Buckle up because Cry Havoc, the next hard-hitting thriller from #1 New York Times bestselling author Jack Carr, will hit bookstores on June 10, 2025.

In a bit of a twist, though some of his readers may have seen it coming, Jack Carr’s next novel will not be a James Reece book.

Reece—who was first introduced in The Terminal List (2018) and has gone on to star in seven novels to date, including this year’s Red Sky Mourning, and has been portrayed on the screen by Chris Pratt in the Prime Video-produced The Terminal List show—may be the most popular badass in print today. Not since the days of prime Tom Clancy have we seen an author reach celebrity status quite like Carr, whose relevance in today’s pop culture is, arguably, as great as it is in the literary world, where he’s been absolutely dominating bestseller lists the last few years.

To be clear, many writers are beloved, but there’s nothing like a new Jack Carr book hitting stores.

From sellout crowds across the country to high-profile appearances on The Joe Rogan Experience and The Pat McAfee Show, to name a few, readers flock to bookstores to see what Carr has dreamed up for James Reece to deal with in his latest adventure. But now, Carr will go back in time for a different kind of book, though readers need not worry too much about James Reece, whose future was left a little up in the air at the end of Red Sky Mourning, as Cry Havoc will actually star his father, Tom Reece.

Tom Reece, who Carr has written about plenty in his books, was a SEAL operator with ties to MACV-SOG. In fact, Carr actually wrote a chapter set in the past that followed Tom in Only The Dead, a book that, while it starred James Reece, centered around a son’s quest to finish what his father—Tom—had started. That book was, perhaps, the best clue we had that Carr, who has often sighted Stephen Hunter as one of his favorite writers, might go back in time to tell Tom Recce’s story in a new and action-packed way.

Check out the plot details below.

From the “hottest author on the thriller scene today” (The Real Book Spy), #1 New York Times bestselling author Jack Carr brings the worlds of special operations and CIA paramilitary units into direct collision in the jungles of Vietnam with his explosive new thriller introducing young Navy SEAL Tom Reece, a man torn between the blurred lines and allegiances of the military and the increasingly murky world of intelligence. This is how it all began…

1968. A time of division. A time of civil unrest. A time of war.

Just before the Tet Offensive changes the dynamic in Vietnam, before President Johnson announces he will not run for reelection, before the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Bobby Kennedy, as riots and protests rage across the nation, a spy ship, the USS Pueblo, is captured by communist forces off the coast of North Korea. The crew thought they had destroyed everything of intelligence value. They were wrong.

As a KGB “illegal” elicits information from a high-ranking CIA official, and teams of special operators infiltrating into Laos, Cambodia, and North Vietnam disappear without a trace, an ambitious Soviet advisor launches an ingenious plan with consequences that reach far beyond the battlefields of Southeast Asia, one that will forever alter the world balance of power.

Tom Reece, a SEAL operator attached to the highly classified and shadowy MACV-SOG is about to be thrust into a bloody battle to discover the truth.

From the Kremlin to the White House, from the streets of Saigon to the rugged A Shau Valley, along the paths of Ho Chi Minh Trail and into the secret war in Laos, Navy SEAL Tom Reece has an official mission assigned by Military Assistance Command, Vietnam-Studies and Observations Group, but it’s his unofficial mission that might get him killed.

From “master novelist” (Ballistic magazine) Jack Carr comes a new fast-paced and brutally realistic thriller, one that will make you question all you thought you knew about Vietnam, pressing “emotional buttons that other writers wouldn’t dare explore” (The Real Book Spy).

Jack Carr is a former Navy SEAL who led special operations teams as a team leader, platoon commander, troop commander, and task unit commander. Over his twenty years in Naval Special Warfare, he transitioned from an enlisted SEAL sniper to a junior officer leading assault and sniper teams in Iraq and Afghanistan, to a platoon commander practicing counterinsurgency in the southern Philippines, to commanding a special operations task unit in the most Iranian influenced section of southern Iraq throughout the tumultuous drawdown of US Forces. Jack retired from active duty in 2016 and lives with his wife and three children in Park City, Utah. He is the author of The Terminal List, True Believer, Savage Son, The Devil’s Hand, In the Blood, Only the Dead, Red Sky Mourning, and Targeted: Beirut. His debut novel, The Terminal List, was adapted into the #1 Prime Video series starring Chris Pratt. He is also the host of the top-rated Danger Close podcast.

Cry Havoc, the first Tom Reece novel from #1 New York Times bestselling author Jack Carr, is now available for pre-order everywhere books are sold.

Praised as “One of the hardest working, most thoughtful, and fairest reviewers out there” by New York Times bestselling author Lisa Scottoline, Ryan Steck has “quickly established himself as the authority on mysteries and thrillers” (Author A.J. Tata). Steck also works full-time as a freelance editor in addition to running TRBS. He is the author of FIELDS OF FIRE, which #1 New York Times bestselling author Jack Carr says “will leave you speechless and begging for more,” LETHAL RANGE, OUT FOR BLOOD, and TED BELL’S MONARCH. For more information, follow him on Twitter, Facebook, and BookBub. To interact with other readers and talk about your favorite books and authors, join The Real Book Spy’s Discord server.