The Terminal List returns October 21, 2026, with all eight Season 2 episodes landing at once. The season adapts True Believer, Jack Carr’s second James Reece novel, so the show is tracking the books in sequence: Season 1 was Book 1, Season 2 is Book 2.
That leaves the other five published novels untouched so far, plus a prequel about Reece’s father and a television prequel that isn’t from any book at all. Here’s the full shelf in order, what Prime Video has used, and where everything else sits.
The James Reece Books in Order
- The Terminal List (2018)
- True Believer (2019)
- Savage Son (2020)
- The Devil’s Hand (2021)
- In the Blood (2022)
- Only the Dead (2023)
- Red Sky Mourning (2024)
- State of Exile (May 11, 2027)
Seven are out now. State of Exile is Book 8 and is available to preorder ahead of its May 2027 release. Publication order is also chronological order here: the missions change from book to book, but Reece’s injuries, losses, and the people he owes carry straight through.
Where to Start
| I’m watching Season 2 | I want the whole James Reece story |
|---|---|
| Read The Terminal List, then True Believer. Season 2 adapts Book 2 but picks up from where Book 1 left Reece | Start with The Terminal List and read the numbered novels in publication order |
Which Book Does Each Season Adapt?
| Prime Video installment | Book connection |
|---|---|
| The Terminal List, Season 1 (2022) | The Terminal List, Book 1 |
| The Terminal List: Dark Wolf (2025) | No book. Original television prequel about Ben Edwards |
| The Terminal List, Season 2 (2026) | True Believer, Book 2 |
Season 1 adapts The Terminal List, Carr’s debut novel, and premiered in 2022 with Chris Pratt as James Reece. The eight-episode season kept the central revenge plot and the list of targets intact, while changing some of the supporting cast and investigative details from the book.
Prime Video and Carr both name True Believer as the Season 2 source. Prime Video’s own description of the season points to a wider story than the novel’s, taking Reece across the Indian Ocean, southern and northern Africa, the Middle East, and Europe, with a conspiracy running from Moscow to Langley into his family’s history.
Every James Reece Book
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The Terminal List
Navy SEAL commander James Reece comes home as the sole survivor of an ambush that destroyed his troop, and the official account of what happened does not survive contact with what he remembers. When the people closest to him are killed, he assembles a list of the names he holds responsible and starts working through it. Carr’s debut, and the source of Season 1’s eight episodes, which changed parts of the investigation and supporting cast but kept the list itself intact.
True Believer
Reece is a wanted man living outside the United States when a wave of attacks gives the government a reason to want him back. The offer is a route home in exchange for hunting the people behind it, and the book turns the first novel’s domestic revenge story into something closer to international espionage. This is the Season 2 source. Reece’s standing at the start of it only makes sense if you know how Book 1 ended, which is the argument for reading them in order rather than starting here.
Savage Son
Reece is recovering when a Russian mafia target he made in the previous book comes looking for payment, and the novel turns into a hunt with Reece as the quarry. It’s the most stripped-down premise in the series, closer to a survival story than a conspiracy thriller, and it moves the Russian thread that runs through the later books to the front.
The Devil's Hand
Twenty years after September 11, an operation set in motion long ago reaches its final stage, and the weapon is biological rather than explosive. Reece is brought in against a plan built to use the country’s own openness against it. The fourth novel puts him back inside the system he spent the first two books outside of.
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In the Blood
A commercial airliner is brought down by a missile, and a photograph taken in the aftermath puts a face Reece recognizes into an investigation that was never supposed to reach him. The trail crosses borders and pulls in intelligence services, contract killers, and a piece of his own history at the same time.
Only the Dead
The sixth novel reaches back decades into a plan that predates Reece entirely and runs through the upper levels of American power. It leans harder on the series’ accumulated history than any book before it, picking up threads left in the earlier novels rather than opening a fresh case.
Red Sky Mourning
A Chinese submarine, a compromised intelligence picture, and an artificial intelligence operating well past its intended limits put Reece in a fight where he can’t be certain which of his own systems to trust. Carr has said the ending felt like a finish for the character, which is part of why the next book took three years and a change of premise to arrive.
State of Exile
The eighth James Reece novel, due May 11, 2027. Carr’s published description puts Reece in self-imposed exile while a sixth-generation fighter jet is shot down over Ukraine and its technology falls into enemy hands, with two nuclear nations moving toward war and a plot built around AI-enabled weapons. Reece is set against a former SAS operative turned mercenary, and the thing that could stop the war is a memory he doesn’t know he has. Carr has described the title as having more than one meaning and has framed the book as a starting point rather than a continuation.
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Where Cry Havoc and the Other Carr Books Fit
Three Jack Carr books sit outside the numbered James Reece order, and one of them is easy to mistake for Book 8.
Cry Havoc (2025) is Tom Reece Book 1, starting a separate series about James’s father. It’s set in 1968 Vietnam, following a SEAL attached to MACV-SOG through the secret war in Laos and Cambodia. It fills in family and historical background and works on its own, but it isn’t required before True Believer or Season 2.
The Fourth Option (2026) is Carr’s first novel outside the Reece universe entirely, co-written with M.P. Woodward, and starts its own series.
Targeted: Beirut (2024) is nonfiction, co-written with historian James M. Scott, on the 1983 Beirut bombing.
The television side has its own prequel, and it’s a different one. The Terminal List: Dark Wolf premiered August 27, 2025, and follows Ben Edwards, played by Taylor Kitsch, from the SEAL teams into CIA paramilitary work. It’s an original story built for the screen rather than an adaptation, so there’s no book to read alongside it. Cry Havoc is a book prequel about Tom Reece; Dark Wolf is a screen prequel about Ben Edwards. They expand the same universe in different directions.
The Terminal List Books FAQ
How many Terminal List books are there?
Seven James Reece novels are published, from The Terminal List (2018) through Red Sky Mourning (2024). State of Exile is Book 8 and arrives May 11, 2027. Cry Havoc starts a separate Tom Reece series and isn’t part of the numbered order.
Is The Terminal List Season 2 based on a book?
Yes. Prime Video and Jack Carr both identify True Believer, the second James Reece novel, as the source.
Does the show follow the books in order?
The numbered seasons have so far. Season 1 adapted Book 1 and Season 2 adapts Book 2. Dark Wolf sits outside that sequence as an original television prequel.
Can I start with True Believer?
The plot is followable on its own, though Reece’s legal status and his reasons for being outside the country at the start of it come directly from The Terminal List.
Is Cry Havoc part of the James Reece order?
No. It’s Tom Reece Book 1, set in 1968, and belongs to a separate prequel series about James’s father.
What should I read before Season 2?
The Terminal List and then True Believer. The first sets up the losses and decisions that define Reece, and the second is the season’s source. The remaining five novels aren’t needed for it.
When does State of Exile come out?
May 11, 2027. It’s available to preorder now in hardcover, ebook, and audio.
Two books is a light lift before October 21, and both are on audio. Start with The Terminal List if you’re new to Reece, or go straight to True Believer if you’ve already watched Season 1 and want the source for the new episodes.
Want more shows that started as books? See 11 TV Shows Based on Books and 10 New TV Shows Based on Books, or browse the full TV Shows Based on Books archive.
