The Terminal List is a political and military thriller written by Jack Carr, a former Navy SEAL. The Navy SEALs are a special operations force in the US Navy, and they often take on special missions such as capturing and killing high-value targets or gathering intelligence through high-level espionage missions.

The Terminal List follows James Reece, a well-respected Navy SEAL and team leader, as he deals with the aftermath of his entire team dying in a surprise ambush in Afghanistan. Following the violent death of his wife and daughter and his brain tumor diagnosis, Reece begins to suspect that the ambush in Afghanistan was no accident and that a greater conspiracy is at play. The novel examines the lengths to which people will go for power, revenge, and justice. While The Terminal List is not autobiographical, Carr relied on his experience as a Navy SEAL to create the characters and situations that Reece faces.

The Terminal List was published in 2018 and was a New York Times bestseller. In 2022, the novel was adapted as a television show starring Chris Pratt as James. It is the first novel in an ongoing series that currently includes seven books.

This guide refers to the 2018 paperback edition of the novel.

Content Warning: The source material features graphic violence and torture and references to sexual assault, suicide, drug overdose, and racism.

Plot Summary

In Part 1, titled “The Ambush,” Lieutenant Commander James Reece is on his last deployment in Afghanistan when his entire team is killed in an ambush. Reece felt like the mission was suspicious from the beginning but followed the direct orders that he was given by higher-up officers. He feels deep guilt and grief for failing to keep his men alive. While waiting to go home, Reece learns that he and two of his deceased troop members have the same kind of brain tumor, leading him to question the coincidence.

When he arrives home, he is met with more tragedy: The sole remaining member of his team, Boozer, dies by a supposed suicide, and his wife, Lauren, and daughter, Lucy, are killed in a home invasion. Reece is devastated by these deaths and begins to believe that all of this tragedy is somehow related to the ambush in Afghanistan and the tumors in his men. With everyone he loves dead and an assumed terminal cancer diagnosis, Reece decides that he will spend the remainder of his life seeking justice for his team and family.

Reece reaches out to reporter Katie Buranek, who helps him begin to uncover what is going on. Reece also relies on his friend Ben Edwards, a former Navy SEAL who now works for one of the United States’ intelligence agencies. Reece develops the beginning of a list: a group of people responsible for the deaths of his team and family. He intends to eliminate everyone on the list.

In Part 2, “The List,” Reece continues to add names to his list while also beginning to execute people on his list. He learns that his team was used as testing subjects for “the Project.” Steve Horn, the CEO of a company called Capstone Capital, found a new experimental drug for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and saw an opportunity to make billions of dollars. He employed politicians, such as the Secretary of Defense, Lorraine Hartley, and the leader of the Navy SEALs, Admiral Pilsner, promising them a cut of the billions he intended to make once the drug went public. Hartley and Pilsner gave Horn a test subject: Reece’s team of SEALs. Reece’s team was not told that an experimental drug would be tested on them. The drug caused tumors in the men, making it unsellable. To ensure the drug’s future viability and success, it was decided that the trial results should be destroyed, meaning that Reece’s team should be killed overseas.

After surviving a third government-sanctioned assassination attempt, Reece goes off the grid to continue his work without getting caught. He begins killing and torturing lower-level associates of the Project, learning more about the intricacies, depth, and reach of the Project.

In Part 3, “The Reckoning,” Reece continues killing people on the list, but his style of killing gets increasingly violent, eventually mirroring some of the techniques that he saw insurgents and enemies abroad deploy. He travels all over the United States and Mexico to carry out his hits, relying on friends to succeed. After killing almost everyone on his list, Reece realizes that Ben has been working on the Project all along, meaning that he must also be added to Reece’s list. Following an intense tactical mission, Reece kills the remaining three people on his list: Steve, Lorraine, and Ben. Katie goes on to write an exposé of the Project, while Reece leaves the country to die in peace from his supposed terminal brain cancer. The novel ends with a voicemail from Reece’s neurologist telling him that his tumor is benign and that he should be able to live a long life.