Don Bentley Books in Order (Updated September 9, 2026)

Don Bentley writes military, intelligence, and special-operations thrillers informed by experience as an Army Apache helicopter pilot, FBI special agent, and SWAT team member. His own series follows Defense Intelligence Agency operative Matt Drake, while his continuation work includes four Tom Clancy Jack Ryan Jr. novels and the current Vince Flynn Mitch Rapp books.

Bentley’s bibliography is unusually easy to divide into three major shelves. Read Without Sanction through Forgotten War for Matt Drake, Tom Clancy Target Acquired through Weapons Grade for his Jack Ryan Jr. run, and Capture or Kill onward for his Mitch Rapp continuation novels.

Where Don Bentley readers should begin

1. Begin with Without Sanction if you want Bentley’s own protagonist, Matt Drake, and the four-book series that established him as a thriller writer.
2. Begin with Tom Clancy Target Acquired if you already follow Jack Ryan Jr. and want Bentley’s four consecutive Campus novels.
3. Begin Bentley’s Mitch Rapp contribution with Capture or Kill, but start with American Assassin if you want the full chronological Rapp prequel arc.
4. Keep Double Tap marked as upcoming until September 22, 2026. It is announced but has not yet been released as of this September 9 update.

Matt Drake books in order

Matt Drake is a Defense Intelligence Agency operative whose experiences in Syria, Afghanistan, Europe, and the intelligence community continually blur the line between official missions and deeply personal debts. His partnership with the man nicknamed Frodo gives the four-book series an important emotional continuity.

1. Without Sanction (2020): Survivor’s guilt after a disastrous Syria operation has nearly destroyed Matt Drake when a Pakistani scientist working with an ISIS splinter group offers to defect with a weapon of mass destruction and insists that Matt be the man who extracts him.
2. The Outside Man (2021): A highly trained assassination team attacks Matt in broad daylight in Austin, forcing him to investigate why he has been targeted and pulling him back toward the Middle East and an old adversary known as the Devil.
3. Hostile Intent (2022): A mysterious man at the U.S. embassy in Vienna identifies himself as the Irishman and asks specifically for Matt, but Russian operatives kidnap him before Matt can learn what he knows, creating a race to prevent an intelligence crisis from becoming a war.
4. Forgotten War (2023): Matt’s longtime partner Frodo is accused of committing a war crime in Afghanistan ten years earlier, and Matt’s determination to prove him innocent forces him to confront secrets that his closest friend has never revealed.

Read all four in order. The individual missions change, but Matt’s psychological recovery, friendships, intelligence career, and the consequences of earlier operations are part of one continuous personal arc.

Without Sanction establishes why Matt Drake is damaged

The opening novel begins after Matt has already suffered one of the defining failures of his life. The Syria operation left friends dead, Frodo badly injured, and Matt unable to simply return to normal intelligence work.

That background matters later because Bentley does not reset Matt emotionally at the beginning of every novel. The Outside Man, Hostile Intent, and Forgotten War all make more sense when the reader knows what Matt and Frodo survived before the first book’s main mission.

The Outside Man makes the threat personal before it turns international

The second Matt Drake novel begins with an immediate question: why would a professional team try to kill him on an Austin street?

The answer moves the book out of Texas and back toward the regions and enemies connected with Matt’s operational history. Reading it after Without Sanction gives the returning danger and Matt’s distrust of the intelligence world much more weight.

Hostile Intent moves Matt into the old City of Spies

Hostile Intent uses Vienna as a classic espionage setting and surrounds Matt with intelligence officers from competing services.

Nolan Burke, the former IRA figure known as the Irishman, also turns the case into a debt-of-honor story. Matt is not simply performing an assignment. He is trying to repay a man while preventing a confrontation between intelligence powers from escalating toward open war.

Forgotten War puts Frodo at the center

The fourth Matt Drake thriller returns to Afghanistan through an accusation rather than a new deployment. Frodo is charged with a war crime from a decade earlier, forcing Matt to investigate the past of the man who has repeatedly trusted him with his life.

Do not start here if you can avoid it. The question of whether Frodo is hiding something becomes much more powerful after three books establishing the bond between the two men.

Don Bentley’s Jack Ryan Jr. books in order

After Mike Maden completed his four-book Jack Ryan Jr. run, Bentley became the next principal writer of the character. His novels continue the Campus storyline rather than starting a separate version of Jack.

1. Tom Clancy Target Acquired (2021): Jack Ryan Jr. goes to Israel to perform what should be a simple favor for Ding Chavez, but intervening in an attack on a woman and her child makes him the target of killers and reveals that the woman possesses knowledge capable of upsetting the strategic balance.
2. Tom Clancy Zero Hour (2022): Jack arrives in Seoul to assess a potential Campus recruit just as the North Korean leader is incapacitated and a hidden succession mechanism activates sleeper agents across South Korea, pushing the peninsula toward another war.
3. Tom Clancy Flash Point (2023): A surveillance mission turns deadly, an unseen enemy targets the Campus, and a military incident in the South China Sea creates the possibility that China and the United States could be pushed into direct conflict over Taiwan.
4. Tom Clancy Weapons Grade (2023): Jack witnesses what looks like a traffic accident in Texas but realizes it was a professional assassination, and following the victim’s unfinished trail pulls him into a missing-person case and an international conspiracy involving South African gunmen.

These four books form Bentley’s complete principal Jack Ryan Jr. run. M. P. Woodward and other writers continued the wider franchise afterward.

Why Target Acquired is Book 1 for Bentley but not for Jack Ryan Jr.

Target Acquired is the first Jack Ryan Jr. novel written by Don Bentley, but Jack had already appeared in numerous books by Tom Clancy, Grant Blackwood, Mike Maden, and other Ryanverse writers.

Readers following Bentley specifically can begin here. Readers following the entire Jack Ryan Jr. chronology should keep Target Acquired after Mike Maden’s Firing Point.

Zero Hour is the Korean Peninsula thriller

Rather than giving Jack a simple assignment in South Korea, Zero Hour creates a leadership crisis in North Korea that automatically activates long-prepared sleeper operations.

Jack’s original reason for being in Seoul becomes secondary once violence erupts and he receives an offer of help from inside North Korea. The book is therefore part spy thriller, part succession crisis, and part race to prevent another Korean War.

Flash Point leaves the Campus badly damaged

Flash Point is especially important in Bentley’s four-book run because the enemy does not merely threaten Jack personally. The Campus itself suffers a devastating attack.

Jack is forced into a leadership role while military tension around the South China Sea and Taiwan grows. That makes the book more dependent on the reader’s understanding of the Campus than a completely isolated Jack Ryan Jr. mission would be.

Weapons Grade closes Bentley’s Jack Ryan Jr. run

The fourth Bentley novel starts unusually small for a Ryanverse thriller. Jack sees an apparent traffic accident on a Texas road and realizes the victim was deliberately killed.

His refusal to walk away leads from a local cold case toward hired killers and an international plot. It became Bentley’s final Jack Ryan Jr. novel before the series passed to another continuation writer.

Don Bentley’s Mitch Rapp books by publication date

Bentley became the next continuation author of Vince Flynn’s Mitch Rapp series after Kyle Mills. His books are unusual because they move backward into Rapp’s younger years rather than simply continuing from the latest point in the modern-day timeline.

1. Capture or Kill (2024): A young Mitch Rapp becomes involved in the final hunt for Osama bin Laden as CIA director Irene Kennedy needs definitive proof before the United States can authorize the raid on the compound in Abbottabad.
2. Denied Access (2025): Set much earlier in Rapp’s career, the novel picks up after Kill Shot as the post-Soviet CIA faces Russian intelligence pressure and Mitch fights to protect Greta while helping Thomas Stansfield rescue the agency from a major intelligence crisis.
3. Double Tap (expected September 22, 2026): The upcoming novel continues the young-Rapp storyline as Mitch begins his first deep-cover mission inside a jihadi organization after a Pakistani chemical-weapons scientist is abducted by extremists.

Publication order and story chronology are different here. Capture or Kill appeared first as Bentley’s Rapp debut, but Denied Access and Double Tap belong much earlier in Mitch’s life.

Where Bentley’s Rapp novels belong chronologically

The early Mitch Rapp chronology now contains a sequence that begins with Vince Flynn’s two prequels and continues through Bentley’s newer books.

1. American Assassin: Vince Flynn introduces young Mitch Rapp’s recruitment, training, and transformation into a CIA assassin.
2. Kill Shot: Mitch’s early assassination career continues after a mission in Paris goes badly and leaves him hunted while he tries to determine who betrayed him.
3. Denied Access: Don Bentley continues directly from that young-Rapp period with Russian intelligence, Greta, and a CIA struggling to survive after the Cold War.
4. Transfer of Power: The original publication-era Mitch Rapp story brings him into a White House hostage crisis and begins the long central run of the series.

Double Tap is also an early-career Rapp story and is designed to continue the American Assassin-era material. Its final exact position within every event of Rapp’s early chronology is best treated through the official series ordering once the book is released.

Capture or Kill belongs much later in Mitch Rapp’s life

Capture or Kill is different from Denied Access. It takes place around the 2011 operation against Osama bin Laden, placing Rapp much later in his career.

The novel uses a known historical endpoint but creates a fictional intelligence problem around it: the president wants proof that bin Laden is actually inside the Abbottabad compound before approving the raid, and Mitch Rapp becomes the person trusted to obtain it.

Denied Access fills the gap after Kill Shot

Denied Access is especially important for chronological readers because it continues the era established by American Assassin and Kill Shot.

The Soviet Union has collapsed, the CIA’s future is being questioned, Russian intelligence has compromised a major operation, and Mitch’s personal life is threatened when Greta becomes a target. This allows Bentley to develop the younger Rapp without rewriting the later man readers already know.

What Double Tap is expected to add

Double Tap is scheduled for September 22, 2026, so it remains an upcoming book as of this September 9 update.

The premise sends the younger Mitch on his first deep-cover assignment. A Pakistani chemical-weapons specialist is kidnapped in Verona, and Mitch must penetrate the jihadi cell holding him before the group can turn the scientist’s knowledge into a mass-casualty weapon.

Do not mark it as already released yet. Add it after publication if maintaining a live series page.

Don Bentley books by year

2020 to 2023: Matt Drake and Jack Ryan Jr.

1. Without Sanction (2020): Matt Drake returns to Syria to extract a scientist and confront the failure that shattered him.
2. Tom Clancy Target Acquired (2021): Jack Ryan Jr. protects a scientist after a supposedly simple assignment in Israel turns lethal.
3. The Outside Man (2021): Professional killers attack Matt in Austin and force him to uncover why an old enemy wants him dead.
4. Tom Clancy Zero Hour (2022): Jack is trapped in a Korean crisis after North Korean sleeper agents are activated.
5. Hostile Intent (2022): Matt heads to Vienna after a mysterious intelligence source requests him by name.
6. Forgotten War (2023): Matt investigates whether Frodo committed a war crime during their Afghanistan years.
7. Tom Clancy Flash Point (2023): The Campus is attacked while tension around China and Taiwan moves toward open conflict.
8. Tom Clancy Weapons Grade (2023): A Texas assassination pulls Jack into a cold case and an international operation.

2024 onward: Mitch Rapp

9. Capture or Kill (2024): Rapp is inserted into the intelligence hunt surrounding Osama bin Laden’s Abbottabad compound.
10. Denied Access (2025): Bentley moves into young Rapp’s post-Kill Shot years and a confrontation with Russian intelligence.
11. Double Tap (expected September 22, 2026): Young Rapp goes undercover inside a jihadi organization seeking chemical-weapons expertise.

Which Don Bentley books are actually his own series?

The four Matt Drake novels are Bentley’s original recurring-character series. Matt, Frodo, and their intelligence history were created for Bentley’s own fiction.

The Jack Ryan Jr. books are continuation novels using characters from Tom Clancy’s Ryanverse.

The Mitch Rapp books are continuation novels using the character and fictional world created by Vince Flynn.

This distinction is useful for readers who want to know where Bentley had complete control of the original characters and where he was extending a long-running legacy series.

A Don Bentley reading route for military-thriller fans

1. Without Sanction: Start with Bentley’s original voice through a damaged DIA operative forced back into Syria.
2. The Outside Man: Continue Matt’s story and see how his past follows him onto American soil.
3. Hostile Intent: Move into European intelligence operations and Russian direct-action threats.
4. Forgotten War: Finish Matt Drake with the most personal conflict in the series, centered on Frodo’s Afghanistan past.
5. Tom Clancy Target Acquired: Shift into the Ryanverse and Bentley’s version of Jack Ryan Jr.
6. Tom Clancy Flash Point: Sample the largest geopolitical crisis in Bentley’s Campus run.
7. Capture or Kill: Move into Mitch Rapp and Bentley’s third major thriller property.
8. Denied Access: Finish the published Bentley books with younger Rapp and the early CIA storyline.

This route keeps the complete Matt Drake arc intact before moving into Bentley’s two major legacy franchises.

Should you read Bentley by publication order instead?

Publication order works if your goal is to follow Bentley’s career. It shows him alternating between his original Matt Drake novels and Jack Ryan Jr. before moving fully into Mitch Rapp.

For story continuity, series order is cleaner. Read all four Matt Drake books together, all four Bentley Jack Ryan Jr. books together, and then place his Rapp novels within the broader Mitch Rapp chronology.

Latest Don Bentley release status

As of September 9, 2026, Denied Access is Don Bentley’s latest published novel.

Double Tap is scheduled for September 22, 2026 and is the next announced Mitch Rapp novel written by Bentley. It should remain marked as upcoming until publication.

Don Bentley reading order FAQ

What was Don Bentley’s first novel?

Without Sanction, published in 2020, was Bentley’s debut novel and the first Matt Drake thriller.

How many Matt Drake books are there?

There are four: Without Sanction, The Outside Man, Hostile Intent, and Forgotten War.

Do Matt Drake books need to be read in order?

Yes. Each mission has its own central conflict, but Matt’s recovery, his partnership with Frodo, and their shared operational past continue across all four books.

How many Jack Ryan Jr. books did Don Bentley write?

Bentley wrote four: Target Acquired, Zero Hour, Flash Point, and Weapons Grade.

Did Don Bentley create Jack Ryan Jr.?

No. Jack Ryan Jr. belongs to Tom Clancy’s Ryanverse. Bentley became one of the continuation authors writing the character after earlier novels by other writers.

What is Don Bentley’s first Mitch Rapp book?

Capture or Kill, published in 2024, was Bentley’s first Mitch Rapp novel.

Should Capture or Kill be read after Denied Access chronologically?

Yes. Denied Access takes place during Mitch’s early career after Kill Shot, while Capture or Kill is set around the 2011 operation against Osama bin Laden.

Is Double Tap already released?

No. As of September 9, 2026, Double Tap is scheduled for September 22, 2026.

What is Double Tap about?

The upcoming book returns to young Mitch Rapp and sends him into his first deep-cover mission inside a jihadi group after extremists seize a Pakistani chemical-weapons scientist.

The Don Bentley order that avoids franchise confusion

Read Bentley’s own Matt Drake novels first if you want his original series: Without Sanction, The Outside Man, Hostile Intent, and Forgotten War.

Keep his Jack Ryan Jr. work on a second shelf: Target Acquired, Zero Hour, Flash Point, and Weapons Grade. These continue a series that began before Bentley and continued after him.

Then treat his Mitch Rapp books as a third group. Capture or Kill was Bentley’s first published Rapp novel, Denied Access moves much earlier in the character’s life, and Double Tap is the announced September 2026 continuation of that young-Rapp storyline.