"True Believer" by Jack Carr

Above: "True Believer" Jack Carr - 460 Pages

Pages turn into the night when, usually, I don't get through more than a couple of pages, while reading in bed, before dropping off.

I completed reading this book today, 29 November 2019.

"This is seriously good. I mean - seriously. Both author Jack Carr and main character James Reece are the real deal, the action is razor sharp, the suspense is unrelenting, and the tradecraft is so authentic the government will probably ban it - so read it while you can!" (Lee Child, number one New York Times best-selling author of Past Tense)

"True Believer" is a sequel to Park City based Carr's first novel, "The Terminal List."

You don't need to read "The Terminal List" to enjoy the sequel. But, there are enough flash backs in the sequel to pique your curiosity just a bit if you haven't read the first book.

"Terminal List" (first novel) overview: James Reece's SEAL unit in Afghanistan was set up by US Navy higher ups to be wiped out by the enemy because they were soon to be cancer victims of an illegal, botched, secret medical experiment sanctioned by Navy brass. What better way to cover up an evil scheme than to stage a firefight defeat? Except, Reese, unexpectedly, was the lone survivor of the contrived attempt to kill off all of his unit.

Reese returned to the United States, was hypocritically chastened by the Navy for his Afghanistan "failures"..., but, also, surreptitiously targeted to be killed lest the Navy's failed medical experiment be exposed to public scrutiny.

In the Navy's attempt to off Reece, his wife and young daughter were assassinated. Reece survived. Two times the charm. Reece, now sufficiently enraged, like, I mean, as in, he's really mad, draws assistance from a select group of trusted contacts to get revenge on "the guilty" Navy hierarchy and contractors. Reece, usually in brutal, graphic fashion, kills the seven or eight higher up perps of the medical experimentation atrocity, and then goes on the run.

"True Believer," Carr's sequel, picks up where "Terminal List" leaves off: Reece, alone, as he mourns his dead wife and daughter, sails a boat, given him by a trusted friend and former college buddy, to Mozambique. He "disappears" as a worker at a remote, Mozambique game reserve owned and run by the uncle of the boat donor friend. Reece and his boat donor friend used to hunt with uncle in Rhodesia (not Zimbabwe, Rhodesia) during their college days in Montana. There, he'll lay low and work as long as he can, then die from the effects - a malignant brain tumor - of the sick, US Navy experiment.

While working on the game reserve, Reece, living off the radar, has to surface to the grid to save the life of a co-worker. Now exposed to the digital world, he's quickly found by a former SEAL friend, now CIA, agent.

The author's explanation of the tracking technology leading to Reece's discovery is fascinating. Much of what we do in attempts to secure our privacy is a waste of time considering the tools available to entities, good or bad, that want to locate us. For most of us, "the privacy horse" has bolted. You can run, but, you can't hide.

Fearing his having been discovered by American authorities will result in his punishment for his earlier deeds, Reece learns from the SEAL/CIA agent, that, though he is still officially a fugitive, the knowledge of the injustices done to him has become more wide spread. Despite his vigilante response to his injustice, he has a lot of support and sympathy amongst the rank and file of the SEALs he used to work with. And, the CIA needs him and is willing to clean his slate...if....

He is told by his SEAL/ CIA friend that he's needed to work a critical CIA job. He's also told that his tumor, heretofore a death sentence, can be removed and that he is no longer on death's doorstep. Should Reece accept the new job, and succeed, all will be forgiven. AND, there is a reward of $4 million from the British Government for the head of a terrorist he is to kill. He will get the reward as recompense for all he has been put through should he succeed in his mission.

Reece is wary. Is this a set-up to lure him back to rough justice by the Navy? Still, what choice does he have but to go along... particularly with the prospect of successfully excising the "formerly malignant" tumor? Does a new life really await Reece?

And, so begins the quest by James Reece, newly authorized CIA deep cover operative, and his SEAL/CIA friend, to destroy a terror network that is controlled (this learned only later by Reece) by a former Russian Colonel, now a Geneva based, high living gangster/terrorist. The Russian Colonel, who foments terror around the world, and makes big money from market fluctuations induced by his terrorist acts, is angling to become the new Russian president, a president who will restore a weakened Russia to its destiny as an influential world power.

Learn about the Russian Colonel's turning of a Russian and Spanish speaking CIA agent bored with his unremarkable, bureaucratic job at Langley.

Enter the world's top two "have gun will travel" snipers, a Chechen and a Syrian, who have managed to obtain the latest in super long distance sniper weapons from the United States arsenal thanks to the efforts of a corrupt US Senator on the payroll of the Russian Colonel.

Enter a scuzzy, turned, self indulgent, CIA handler of terror units selling his terror product to the highest bidders... one of whom is the Russian Colonel.

Experience a fire fight where Reece and his companion are assaulted at a secret CIA military training facility in Morocco by twenty-five well trained Syrian commandos. The detailed description of the fighting and the precision of weapons description is page turning captivating.

Experience the assassination, in Tirana, Albania, by Reece and his friend, of the Syrian terrorist mastermind...who is controlled by the turned CIA handler. Good for a $4 million reward. The successful assassination is cleverly ascribed to Albanian commandos by the world press.

At the hands of a friendly, Iraqi, former colleague of Reece, "witness" the rendition torture and brutal death of the turned CIA terror group handler. The torture method, outlined in gruesome detail in the novel, is too horrible and too graphically told, to summarize in this review.

Note here how rendition torture keeps US holier than thou, notwithstanding US orchestration of torture sessions. The CIA sanctions torture....sets it up...we just don't do the on site dirty work! See? We're pure! Us torture? How dare one try to bring US low with this scurrilous accusation! Carr pulls no punches here. We do this. We know about it. Live with it...or so he seems to be telling his readers.

When, in Odessa, Reece's SEAL/CIA friend is killed by a sniper bullet, that has travelled an incredible three thousand yards, just after he (SEAL/CIA) prevents the assassination, by another sniper, of the US President.

Reece is propelled into a paroxysmal rage as he contemplates getting revenge for his dead friend, not unlike what he experienced in the first novel when his fellow SEALS and his family were wiped out. But, before going after the perps this time... the turned CIA agent, the scheming former Russian Colonel, and corrupt higherups in the US government, Reece has to thwart a WMD poison gas attack on Odessa, which could result in as many as two hundred thousand lives being lost. Whew!

Pages turn into the night when, usually, I don't get through more than a couple of pages, while reading in bed, before dropping off.

Like technical detail? The novel's glossary of weapons descriptions and various acronyms of the spy trade is fifteen pages long.

Carr is a former SEAL. He knows the clandestine service in detail. There is no holding back in the book on his descriptions of arcane spy tradecraft.... except where there are blacked out redactions right on the book's pages, imposed upon Carr by the mandatory Department of Defense pre publication review of his novel. By the way, there is a redaction mistake in the book, where a secret training location, the name of which was redacted out numerous times in the earlier part of the novel, was revealed as Morocco in the latter pages of the book.

There are some weird Park City "connections" regarding the novel.

In one case in the novel, Reece uses a device produced by a Park City based, private company called 7Tunnels to decrypt an important message buried in some music files. I know the owner of 7Tunnels and mentioned to him the book's reference to his company. All he would say was, "good book, huh?"

Mentioned in the acknowledgments post script of the first novel was the not so common name of retired, senior, auto executive who lives in Park City. I knew the executive, called him for info on Jack Carr and he said it must have been some other guy by the same name. "But, thanks for the heads up on the book," he said. "It sounds like a good read!"

In this second novel, we learn more about Reece's upbringing in Montana where he went to college, skied and hunted elk... becoming an expert long range shooting marksman (can we say, sniper?), and later a big game hunter in Africa. Reece's fictional (?) history approximates the profile of a Parkite that I know. In fact, the "someone I know," oddly mum about any connection he has to the novel or its author, was the one who recommended that I read the first Carr novel. Go figure? Or, acute paranoia?

Carr, likely a pseudonym, who claims a Park City residence, is incognito around town (well, to me, anyway). Nobody I know seems to know him. He has done a couple of book signing appearances at local book store, Dolly's, but, I was out of town when he made these appearances.

I look forward to meeting Carr one of these days and finding out more about certain, cagy, Park City denizens, who on the "QT," may have been key source material providers for his novels...and, which denizens may be be messing with my head.

If you like a good plot based on contemporary international intrigue, with graphic descriptions of fire fights and torture, juxtaposed with tender scenes of family devotion and patriotic sentiment, with more than a few key, "turned" Americans as characters, read this book. If you believe there is never an excuse for vigilante justice, you probably won't like Reece. Reece makes Dr. Paul Kersey (Charles Bronson in "Death Wish") look like a piker.