#Thriller – Book Reviews by the Reluctant Retiree

Tom Clancy Red Winter (Jack Ryan Book 22)

Posted on January 7, 2026December 31, 2025 by Reluctant Retiree

In this previously untold adventure, a young Jack Ryan goes behind the Iron Curtain to seek the truth about a potential Soviet defector in the most shocking entry in Tom Clancy’s #1 New York Times bestselling series.

1985

A top secret F117 aircraft crashes into the Nevada desert. The Nighthawk is the most advanced fighting machine in the world and the Soviets will do anything to get their hands on its secrets.

In East Berlin, a mysterious figure contacts the CIA with an incredible offer—invaluable details of his government’s espionage plans in return for asylum.

It’s an offer they can’t pass up…if it’s genuine, but the risks are too great to blindly stumble into a deal. With the East German secret police closing in, someone will have to go to behind the Berlin Wall to investigate the potential defector. It’s a job Deputy Director James Greer can only trust to one man–Jack Ryan.

Ryan is a former Marine and a brilliant CIA analyst who’s been the architect of some of the CIA’s biggest coups but this time he’s in enemy territory with a professional assassin on his tail. Can he get the right answers before the Cold War turns into a Red Winter?

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Tom Clancy Chain of Command (Jack Ryan Book 21)

Posted on January 5, 2026December 31, 2025 by Reluctant Retiree

The United States has stared down many threats with President Jack Ryan at the helm, but what if he’s not there when we need him? That’s the question facing a nation in the most shocking entry in Tom Clancy’s #1 New York Times bestselling series.

A shadowy billionaire uses his fortune to further his corrupt ambitions. Along the way, he’s toppled democratically elected governments and exacerbated divisions within stable nations. The competitors he’s destroyed, the people he’s hurt, they’re all just marks on a ledger. Now, he’s ready to implement his most ambitious plan of all. There’s only one force standing in his way—President Jack Ryan.

How do you compel a man like Jack Ryan to bend? He’s personally faced down everything from the Russian navy to cartel killers. It will take more than political headwinds or media disfavor to cause him to turn from his duty to the American people, but every man has an Achilles heel. Jack Ryan’s is his family.

The answer is as simple as it is shocking. The billionaire has assembled an international team of the most ruthless mercenaries alive. Their mission—kidnap the First Lady.

#Classics

Tom Clancy Shadow of the Dragon (Jack Ryan Book 20)

Posted on January 3, 2026December 31, 2025 by Reluctant Retiree

issing Chinese scientist, unexplained noises emanating from under the Arctic ice, and a possible mole in American intelligence are just some of the problems that plague President Jack Ryan in the latest entry in Tom Clancy’s #1 New York Times bestselling series.

Aboard an icebreaker in the Arctic Ocean a sonar operator hears an unusual noise coming from the ocean floor. She can’t isolate it and chalks the event up to an anomaly in a newly installed system.

Meanwhile, operatives with the Chinese Ministry of State Security are dealing with their own mystery–the disappearance of brilliant but eccentric scientist, Liu Wangshu. They’re desperate to keep his crucial knowledge of aerospace and naval technology out of their rivals’ hands.

Finding Liu is too great an opportunity for any intelligence service to pass up, but there’s one more problem. A high-level Chinese mole, codenamed Surveyor, has managed to infiltrate American Intelligence. President Jack Ryan has only one choice: send John Clark and his Campus team deep into China to find an old graduate student of the professor’s who may hold the key to his whereabouts. It’s a dangerous gamble, but with John Clark holding the cards, Jack Ryan is all in.

#Classics

Tom Clancy Code of Honor (Jack Ryan Book 19)

Posted on January 1, 2026December 31, 2025 by Reluctant Retiree

As President of the United States, Jack Ryan has faced many challenges, but none have been as personal as this and never has he been this helpless in the face of evil in the latest entry in Tom Clancy’s #1 New York Times bestselling series.

Father Pat West, S.J. was a buddy of the young Jack Ryan when they were both undergraduates at Boston College. Father West left a comfortable job in the philosophy department at Georgetown to work with the poor in Indonesia. Now he’s been arrested and accused of blasphemy against Islam.

President Ryan is desperate to rescue his old friend, but he can’t move officially against the Indonesians. Instead he relies on the Campus team to find out who is framing the priest.

There’s one other twist to the story. President Ryan discovers a text on his private cell phone from the priest warning about a coming attack against America…

About the author

Marc Cameron

A retired Chief Deputy U.S. Marshal, Marc Cameron spent nearly thirty years in law enforcement. His assignments have taken him from Alaska to Manhattan, Canada to Mexico and dozens of points in between. He holds a second degree black belt in Jujitsu and is a certified scuba diver and man-tracker.

An avid adventure motorcyclist, Cameron’s books heavily feature bikes and bikers–from OSI Agent Jericho Quinn’s beloved BMW GS to Harley Davidsons, Royal Enfields, Ducatis and…most everything on two wheels.

Cameron lives in the Alaska with his wife, blue heeler dog, and BMW GS motorcycle. Visit him at: http://www.marccameronbooks.com

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All the Shadows We Become

Posted on December 31, 2025December 22, 2025 by Reluctant Retiree

When the shadows come alive, Ava and Caleb discover the only safe place is in each other’s arms.

But the closer they get, the darker the truth becomes.

All the Shadows We Become

by Dustin Blackwall

Genre: YA Romantasy Thriller

Caleb Ward is trying to forget the night he almost died.
Ava Lin is trying to understand why he survived.

But Hollow Creek isn’t letting either of them move on.

What starts as a strange blackout spirals into a trail of eerie clues, shifting shadows, and a connection between Ava and Caleb that grows hotter and more undeniable with every new secret uncovered.

Something happened that night.
Something dangerous.
And it’s waking up.

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The lights exploded into darkness so fast it felt like the whole world had been switched off. One second, the fairgrounds pulsed with noise; the next, a hush dropped over everything – thick, heavy, wrong. Ava’s breath caught in her throat as the shadows around the tents stretched, bending in directions that didn’t match the lanterns flickering overhead.

“Caleb…”

She didn’t even finish his name. Her hand shot out on instinct, finding his fingers in the dark. His grip closed around hers immediately – warm, tight, desperate – anchoring her like a lifeline.

Static rolled through the air, not sound but pressure, brushing across her skin like cold fingertips. The wind picked up and carried the faint smell of scorched leaves and metal. Somewhere behind them, a ride creaked slowly, even though nothing was moving it.

Caleb stepped close enough that she felt the heat of his chest at her shoulder.

“I’m here,” he whispered, voice low and unsteady.

Something moved at the corner of her vision – a ripple of shadow that stole her breath. But Caleb was already there, guiding her back against him, solid and unwavering.

The world still trembled, but she didn’t. Not with his strength at her back. In that moment, she felt it with aching clarity: as long as he held her, she could face anything.

All around them, people shouted – fragmented cries swallowed by the dark. A string of carnival lights fizzled overhead, sputtering blue sparks that made the shadows jump like living ink.

Ava squeezed his hand harder.

“We have to move,” she said, though she wasn’t sure which direction was safe anymore.

Caleb turned, pulling her with him, and in that split-second flash of dying light, she saw his face – terrified, determined, and somehow still looking at her like she was the one thing in this chaos he trusted.

The ground trembled.

The shadows bent again.

And together, hand in hand, they ran toward whatever waited in the dark.

Light Years to Midnight

by Dustin Blackwall

Genre: SciFi Thriller

When data itself begins to speak, who decides what it’s trying to say?

Light Years To Midnight — a globe-spanning thriller where science, faith, and code collide in a race against a countdown written into the fabric of reality.

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The wind whipped dust across the plateau as Jonas crested the ridge, breath burning in his throat. Below him, the satellite dishes of the abandoned relay station stretched into the dark like a field of frozen giants. Their metal frames groaned under the rising storm, each bent toward the same invisible point on the horizon.

He wasn’t alone.

A faint beam of light—too controlled to be an accident—flickered between the dishes. Jonas crouched, heart thudding, watching as a woman stepped into view, her silhouette sharp against the skeletal machinery. She moved with the alertness of someone who had been running for far too long.

Elena.

He had seen her face in files, in encrypted packets, in the warnings that had chased him across continents. But seeing her here, in the flesh, felt unreal—like walking into a photograph he wasn’t meant to understand.

Before he could speak, a second figure emerged from the opposite end of the array. Maya paused only when she spotted Elena, recognition flaring across her face. They had never met, not really, but the anomaly had braided their paths tightly enough that the moment felt inevitable.

Jonas stood and lifted a hand, but movement in the distance froze him mid-step.

Engines.

Low, tactical, deliberate.

A convoy approached from the north, its headlights dark, its tires crunching through gravel like muffled gunfire. Special operations—unmarked, unhurried, confident. Not hunters, but collectors.

Elena’s eyes locked on his.

“Are they here for you,” she whispered, “or for all of us?”

Maya stepped closer, her breath sharp in the cold air. “Does it matter?”

Something pulsed beneath the earth—three beats, a pause, three more—vibrating up through the metal frames of the dishes. The sky above them shimmered, faint but unmistakable, as if answering the rhythm.

Jonas swallowed hard.

“No,” he said. “It doesn’t matter anymore. It’s already found us.”

Dustin is a lifelong fan of science and speculative fiction, blending his fascination with astronomy, technology, and the unknown into stories that explore the edge between logic and wonder. When he’s not writing, he’s reading, stargazing, or chasing trails on his dirt bike — always searching for what lies just beyond understanding.

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