The Terminal List: A Thriller (1)

I have a relative who recently wrote, produced and directed his first movie (a real, actual movie, not a YouTube video). I recently saw it, and it was awful. I say that because I was reading this novel during the same time frame that I saw the movie, and realized that an artist's debut can be a big hit or miss. Jack Carr's first book is a hit. I thoroughly enjoyed it, and would recommend it to anyone interested in revenge thrillers, but especially to people who are interested in the SEALs and Spec Ops in general. This book will also appeal to those who are part of the "gun culture" like I am. In other words, if you're into guns, you'll appreciate the author's attention to detail in his accurate descriptions of firearms and how they're handled. (You'll especially appreciate that accuracy in a scene in which a character does some long range target practice.)
I never buy novels. I always check them out for free at the library. But I bought this because James Yeager recommended it, and I'm glad I did. It was well worth the money and the time I spent reading it. I'm now going to pass it off to my dad, and I know he'll enjoy it, too. I look forward to Jack Carr's next novel.

This book was recommended by Brad Thor, and I can truly appreciate this suggestion while I am awaiting the next Scot Hrvath novel. This book is written by a retired US Navy SEAL, and is a truly incredible first novel by a very experienced veteran. The book is very well written, and the plot moves very quickly. Fortunately for me , I am recovering from a total knee replacement (too many parachute landing falls) and I was able to read in two days. Because it would have been virtually impossible to put down. As a physician and a military veteran, I am eerily suspicious that parts of this superbly integrated plot could be true. Jack Carr's Navy SEAL hero is larger-than-life, who epitomizes the SEAL motto - "the only easy day was yesterday." And the "bad guys" are truly evil. Hard to imagine any other "outcome" when evil forces take away EVERYTHING that LCDR James Reece cares about, setting in motion one of the best revenge thrillers of all time. Excellent descriptions of tactical planning and mission operation. And excellent, complicated conspiracies that connect corrupt governmental officials with corrupt senior military leaders and corrupt pharmaceutical industry agents. An excellent read for those readers who devour Brad Thor, Vince Flynn, Tim Tigner, Ben Coes, Steven Hunter, Brian Haig, and Jason Kasper. Hopefully, it won't take a decade for this book to make it onto the "big screen." Thus the question, who does this author envision playing James Reece.

I pre-ordered the book on James Yeager's recommendation and started reading it as soon as it arrived. I'm a little over half way though and it is excellent so far. It's well written, builds a riveting plot, and has excellent character development; I'm just getting to the point where James Reece is gearing up to unleash hell, I mean Justice, can't wait to finish it. This Hero is a true warrior but is still realistic and believable, still Human, unlike some Thrillers where the Protagonist is more a super-human figment of Hollywood's imagination. Keep the excellent books coming, Jack Carr, you have a new fan!!

Jack Carr has raised the bar with The Terminal List! I felt like a shadow of protagonist James Reece as he battled emotional and moral conflicts along with the ones who were responsible for his grief. Once engaged, I could not put the book down. The intensity of the action increases exponentially as the truth begins to reveal itself. The writer’s real-life experience as a SEAL become clearly evident in the details, but the character building, storyline, plot twists, and imagery are even more remarkable. The Terminal list is a must read. I hope there is a sequel in the works!

I read a lot of thrillers so I'm accustomed to suspending my disbelief, at least up to a point, in recognition that these are fictional stories told primarily just for the readers' entertainment. In this case it was quite a stretch to accept all the killings, pre-meditated murders actually often including gratuitous torture, as well as the existence of a corrupt, murderous and treasonous cabal that included the Secy of Defense (who was also a leading presidential prospect) and the Admiral in charge of the entirety of all SEAL operations. That's going too far even for the current "Swamp".

The general story slant was obviously biased in favor of the Alt-Right types and desultory of the 'snowflake liberals' who don't always agree that revenge justifies any means necessary to punish the offenders including the suspension of any moral qualms and laws in the process. Some vigilante stories can be entertaining, but only up to a point.

All that said and despite some reservations about the excessive emphasis on violence and retribution, I could still mostly read the story as decent albeit politically biased action thriller....until I read the Credits and Acknowledgements at the end of the book. Many notable authors and contributors were mentioned and thanked but then one of them really threw me. He specifically thanked Wayne LaPierre, long standing head of the NRA, for his "courage" in standing up in the face of so much public criticism. I was outraged and disgusted by such an idiotic, partisan and gratuitous statement. I will not be reading any of this author's future works, if indeed there are any.

In general, I like these types of books but this one is not one of the ones I liked. First and foremost I have read quite a few authors in this genre and they never seem to push a political view they just tell the story. If they have a political slant I haven't seen it or it hasn't been blatant. However, this author slaps you in the face with his political views to the point of being distracting. Much of the background story for his characters are so easily matched up to actual political figures. I get it you don't like Democrats or the politicians who are Democrats. And you get your news from the Faux News. You couldn't have been more obvious. As a result, I did not enjoy this book. Now on to his style of writing. A little message. Just because you know the ins and outs of something you don't have to include every boring detail of how you put this together or how you blow that up. Pages were wasted on descript of how things were done. At some points it was like reading a shopping list. I had to skip whole portions because telling the reader all the little detail does not enhance the story. In all, I would not recommend this to anyone and have actually told a few friends who read this types of stories not to read this one.

Very compelling story, makes you care for the main character avenging his friends and family. But then it all breaks when Mexican prostitutes the main character couldn't care less about killing while Americans lives are considered valuable. Bad guys are all Democrats. Good guys are all Republicans. The evil characters are obviously Hillary Clinton and colleagues. Novel could be a great debut if it wasn't so trashily partisan.

As a novel written for the thriller/violence-porn genre, I'm giving this book a very generous two stars. As a novel stacked up against really good novels about men at war, I rate this book a BOMB. Zero stars.

For one thing, the book is based on a premise that is beyond far fetched. A SEAL team, and two helicopters full of Rangers, plus crew, are wiped out in an ambush planned by rogue American Government and Military bad guys, including a sociopathic Admiral and staff who just happen to be in charge of SEAL teams. As someone who has been in more than his fair share of ambushes, and as someone who knows more than a few former Navy SEALS, I don't believe the ambush, any of it, and I don't believe the Navy SEAL characters, any of them.

In fact, I have serious doubts that the author was a SEAL. Near as I can tell, Jack Carr is a pseudonym for a "team" of writers. I'm basing these doubts solely on the way the book is written. There is no voice in this book that resonates as a real Navy SEAL. It reads as if a couple of writers of very mediocre literary talent sat down and researched a lot of military manuals, spent some time talking to the owner of a gun shop/shooting range, and topped it all off by reading the last couple of years of Soldier of Fortune.

Clearly, the authors harbor more than a little contempt for the average reader of this genre, and more than a little cynicism when it comes to writing in this genre.

The SEALS and Force Recon I have known, including those I know who are still alive, know exactly how invincible they were not. They are thoughful men. One thing they all have in common is a highly developed sense of right and wrong, good and evil. I have never know even one to go "off the rails," no matter how extreme and personal the situation. They are more likely to be school teachers than to be cops. None were lifers (a story in itself). More than a few lost their families to the wars they fought.

To go completely off the rails, the way James Reece, the main protagonist in this book, does would never happen with the men I know. When James Reece thinks to himself that he was born to kill, I laughed out loud. Everyone, and I mean everyone, was born to kill. As Andre Malraux once wrote, "People kill what they can." They kill each other physically, mentally, intellectually, socially, psychologically--people kill what they can, when they can. In no way does the ability to kill make Jamese Reece special.

Killing is not an imperative that people have to follow--and most people do not. When James Reece gives in to his most base instincts, it does not make him a hero. It does not make him someone a rational person would want to be. It makes him a psychopath, only that and nothing more. A well-trained and well-armed psychopath, to be sure, but a psychopath, none the less. He has no conscience about his actions, only rationales and justifications. As far as the authors are concerned, he is the personification of the Sword of God.

Insult to injury, throughout the book, the authors TELL US who and what he is, but what they tell us does not fit the person that they SHOW US.

To camouflage the glaring weaknesses in the plot, and of the characters, the authors decided to have Reece's family, his wife and daughter, murdered. Not murdered by the most competent assassins available, but instead murdered by narco gangbangers who live south of the border. You have to buy into all this in order to justify the mayhem and death that James Reece visits on not only the bad guys, but also on anyone around them caught in the crossfire. Personally, I do not buy the fact that Narco gangbangers are so stupid and incompetent as to barge into James Reece's house, when he is not home, and murder his family. I also don't buy a SEAL with so much disregard for collateral damage. The authors try to finesse this with Reece's constant musings about his daughter, and with some sort of weird yardstick by which he measures whether or not collateral damage is acceptable.

He tries to avoid collateral damage, but if it is unavoidable, well then, too bad. That's life. The end justifies the means--as long as it is him doing the justifying.

Bad guys proliferate. And of course, they are the most heinous of bad guys. As far as Reece is concerned, the bad guys operate--no matter where they are, no matter who is around them--in a free-fire zone. But here's the rub: The bad guy who is the worst of the bunch . . . is James Reece himself. The authors don't intend him to be a bad guy. He's supposed to be sympathetic. But by the end of the book, I couldn't help thinking, wow, if there's one character is this book that needs to be put out of his misery, it's the hero himself.

What fascinates me about this book is the reading public's reaction to this kind of writing. Most of the reviews are five-star. It's kind of grotesque.

Jack Carr does not write about the bad that good men do. He does not write about the rough men who protect us whle we peacefully sleep in our beds at night. He does not write about the members of elite military organizations who try their best to not only protect us but to also protect us in ways that conform to our core values. Jack Carr does his best to turn atrocity and murder into heroism and rough justice.

In the end, this novel is an insult to those who make up special operations units. It is an insult to men who truly are the rough men who protect us.

The Terminal List is not only terminal; it is dead on arrival.

The book had four big problems: (a) it had too much detail, including unneeded weapons information, (b) I got lost with all the abbreviations (I don't need to know it is called a PLF, I just needed to know the main character landed somewhere after using a parachute), (c) the main character appeared thoughtless and not entirely likeable (at one point, he thought about shooting an innocent cop, this was a good idea??) and I want a main character I can root for, and (d) at times, the writer appeared as concerned with discussing a divisive political opinion as he did with the plot line. I don't need to know your opinion, however valid it may be, I just want the story to move along. My Congressman is a former Bronze Star Marine in Iraq who served with General Petraeus and he does not share Mr. Carr's political perspectives, but he's a politician, not a writer, and Mr. Carr is a writer, who desperately wants to be a politician. Huh????

I’ve read every Flynn, Thor and Hunter book ever written and The Terminal List by Jack Carr deserves a spot beside those thrillers. This book’s plot, action and authenticity kept me engaged from the first page. Jack Carr’s career as a SEAL gives this book a level of realism that most other authors can’t match. I can not recommend this book highly enough!