BREAKING: Jack Carr Steps Outside the James Reece Universe with his Latest Novel, 'THE FOURTH OPTION'
With Exclusive Comments from the Author
(NOTE: Don’t forget that as TRBS transitions to Substack, we’re running a Founding Member promotion for the next 30 days, offering giveaways to all paid subscribers. We also have an epic September giveaway you can read about here. Still haven’t subscribed to our Substack? Read this quick article to see why you should change that today!)
Here’s some big news to break in the new year . . .
#1 New York Times bestselling author Jack Carr, who sits at the very top of the thriller genre today and is best known for his James Reece The Terminal List franchise—which Carr expanded in 2025 with Cry Havoc, a prequel story set against the backdrop of the Vietnam War following James’ father, Tom Reece—is set to release his first book outside of Reece’s universe with The Fourth Option, available on May 12th, 2026.
Carr, who currently has two television shows (The Terminal List and The Terminal List: Dark Wolf, both starring Chris Pratt and Taylor Kitsch) atop Amazon’s Prime Video charts, and somehow manages to balance being on set with his heavy writing and media schedule, has teamed up with fellow New York Times bestselling author M.P. Woodward to bring readers his latest action-packed thrill ride.
Woodward, a talented writer in his own right who’s also a veteran of both US intelligence ops and the entertainment industry, first entered the thriller scene in 2022 with his debut novel, The Handler, before taking over the Jack Ryan Junior series for the Tom Clancy estate the following year. Since then, he’s gone on to pen three Junior books, but moving forward, will slide over to the Jack Senior titles, effectively replacing Andrews & Wilson, who stepped down in 2025.
Bottom line: It’s hard to imagine a better writing duo than Jack Carr (the biggest draw in the thriller genre right now) and M.P. Woodward teaming up to bring the action to kickoff a new series in 2026.
Asked how the book came to be, Carr, speaking exclusively to The Real Book Spy, explained, “The idea for The Fourth Option has been simmering for years. It was one of the concepts I wanted to explore when I first spread all my executive summaries out on a table in 2014, studying them to decide which would become my first novel as I was getting ready to leave the SEAL Teams. I decided on The Terminal List, but The Fourth Option would not leave me. I started the treatment with these words: “When law enforcement, the courts, and the prison system fail…there is a fourth and final option.”
“I thought of The Fourth Option as a modern tribute to the 1950s/1960s television show Have Gun – Will Travel,” said Carr, “and the classic ‘stranger comes to town’ narrative that so resonated with me as a kid watching Westerns with my dad.
“This story explores disillusionment, abandonment, idealism, corruption, vigilantism, purpose, and despair. It examines the role of violence in the pursuit of peace and justice. As I wrote in my initial summary of The Fourth Option all those years ago, ‘Disillusioned by the government and institutions he dedicated his life to serving, former Navy SEAL and CIA Ground Branch operative Chris Walker is about to end his life when he receives a call that saves it.’ The book asks the question: do you burn the system down that has enabled such evil, or do you work to expose corruption and ultimately fix it? Is fixing it even possible?
“The foundation of this story was laid when I was in the single digits, enthralled with Have Gun – Will Travel. It was further envisioned during my final years of service and then more solidly developed in the summer of 2021 as I watched the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan, an event that plays heavily into The Fourth Option.
“The novel finally came to fruition over the past year, but it has been a lifetime in the making.”
Lastly, fear not, diehard Reece fans. According to his latest social media post, shared on X and IG, Carr has just broken ground on his eighth James Reece novel, which will be set after the events of Red Sky Mourning (2024), and should arrive sometime in late 2026 or early 2027. As always, I’ll keep you posted on everything I’m hearing about that book and everything else Jack Carr-related.
For now, check out the cover art and plot details below, then be sure to pre-order your copy of The Fourth Option, in stores everywhere on May 12th!
When law enforcement, the courts, and the prison system fail, there is a fourth and final option. #1 New York Times bestselling author Jack Carr launches a new thriller series co-written with New York Times bestselling author M.P. Woodward.
Disillusioned by the government and institutions he dedicated his life to serving, former Navy SEAL and CIA ground branch operative Chris Walker is about to end his life when he receives a call that saves it. The wife of a teammate he lost in Afghanistan has now lost her son to the opioid crisis and needs Walker’s help. Thrust into a conspiracy that goes deeper than he ever imagined, Walker must go up against the system and the very Constitution he once swore an oath to support and defend in order to find justice for his friend’s widow.
With ambitious FBI agent Jarrett Stanton on his tail, Walker—accompanied by his loyal Belgian Malinois K-9 and using his off-the-grid VW pop-up camper filled with a hidden cache of weapons—takes justice into his own hands, exposing corruption and issuing a long-forgotten brand of lethal outlaw justice.
In the tradition of the great “stranger comes to town” Westerns of the past comes a modern interpretation of the mysterious vigilante gunslinger legend from “the hottest author on the thriller scene today” (The Real Book Spy). Get ready for a new kind of hero. Justice is coming.
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. Visit him at OfficialJackCarr.com and follow Jack on Instagram, X, Facebook, and YouTube @JackCarrUSA.
M.P. Woodward is the New York Times bestselling author of the Jack Ryan, Jr. series and The Handler CIA espionage series (The Handler and Dead Drop). He served as a US naval intelligence officer before going on to an international career in tech and streaming media. He lives in Redmond, Washington.
Crazy thing is, Amazon had the cover and blurb up for weeks. Seems this happens often with new spy thrillers.
I have all of his books and just preordered The Fourth Option. It sounds like he's putting out the perfect book for our current problems. Cannot wait!