James Reece is a SEAL, highly trained, highly capable, and highly motivated. He began his career by enlisting and is now a lieutenant commander. He is an effective combat leader with a wealth of experience, he has numerous contacts throughout the special operations and intelligence communities, and he cares for and is respected by those he leads into combat.
After performing successfully for years in Iraq, Afghanistan, and other areas, he is assigned a mission which is different from those he has taken on in the past. Rather than being allowed to develop his own intelligence and plan the mission based on his analysis, he is assigned a target by someone far above his unit level. Despite his protests that the mission “stinks” and that he will be operating without sufficient information, he is ordered to proceed.
His misgivings are not unfounded, because as he reaches his target area his team is ambushed and nearly everyone is killed, including a large number of SEALs and the air support crews. Only Reece and his friend Boozer survive and make it back to the States.
Immediately upon his arrival in California, he is accused of negligence and blamed for the deaths of all of his teammates. Worse yet, before he is even reunited with them, his wife and daughter are killed in a home invasion. Shortly afterward, Boozer dies of “suicide”.
All of these events conspire to send him to rock bottom, where he has nothing to lose. However, where lesser men would also find they have nothing to live for, Reece is different. He assigns himself the mission of finding out who is responsible for the ambush and the deaths, and of making them pay the price for their wrongs, a mission for which he is uniquely qualified. By utilizing the weapons he acquires from his former team facility, and by acquiring intelligence from sources both civilian and otherwise, he develops a list, the “terminal list”, of people whom the world would be better off without, and proceeds to eliminate them one by one.
The book follows Reece as he locates and kills each member of the list. Sometimes, before crossing off a name, his target reveals other names to add to the list. Ultimately he works his way to the end, eliminating people who run in the very top circle of American politics. Mission complete, he heads off alone into the sunset, awaiting the fate which he believes will catch up to him very shortly.
This book is a cut above many others in the same genre. It was written by someone with intimate knowledge of SEAL operations and drips with authenticity. It is stuffed full of action and intrigue, and moves at a quick pace. It does not waste time on unnecessary details, but gives you exactly the amount of background information needed to understand the characters’ histories and motivations. There is probably not one slow moment in the book.
The book is satisfying on many levels, from the details of the weapons Reece uses (people who read this type of book care about such things), to the tactics he uses on both his military and civilian missions, to the odd pleasure felt when the bad guys are eliminated. Reece’s decisions are logical and authentic, and he performs within the abilities of a real person – no James Bond here. Many times the book makes you wonder how you would act in a similar situation.
It is well written, grammatically correct, and easy to read. Sometimes a person who is exceptionally well qualified in one arena is not qualified to write a readable book. Such is not the case here. This book, the author’s first, is on par with those written by well recognized authors with many books under their belts. Read this book – you will like it. He has a sequel due in 2019 – I eagerly await its release.
The Terminal List: A Thriller
4.6 | 34,075 ratings
Price: 17.71
Last update: 12-03-2024
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Top reviews from the United States
Kindle Customer
A quality book: fast paced, readable, authentic, better than average.
Reviewed in the United States on October 15, 2018Zulu
Great thriller by a promising writer
Reviewed in the United States on October 7, 2020