Zero Sum (August 2024)
Jonathan Grave long ago lost faith with the so-called war on drugs, a futile campaign that enables cartels to make billions under the protection of corrupt officials on both sides of the border. But when a twelve-year-old dies after consuming fentanyl disguised as candy inside the dormitory at Resurrection House, the school he created for the children of incarcerated parents, Jonathan knows it’s time to use his special talents to change the game.
Gathering his Security Solutions team, Jonathan activates Operation Heat Seeker. Nobody and nothing will stop them from ending the flow of poison—not even a vow of revenge from the President of the United States himself…
Harm’s Way (2023)
Twelve missionaries have been snatched in a remote area of Venezuela and are being held for ransom. The high-priority rescue mission comes as a personal plea from FBI director Irene Rivers. It also carries a Presidential demand: no international incident. Just get in and get out—with hostages who are far from cooperative, but nonetheless precious cargo.
America’s enemies hope to leverage the kidnapping into a major crisis. Fighting his way to the hostages is Jonathan’s first battle. The second is to deliver them, alive and well, to the extraction site—and let no one stand in his way.
lethal game (2022)
Hostage rescue expert Jonathan Grave and his fellow special-ops veteran, Boxers, are hunting in Montana when shots ring out, and they realize they’ve become the prey for assassins. In the crosshairs of unseen shooters, cut off from all communication, with the wind at a blood-freezing chill, the nightmare is just beginning. Because Jonathan and Boxers aren’t the only ones under fire.
Back in Fisherman’s Cove, Virginia, Jonathan’s Security Solutions team is fighting for their lives too. A vicious onslaught is clearing the way for a much bigger game by eliminating anyone in the way. If Jonathan and Boxers can make it out of the wilderness alive, the real war will begin.
STEALTH ATTACK (2021)
El Paso, Texas, is a battleground. It’s an open market for Mexican drug cartels to sell their wares. It’s also a destination for teens looking for fun. Venice Alexander’s fourteen-year-old son Roman was there on a school trip. Now, he and a fellow student have vanished without a trace.
Assuming the kidnapping is retaliation for his past incursions against Mexico’s crime syndicates, Jonathan Grave leads his covert operatives to rescue their teammate’s son. But the trail Jonathan follows leads him down unexpected paths where he ends up in the crossfire of a deadly vendetta…
Hellfire (2020)
For hostage rescue specialist Jonathan Grave, every mission is a matter of life or death. But he faces his most personal challenge yet when two boys are abducted while being driven to Resurrection House, the school Jonathan founded as a sanctuary for children of incarcerated parents. The boys were entrusted to Jonathan’s care. Now they’re missing. It’s time to fight fire with fire…
The boys’ mom, Connie Kendall, is awaiting trial on drug smuggling charges. Prosecutors want her to testify against the brutal Cortez Cartel to help bring down their ruthless operations. If she cooperates, she’ll get an easier sentence. But with her kids in the grip of the cartel, her lips are sealed.
As Jonathan and his team of skilled operatives close in on the kidnappers, they realize that their enemies aren’t just hell-bent on selling drugs. Rival factions have even deadlier agendas. The clock is ticking on an attack that could kill thousands in a single breath. And it’s almost zero hour…
TOTAL MAYHEM (2019)
America is under fire. Multiple terror attacks have left the country reeling. Former Special Forces operatives are working for ISIS. Jonathan Grave and his team go undercover to eliminate the traitors. No need to collect intel. No arrests. Wipe them out—and get out.
But the team uncovers a deeper threat codenamed Retribution. The bombs have been set and Grave is the one being hunted. Unless he can save himself first, a terrorist plot of unimaginable scope will become history’s deadliest disaster…
SCORPION STRIKE (2018)
For Jonathan Grave and Gail Bonneville, the Crystal Sands Resort is the perfect getaway—until gunshots shatter the night. Wealthy guests are yanked out of their sleep, herded like animals, forced to submit to their captors’ demands. But Jonathan and Gail are no ordinary vacationers. The assassins who invade their bungalow receive a deadly surprise. And two determined, skilled operatives escape into the jungle.
Jonathan and Gail are not the only free agents on the island. Cut off from his usual tactical team, with a pair of unlikely allies he can’t fully trust, Grave’s only hope of reliable back-up is his partner Boxers, who’s hundreds of miles—and hours—away. It won’t be long before the invaders turn this tropical paradise into the powderkeg that will set off global chaos. Grave may be without weapons, but he’s never without resources. Bold action is the only solution. Like the scorpion, Grave must strike fast and hard…
FINAL TARGET (2017)
The mission: Drop into the Mexican jungle, infiltrate a drug cartel’s compound, and extract a kidnapped DEA agent. But when Jonathan Grave and his partner, Boxers, retrieve the hostage and return to the exfil point, all hell breaks loose. Ambushed, abandoned, and attacked on all sides, their only hope of survival lies inside a remote orphanage where innocent children have been targeted for death.
Even if Grave can lead his precious cargo to safety across a hundred miles of treacherous jungle filled with enemies, he can’t shake the feeling that something bigger is at play. A vast conspiracy of international power players who take no prisoners—and leave no survivors…
FRIENDLY FIRE (2016)
It begins with a shocking act of vengeance. Barista Ethan Falk chases a customer into the parking lot and kills him. He tells police that years ago the older man abducted and tortured him. Then Ethan’s story takes an even stranger turn: he says he was rescued by a guy named Scorpion. Of course, there is no record of either the kidnapping or the rescue, because Scorpion—Jonathan Grave—operates outside the law and leaves no evidence. As Grave struggles to find a way to defend his former precious cargo without blowing his cover, he learns the dead man has secrets that trace to an ongoing terrorist plot against the heart of America. It’s up to Grave and his team to stop it. But first they must rescue Ethan Falk—a second time.
AGAINST ALL ENEMIES (2015)
Winner of the 2016 Thriller Award for Best Original Paperback!
Jonathan Grave finds it hard to believe that a fellow combat vet has gone rogue, killing American agents and leaking sensitive intel to hostile foreign interests. With black ops assassins on the trail of his old friend, Grave sets out to get to him first. He finds far more than he bargained for. Not only the wily operative, but evidence of a conspiracy so dangerous, so far-reaching, that an unthinkable tragedy is in-motion. Grave and his elite team of specialists must expose a deadly high-level secret—and do it in time to avert a catastrophe of historic proportions…
Someone left a tape recorder running and caught this conversation between Jonathan Grave and Boxers.
Audio Credit: Basil Sands, the voice of Jonathan Grave for Audible.com
END GAME (2014)
Assassins have eliminated a Chechen scientist who’s been working as a double agent for the U.S. government. The feds know who to call: Jonathan Grave and his elite rescue team. Their mission: find the dead man’s teenage son, who’s on the run—and off the grid—with crucial information that must not fall into the wrong hands. There’s one problem: the boy’s bodyguard is a security specialist with unusual talents, and she’s not giving up without a fight. Only by bringing them both back alive can Grave expose the traitor in the highest levels of power—and prevent an all-out nuclear war.
HIGH TREASON (2013)
First Lady Anna Darmond has been kidnapped in a bloody gunfight. It’s an unthinkable crime that, if revealed, could cause public panic, so hostage rescue specialist Jonathan Grave and his team must operate in absolute secrecy. But the mission is not all it seems. There are shadows in Mrs. Darmond’s past. Cracks in the presidential marriage. Leaks in the country’s critical shields of security. As Grave tracks the missing First Lady through a labyrinth of lies and murder, he confronts a traitor at the highest level of Washington power—and a devastating scheme to bring a nation to its knees…
DAMAGE CONTROL (2012)
The hostages are young: a bus full of teenagers on a church mission. The ransom demands are explicit: deliver three million dollars—with zero involvement from law enforcement—or all captives will be executed. But rescue specialist Jonathan Grave doesn’t believe in ultimatums. For him and his elite team at Security Solutions, it’s all about protecting the innocent. Now Grave must face the chilling possibility that someone within the U.S. government has a deadly secret to protect—one that could jeopardize national security like never before…
THREAT WARNING (2011)
In his most terrifying thriller yet, New York Times bestselling author John Gilstrap exposes the darkest threat to America’s freedom, a secret society of merciless killers, watching and waiting to strike. The first victims are random: ordinary citizens, fired upon at rush hour by unseen assassins. Caught in the crossfire of one of the attacks, hostage rescue specialist Jonathan Grave spies a gunman getting away—with a mother and her son as hostages. To free them, Grave and his team must enter the dark heart of a nationwide conspiracy. But their search goes beyond the frenzied schemes of a madman’s deadly ambitions. This time, it reaches all the way to the highest levels of power…
HOSTAGE ZERO (2010)
Called “addictively readable” by Publishers Weekly, this riveting thriller reveals a clandestine world where the stakes are high, the players are corrupt, and a treacherous secret is about to explode. Hostage rescue expert Jonathan Grave is used to working alone, and this time he’ll have to go where even the government won’t. An innocent man has been shot and two young people are missing. But tracking them down is just the beginning. To keep them and his covert team alive, Jonathan must plunge into the heart of an ugly secret whose insidious path reaches from one of the world’s most remote places into the highest corridors of power—and he must defeat enemies who are willing to kill again and again to keep the truth from being revealed…
NO MERCY (2009)
No names. No feds. No trace evidence. That’s how Jonathan Grave operates. As a freelance specialist in covert rescues, he has to work outside the law to get things done—especially in highly sensitive hostage situations. But when an Indiana college student is abducted, and Jonathan’s meticulous plan explodes into a deadly shooting spree, the local authorities are out for blood—and they’re not alone. Someone wants to control a devastating secret… someone rich and powerful… someone willing to capture, torture, and kill anyone to get it. Even the people he loves most…
SOFT TARGETS (2013): A JONATHAN GRAVE PREQUEL NOVELLA
Four children’s lives hang in the balance. A vicious criminal is on the loose. With law enforcement at a dead end, there’s only one man who can recover the hostages—Jonathan Grave. FBI Special Agent Irene Rivers is horrified to learn that because of mistakes made by agents under her command, a murderer and child molester will walk free. When Irene’s own daughters become the monster’s next targets, she reaches out in desperation to an elite Special Forces operator. His name is Jonathan Grave. For Grave, results matter more than procedures. Together, they discover a new kind of justice—and a new breed of evil…