth Option (2026) with fellow thriller author and former naval intelligence officer M.P. Woodward, introducing a new protagonist, ex-SEAL and CIA operative Chris Walker, in what is positioned as the start of a new series.