This Book Fulfills All Readers’ Action Thriller Dreams

If there is a better action thriller than Red Sky Mourning by Jack Carr, I have yet to read it. In May 2023 I read two of Carr’s earlier books: Only the Dead and Terminal List, rating both 5 stars. This newest of Carr’s publications is the 7th in his Terminal List book series. The action starts very early, as Carr sets the tone, “…governments will gain new technological powers to increase their control over populations, based on pervasive surveillance systems and the ability to control digital infrastructure. We would be wise to remember that a society’s primary organizing principle is its monopoly on force, its ability to control its populace and export violence in the form of war.” Two different AI intelligence oriented sentient quantum computers are characters in this novel, as each system designer strives to have their creation first to attain the power of global domination.

The plot tension is well underway by page 30, and this book is essentially unputdownable after that. Part of what makes Carr’s narratives so gripping is his first hand knowledge and use of CIA Special Activities Center lexicon and logistics of those defending the nation from enemies foreign and domestic, and this book has plenty on both sides of that equation. As Carr explains, “The topics I explore in my writing mirror a world that for a time I was honored to inhabit, that of special operators, intelligence analysts, paramilitary officers, contractors, and staff from what was then called the Special Activities Division of the CIA. My interest in what John le Carré termed the ‘secret world’ began with my earliest memories as I watched the events of the Iranian Hostage Crisis unfold on television and in newspapers and magazines in November 1979. What happens in the secret world is often mirrored in fiction, and what happens in fiction can at times be mirrored in the secret world. History is foundational to both.”

In this book the world is rapidly changing, warfare is morphing into a more sinister form, “‘Unrestricted Warfare,’ Jin said. ‘They even subtitled it China’s Master Plan to Destroy America…They are focused on battlefield dominance to the detriment of all else. The colonels told them that ‘nonwar’ actions were the future of warfare. Master Sun said it two thousand years ago. ‘Fei duicheng—asymmetric means,’ Jin said.” Reece finds much to dislike about such change, he notes, “To be truthful, I think we are in a steep decline, with the rights I care about being curtailed at an astonishing rate by the very people we elect to represent us in office. Basically, I think the majority of them are a cancer destroying a once-great nation and spitting on the graves of all those who sacrificed everything to give them the ability to destroy it from within.” At the same time a woman who occupies the highest office in the land thinks, “Camelot was as dead as its king. There was no going back. The world had changed, and if you didn’t change with it, you’d be buried just like those former presidents. Harding looked to the future. A global future. ‘America first’ was a punchline.”

Cutting off communications to isolate and cripple a country was a theme in this book, the fear that bad foreign actors were colluding with their powerful domestic counterparts to employ sentient AI quantum computers to sabotage communication satellites just prior to an invasion or act of warfare could throw the target nation into chaos, making it impossible to organize a coherent effective response. What stands between such calculating enemies and the rest of the world is often a small cadre of warriors at the top of their game willing to risk their lives if called upon by agencies tasked with diverting nefarious plots through covert actions. One such man is James Reece, the hero of this series. Carr describes him, “Reece had never cared much for orders coming from the top. Those removed from the blood, dirt, and grime of the battlefield often had different priorities. The consequences of violating orders did not weigh on him in the slightest or cause even a moment’s hesitation.”  

Carr describes the world unfolding before us, “Modern conflicts involving states are increasingly ‘hybrid’ in nature, combining traditional battlefield techniques with elements previously associated with nonstate actors. The distinction between war and peace, combatant and noncombatant, and even violence and nonviolence (think cyberwarfare) is becoming uncomfortably blurry.” Life imitates art when recently “China in Focus” described military drills taking place, “Taiwan kicked off its five-day annual naval drills on July 22. This year’s drills are focused on how the island’s military will operate in the case that communication gets cut off by China. The goal of this drill is to make sure to simulate what would happen should China launch an invasion. Meanwhile, civil drills are also happening to prepare and train major cities on how to evacuate their residents in under half an hour if Beijing attacks the island.” In Carr’s book, China emerges as one of the key players in an attempt to reshuffle the power cards in the global deck. 

Reece and his team have to fly, undetected, toward a distant foreign island, drop into the sea, and approach the island where a competing AI system is housed, along with warheads to target lower global communications satellites, collect their own intelligence to support this mission once on the island, and attempt to stop this plot by battling mercenaries preventing access to critical facilities, identify locations of AI and weapons systems launching hardware in order to attack and neutralize them before damage can be done. It’s a complex and dangerous assignment, a race against the clock, where the very existence of America as we know it is at risk, and in the process fulfills all readers’ action thriller dreams.

Carr is currently planning a late 2024 release of his first Non-fiction book called "Targeted" which will be about the 1983 Beirut barracks bombings. The book will source material from declassified documents from Ronald Reagan's administration, and and it will be first in a new series of books.