Larry Bond Books in Order (Updated September 9, 2026)

Larry Bond is an American military techno-thriller writer, naval analyst, former U.S. Navy officer, and game designer whose fiction is known for detailed depictions of submarines, naval warfare, large conventional wars, intelligence operations, and geopolitical crises. His writing career began through collaboration with Tom Clancy on Red Storm Rising, after which Bond created several independent series and collaborated with Patrick Larkin, Chris Carlson, and Jim DeFelice.

Bond’s bibliography divides naturally into the Jerry Mitchell submarine novels, the two Red Phoenix books, four First Team thrillers, four Red Dragon Rising novels, the connected The Enemy Within and Day of Wrath, several large standalone war novels, and nonfiction about naval warfare and military history.

Which Larry Bond book matches what you want to read?

• Start with Red Storm Rising for a massive NATO versus Warsaw Pact conventional-war scenario written with Tom Clancy.
• Start with Red Phoenix for war on the Korean Peninsula and one of Bond’s defining independent novels.
• Start with Dangerous Ground for Jerry Mitchell and a six-book submarine career.
• Start with Larry Bond’s First Team for covert special operations beyond normal military bureaucracy.
• Start with Shadows of War for a four-book near-future conflict between China and Vietnam.

Jerry Mitchell is the strongest choice if you want a conventional recurring protagonist. Many of Bond’s other books instead follow large casts spread across governments, ships, aircraft, intelligence services, and battlefields.

Jerry Mitchell’s submarine career in six books

Jerry Mitchell begins as a naval aviator whose flying career is ended by injury. Rather than accept a medical discharge, he transfers into submarines and has to prove that an outsider from aviation can become an effective undersea warfare officer.

1. Dangerous Ground (2005, with Chris Carlson): After an injury grounds him, Jerry fights to remain in the Navy by joining the submarine service, where a difficult captain, experimental technology, and an unexpected mission test whether he belongs underwater.
2. Cold Choices (2009, with Chris Carlson): Now navigator aboard USS Seawolf, Jerry becomes involved in a dangerous encounter with a new Russian submarine that ends with men trapped beneath the Barents Sea.
3. Exit Plan (2012, with Chris Carlson): Jerry participates in a covert mission to extract important defectors from Iran, but the carefully designed operation collapses and leaves American personnel facing capture and political disaster.
4. Shattered Trident (2013, with Chris Carlson): Jerry commands his own submarine during a widening conflict in the South China Sea and becomes trapped between competing Asian powers.
5. Fatal Thunder (2016, with Chris Carlson): Jerry and his allies uncover a conspiracy involving rogue nuclear weapons, forcing submarines, intelligence agencies, and governments into a race to prevent nuclear escalation.
6. Arctic Gambit (2018, with Chris Carlson): As a squadron commander, Jerry leads an operation to stop a Russian nuclear strike plan and reaches the highest level of responsibility in his submarine career.

Read the six novels in publication order. Jerry’s rank, professional relationships, and level of command change from book to book, making random reading less satisfying.

What changes from Dangerous Ground to Arctic Gambit?

The Jerry Mitchell series is deliberately career-based. Jerry begins by trying to convince submariners that a former fighter pilot can belong in their service. By Shattered Trident, he commands a submarine of his own, and by Arctic Gambit he is responsible for a squadron.

This progression gives the series more continuity than Bond’s large standalone war novels. The missions change, but Jerry’s increasing responsibility links the six books together.

Red Phoenix and the return to Korea decades later

1. Red Phoenix (1989, with Patrick Larkin): Political weakness in South Korea and the United States gives North Korea an opportunity to invade, producing a conventional war that draws in American forces and threatens wider Asian escalation.
2. Red Phoenix Burning (2016, with Patrick Larkin and Chris Carlson): Decades later, an attempted coup and collapse of the North Korean regime produce civil war, humanitarian disaster, factional violence, and the danger of loose chemical and nuclear weapons.

Red Phoenix Burning is a genuine sequel rather than merely another Korean war novel. It includes returning elements from the first book alongside a new generation of characters and a radically changed strategic environment.

Why the twenty-seven-year publication gap does not make Red Phoenix Burning standalone

The first Red Phoenix appeared in 1989, while the sequel was published in 2016. Bond’s official material explicitly identifies Red Phoenix Burning as a sequel.

Readers can understand the later crisis independently, but the first book provides the strongest historical and fictional background for the peninsula and for returning characters.

The First Team books and their missions

Larry Bond’s First Team was written with Jim DeFelice. The series follows a covert unit formally known as the Joint Services Special Demands Project, designed to respond to unconventional threats without the normal restrictions imposed on traditional agencies and military commands.

1. Larry Bond’s First Team (2004): The unit races to recover stolen radioactive material before terrorists can use it to create a dirty bomb capable of contaminating a major American target.
2. Angels of Wrath (2006): The First Team faces an extremist threat whose members are prepared to use mass violence and unconventional tactics against American interests.
3. Fires of War (2006): Hidden nuclear weapons in South Korea and a plan for nuclear attack threaten to reignite war on the peninsula and push the Team into an operation with global consequences.
4. Soul of the Assassin (2008): The Team pursues another sophisticated terrorist enemy whose plans involve international networks, intelligence failures, and targeted killing.

Publication order is the recommended sequence. Each operation has a distinct target, but the team concept and recurring personnel develop across the four books.

Red Dragon Rising tells one four-book China conflict

Written with Jim DeFelice, Red Dragon Rising imagines a near future in which severe climate pressure, food shortages, and economic stress push China toward military action against Vietnam. Unlike Bond’s standalones, these four books form one continuing war narrative.

1. Shadows of War (2009): China manufactures a justification for war against food-rich Vietnam, but American climatologist Josh McArthur survives an attack and carries evidence capable of exposing the deception.
2. Edge of War (2010): The conflict expands as military forces, intelligence personnel, and civilians become caught in China’s widening campaign.
3. Shock of War (2012): The struggle intensifies into larger conventional operations while American decision-makers face growing pressure over whether and how to intervene.
4. Blood of War (2013): The concluding volume brings the Chinese-Vietnamese war and the accumulated political and military choices of the previous books toward resolution.

These should be read strictly in order. Starting with Shock of War would place the reader in the middle of a conflict whose origins and characters were established two books earlier.

The Enemy Within and Day of Wrath belong together

The Enemy Within and Day of Wrath are commonly grouped through recurring FBI and national-security characters, including Peter Thorn and Helen Gray.

1. The Enemy Within (1996, with Patrick Larkin): A wave of coordinated domestic terrorism forces investigators to uncover a network operating inside the United States rather than beyond its borders.
2. Day of Wrath (1998, with Patrick Larkin): The returning characters confront another large terrorist conspiracy whose scope reaches into weapons of mass destruction and the vulnerability of American society.

Read The Enemy Within first because it establishes the principal recurring characters and the style of domestic counterterrorism that the second book builds upon.

The big standalone war novels

Bond’s early reputation rests heavily on novels that imagine entire conventional wars rather than following one hero across a series. These books use large casts and shift among political leaders, soldiers, pilots, sailors, intelligence officers, and civilians.

1. Red Storm Rising (1986, with Tom Clancy): A Soviet energy crisis leads to a conventional attack on NATO, producing a sprawling war fought across the North Atlantic, Central Europe, the air, and the seas without relying on a nuclear exchange as its central premise.
2. Vortex (1991, with Patrick Larkin): A reactionary South African government resists political reform and triggers a conflict that pulls neighboring states, Cuba, and the United States toward a multi-sided regional war.
3. Cauldron (1993, with Patrick Larkin): Economic and political fracture in Europe creates a hostile new continental alliance and eventually a military confrontation involving the United States and its remaining partners.
4. Lash-Up (2015, with Chris Carlson): After China attacks American GPS satellites, the United States races to improvise and deploy an armed spacecraft before the loss of space infrastructure cripples its military and economy.

These novels are separate continuities and can be read in any order. Red Storm Rising is the best general starting point if you want Bond’s large-scale war-gaming approach in novel form.

Lash-Up began as a much shorter work

Lash-Up first appeared as a novella in Stephen Coonts’s military-fiction anthology Combat. Bond and Chris Carlson later expanded and updated the concept into a full-length 2015 novel.

The expanded novel should not be counted as a sequel to the novella. It is a fuller version of the same core scenario involving emergency American development of an armed spacecraft after attacks on U.S. satellites.

How Red Storm Rising fits with Tom Clancy

Red Storm Rising was written jointly by Tom Clancy and Larry Bond and became the book that launched Bond’s writing career. It is not part of the Jack Ryan continuity despite sometimes being shelved beside Clancy’s Ryan novels.

The novel uses its own characters and its own hypothetical NATO-Warsaw Pact war. No Hunt for Red October or Jack Ryan book is required before it.

Crash Dive and Bond’s submarine nonfiction

Crash Dive, published in 2010, is a collection of true submarine-combat stories rather than another Jerry Mitchell adventure.

It works naturally as companion reading for Dangerous Ground and Cold Choices because it shows the real undersea warfare tradition behind Bond’s fictional submarine operations.

The Mighty Fallen is a completely different kind of Bond book

The Mighty Fallen: Our Nation’s Greatest War Memorials, created with photographer F-stop Fitzgerald, examines American war memorials through photography, history, and remembrance.

It is nonfiction and has no connection to Jerry Mitchell, Red Phoenix, First Team, or Red Dragon Rising.

Harpoon came before Bond became a novelist

Larry Bond was already known as a naval game designer before his fiction career. He created Harpoon, a detailed modern naval warfare simulation that became influential among both hobbyists and professional military users.

That analytical background helps explain the structure of books such as Red Storm Rising, Red Phoenix, and the Jerry Mitchell series. Bond often treats logistics, sensors, weapons ranges, command decisions, and opposing-force capabilities as integral parts of the story rather than decorative technical detail.

A Larry Bond route for readers who want recurring characters

1. Dangerous Ground: Meet Jerry Mitchell as he enters submarines after losing his flying career.
2. Cold Choices: Continue Jerry’s development as a submarine officer during a dangerous Russian encounter.
3. Exit Plan: Follow him into a covert Iranian extraction mission.
4. Shattered Trident: See Jerry take command responsibility during a South China Sea war.
5. Fatal Thunder: Continue into a rogue nuclear-weapons conspiracy.
6. Arctic Gambit: Finish Jerry’s published career as a squadron commander facing Russian nuclear danger.
7. The Enemy Within: Then begin Bond’s two-book domestic counterterrorism sequence.
8. Day of Wrath: Complete the Thorn and Gray pairing.

A second route for readers who want full-scale wars

1. Red Storm Rising: Begin with NATO and Warsaw Pact conventional warfare on a continental scale.
2. Red Phoenix: Move to a Korean invasion scenario and war in East Asia.
3. Vortex: Shift to southern Africa and a three-sided regional conflict.
4. Cauldron: Return to Europe for a future crisis caused by political and economic fracture.
5. Red Phoenix Burning: Revisit Korea decades later as the North Korean regime collapses into civil war.

Do Bond’s standalones share one universe?

No reading order requires Vortex before Cauldron or Red Storm Rising before Red Phoenix. Each large war novel creates its own geopolitical scenario.

They feel related because Bond approaches war in a consistent way: the political cause matters, logistics matter, weapons performance matters, and neither side is represented by a single hero who can personally decide the outcome.

Larry Bond’s published fiction in career sequence

1. Red Storm Rising (1986): The Tom Clancy collaboration imagines a massive conventional NATO-Soviet war.
2. Red Phoenix (1989): North Korea exploits political weakness and launches another invasion of the South.
3. Vortex (1991): South Africa’s political crisis becomes a regional conventional war.
4. Cauldron (1993): A fractured Europe produces a new military confrontation with the United States.
5. The Enemy Within (1996): Domestic terrorism brings Bond’s military-thriller approach inside the United States.
6. Day of Wrath (1998): Returning investigators face another mass-casualty terrorist conspiracy.
7. Larry Bond’s First Team (2004): A secret unit hunts stolen radioactive material intended for a dirty bomb.
8. Dangerous Ground (2005): Jerry Mitchell begins his submarine career.
9. Angels of Wrath (2006): First Team confronts another extremist threat.
10. Fires of War (2006): Hidden nuclear weapons threaten renewed Korean war.
11. Soul of the Assassin (2008): The First Team pursues a sophisticated international killer network.
12. Cold Choices (2009): Jerry faces a Russian submarine disaster in the Barents Sea.
13. Shadows of War (2009): China’s engineered justification for invading Vietnam begins the Red Dragon Rising war.
14. Edge of War (2010): The China-Vietnam conflict expands and draws in additional forces.
15. Shock of War (2012): The regional war grows toward a broader international confrontation.
16. Exit Plan (2012): Jerry joins a covert extraction from Iran that goes badly wrong.
17. Blood of War (2013): The Red Dragon Rising conflict reaches its concluding phase.
18. Shattered Trident (2013): Jerry commands his submarine during a South China Sea conflict.
19. Lash-Up (2015): China attacks U.S. satellites and America races to deploy an armed spacecraft.
20. Red Phoenix Burning (2016): North Korean collapse triggers civil war and a nuclear-security crisis.
21. Fatal Thunder (2016): Jerry becomes involved in stopping rogue nuclear weapons.
22. Arctic Gambit (2018): Jerry leads a submarine squadron against a Russian nuclear attack plan.

This career list is useful for seeing how Bond moved from giant conventional-war scenarios toward recurring operational characters and submarine fiction. It should not replace individual series order when continuity matters.

Current Larry Bond publication status

Arctic Gambit, published in 2018, remains Bond’s latest principal novel as of this September 2026 update. It is also the sixth Jerry Mitchell book.

No seventh Jerry Mitchell novel, fifth Red Dragon Rising installment, third Red Phoenix novel, or fifth First Team book has been announced.

Bond remains strongly associated with military simulation and the Admiralty Trilogy game system, including Harpoon, even though his recent fiction output has slowed.

Larry Bond reading order FAQs

What Larry Bond book should I read first?

Red Storm Rising is the best introduction to Bond’s large-scale military-thriller style. Dangerous Ground is better if you want a recurring protagonist.

How many Jerry Mitchell books are there?

There are six, beginning with Dangerous Ground and ending currently with Arctic Gambit.

Is Red Phoenix Burning a sequel?

Yes. It returns to the Korean setting and some characters of Red Phoenix while depicting the collapse of the North Korean regime decades later.

Is Red Storm Rising a Jack Ryan novel?

No. It was co-written with Tom Clancy but uses a separate continuity and does not feature Jack Ryan.

How many Red Dragon Rising books are there?

There are four: Shadows of War, Edge of War, Shock of War, and Blood of War.

How many First Team books are there?

There are four published First Team novels, all written with Jim DeFelice.

Is Lash-Up part of a series?

No. The full-length Lash-Up is a standalone novel expanded from Bond’s earlier novella of the same concept.

What is Larry Bond’s latest novel?

Arctic Gambit, published in 2018, remains his latest principal novel as of this update.

The clearest way through Larry Bond’s bibliography

Choose based on scale. For one officer’s developing career, begin with Jerry Mitchell in Dangerous Ground and read all six submarine novels in order. For whole nations at war, use Red Storm Rising, Red Phoenix, Vortex, and Cauldron as independent scenarios.

First Team gives you compact covert operations, while Red Dragon Rising should be treated as one continuous four-book Chinese-Vietnamese war. The Enemy Within and Day of Wrath form another useful two-book path. Keeping those strands separate preserves the continuity that matters without forcing Bond’s very different military scenarios into one artificial universe.