Exclusive: Author Jack Carr Talks ‘Terminal List,’ U.S. Veterans, and Helping Small Businesses

Breitbart News sat down with action/thriller author Jack Carr to discuss not only his latest book, Red Sky Mourning, but also the television series that sprang from his writings and his work on behalf of small businesses in America.

We opened our discussion with a focus on Red Sky Mourning, the latest installation in his ongoing series featuring James Reece, a former Navy SEAL who was introduced to the world as a man hell-bent on vengeance in Terminal List and who continues to captivate reading audiences in book after book until what is now the seventh in the series featuring him.

The books are hard to put down, and because of Carr’s own military background, firearms training, familiarity with the intelligence community, and more, he does not simply write about a man with guns or a man facing unknown threats and capabilities. Rather, he writes about James Reece, his larger-than-life character, using guns with which Carr is intimately familiar, while facing threats that Carr fully understands as well. And Carr knows how those threats vary, depending on if they are coming from Iran, Russia, somewhere in Africa, or, possibly, even from inside the United States’ own military complex.

Moreover, Carr is respectful toward Reece and the story that unfolds for readers in book after book of the series featuring the former frogman.

Red Sky Mourning reached roughly 150,000 words, and Carr discussed how that length is simply the outworking of his determination to honor the story.

He talked of how he starts a book with an outline and projecting a timeline for fleshing out that outline and finishing the book. “But for me,” he said, “it’s always about honoring the story. I’m never going to get to 100,000 words and just start wrapping it up.”

He said he had read book reviews “where readers thought it seemed some authors rushed to the end because they hit a word count, but I’m never going to be swayed by a deadline or a word count, because people are trusting me with that time that they are never going to get back, and that’s why I pour my heart and soul into every single word.”

While writing books, Carr is also closely involved in the filming of the Amazon series, The Terminal List, launched under the name of the first book in the James Reece series, with filming currently underway for a spin-off series, which is a prequel to the original.

As with writing, Carr stressed how important it is to him that the television series honor the military personnel and first responders with their depictions on-screen. “I went in, and the executive team also went in, wanting to stay true to the foundational elements of the story, and that’s what was important to me. So the mindset of modern-day warrior, keeping that as authentic and real as possible, putting in the time, energy, and effort, so that somebody who served in the military or law enforcement or intelligence service, a firefighter or someone like that who sits down at the end of the day and turns this show on will at least know that we put in the effort to get it right.”

Carr and Breitbart News concluded the interview by discussing Carr’s work on behalf of small businesses, particularly small independent bookstores. He explained that he began working to help these small businesses when he saw them struggling during the mandated shutdowns related to COVID.

He said, “Small businesses were shut down during COVID, and bookstores, the small businesses that I was most closely connected with, were either shut down or, if they were open, did not have any foot traffic. The shutdowns drove everyone to online sites to buy their books or to big box stores, so the local bookstores were hurting.”

Carr said he began to ask himself if there was anything he could do to incentivize people to take that extra step and shop at a local book store or at least do their online book shopping from a local small business.

What he came up with was a autographed book plate for what was then his most recent James Reece installment, Savage Son. He did the same for the next book in the series, The Devil’s Hand, and then thought of a way to step it up by shooting through a title page and having it bound into the book at publishing. Simon & Schuster was willing to try the idea and sent Carr stacks of the paper they used to print books, allowing him to shoot through the stacks at various distances–using various calibers–t0 ascertain what would and would not work.

Carr used a .50 Cal., .300 WinMag, 7.62.x51, .5.56, 9mm, and .45 ACP, then sent the papers back to Simon & Schuster for a test book.

“It turned out that they could bind them and it didn’t mess up the machines so they bound those pages I had shot into books at publishing,” he said. “Then what we did was made sure consumers knew they could only get shot-through, signed books at certain independent book stores.”

Carr added, “We did that and it worked and we did it for Only The Dead and we did it again with Red Sky Mourning.” 

Carr has a lot of irons in the fire, so to speak, most of which can be traced back to the emergence of his character James Reece. But he is also busy with other commitments close to his heart, such as continuing to help small businesses and supporting American combat veterans who paid such a dear, dear price or who were in the foxholes and mudholes and Higgins boats with friends who paid that price.

When we spoke to Carr he had just returned from Normandy, where he went to support American World War II veterans during the 80th Anniversary of D-Day.

AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio, a member of Gun Owners of America, and the director of global marketing for Lone Star Hunts. He was a Visiting Fellow at the Russell Kirk Center for Cultural Renewal in 2010 and has a Ph.D. in Military History. Follow him on Instagram: @awr_hawkins. You can sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com.