Book Review

Cry Havoc: A Terminal List Thriller
by Jack Carr
Atria/Emily Bestler Books
October 7, 2025
560 pages

By How Miller

Warning: despite my usual penchant for writing only about nonfiction subjects, Cry Havoc by Jack Carr is fiction. It is a fast action story that encompasses Special Forces, the CIA, and various world capitals. Jack (a pen name for retired Navy SEAL George Petersen) includes both combat and related action and behind-the-scenes machinations. It is a spy novel, start to finish, from jungles to the Pentagon and the Kremlin, from MACV-SOG to KGB and NVD and US Naval Intelligence, and more.

He brings out the consequences of spying for all sides and weaves in information we did not have in Vietnam. The intricate plot, with many twists, keeps you wanting to turn the page.

Tom Reece, father of the author’s frequent character Jim Reece and also a SEAL, becomes attached to MACV-SOG and then to other special assignments.

We have several story lines all tied together. Picture SOG missions, pre-Tet Offensive, where there are suspicions of a mole feeding SOG mission plans to the enemy, resulting in recon teams being completely wiped out. Skip then to the capture of the USS Pueblo, an American spy ship, off the Coast of North Korea. There was not enough time to destroy all the sensitive equipment and records, beginning the process of the enemy being able to decipher our worldwide communications. At first it was after the fact and eventually became real-time deciphering. Two characters are derived from the actual traitorous actions of the Navy’s John A. Walker, Jr. and the Army’s Joseph George Helmich, Jr.

The author borrows heavily from real SOG missions and other events. Our hero, Tom, has just finished with SEAL combat in the Viet Cong-infested Mekong Delta and is picked to help SOG with riverine skills. They want to covertly put explosive charges in 55-gallon drums of fuel that are being floated, in 100-yard shifts, down a river in Laos. The goal is to remotely detonate the explosives when the barrel reaches the storage depot, depriving the enemy of lots of fuel.

SOG Chief MG Jack Singlaub decides that Tom would be handy to have around, and Tom ends up staying after the mission and finds lots of other far-and-wide adventures.

Yes, there is even romance involved.

We even find that Tom’s father was in the WWII OSS and was on the Deer Team that actually helped Ho Chi Minh against the Japanese.

Obviously, it is a great read, and I, for one, shall be reading his other best-selling books. v

Click here to read excerpts from Cry Havoc!