CG Cooper Books in Order
Explore CG Cooper books in order, with quick summaries, connected series guides, and simple advice on where to start with Corps Justice and more.
Last updated: July 6, 2026
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Publication Order
40 books
Back to War
by CG Cooper
2012
After a gang initiation goes horribly wrong, former Marine Cal Stokes loses his fiancee and is pulled into the criminal underworld. He uses his training and his father's company to hunt back.
Council of Patriots
by CG Cooper
2012
A butchered woman and a blackmailed congressman pull Cal Stokes into a wider conspiracy. The farther he digs, the clearer it becomes that the danger reaches into powerful places.
Awakening
by CG Cooper
2013
Ten-year-old Benjamin Dragon discovers he has powers he cannot explain after a bully is thrown without being touched. It is the start of a secret-world adventure with real heart and real danger.
Prime Asset
by CG Cooper
2013
An old enemy resurfaces, an employee is kidnapped, and Cal Stokes is forced back into the fire. The attack is personal, which only makes the response more dangerous.
Adrift
by CG Cooper
2014
Fresh out of the Marine Corps, Daniel Briggs wakes up in Defuniak Springs, Florida, hungover and missing part of the night. A powerful local family wants payback, and a young girl's death may land on him too.
Disavowed
by CG Cooper
2014
Off the books and deep in CIA territory, a Marine operative faces a mission where backup may never come. When you are disavowed, survival can matter more than victory.
Lethal Misconduct
by CG Cooper
2014
A possible ray of hope draws powerful enemies into motion, turning promise into danger. Cal Stokes has to move fast before the people behind the scheme make the cost even higher.
Moral Imperative
by CG Cooper
2014
A growing Islamic threat and an ignored fighting force put Cal Stokes into another conflict with global stakes. This one asks not just what can be done, but what must be done.
National Burden
by CG Cooper
2014
A new president faces pressure from every direction as threats gather at home and abroad. Cal Stokes and his team are pushed into a crisis that feels national in every sense.
Presidential Shift
by CG Cooper
2014
With the vice president dead and the administration under strain, the president turns to Cal Stokes for help. To stop the next disaster, Cal has to uncover the rot inside Washington.
Chain of Command
by CG Cooper
2015
A new Marine Commandant and an insidious threat put Cal Stokes into another high-level fight. This is a military thriller with pressure from both inside the system and outside it.
Fallen
by CG Cooper
2015
Daniel Briggs drifts into Old Orchard Beach, Maine, hoping to stay lost a little longer. Instead, he finds himself caught between competing evils and forced to choose a side.
Legacy
by CG Cooper
2015
Benjamin Dragon learns that power is only part of the story. Family history, hidden enemies, and the weight of inheritance make his second adventure bigger and more dangerous.
Papal Justice
by CG Cooper
2015
Brutal killings and kidnappings in Mexico pull Cal Stokes into a mission with religious and political stakes. The danger is immediate, but the larger forces behind it run deeper.
The Zimmer Doctrine
by CG Cooper
2015
A bold presidential doctrine becomes the center of a new storm, drawing allies and enemies into the same fight. Cal Stokes has to protect more than people this time, he has to protect an idea.
Broken
by CG Cooper
2016
Trying to find peace in Seattle, Daniel Briggs takes a day job and keeps his head down. Peace does not last, and the threat that follows may bring out the worst in him.
Genesis
by CG Cooper
2016
Benjamin Dragon's story reaches a bigger scale as powers, enemies, and responsibilities all grow. The stakes are no longer just personal, but the choices still are.
Liberty Down
by CG Cooper
2016
What starts like a European break turns deadly fast as spies, secrets, and enemies converge. Paris, Amsterdam, and Vienna are not nearly as relaxing as they should be.
Sabotage
by CG Cooper
2016
A presidential mission begins with purpose and quickly slides toward disaster. Cal Stokes and his allies have to sort out what went wrong before sabotage becomes something even worse.
The Patriot Protocol
by CG Cooper
2016
Year 2057, ten years after the Collapse, Ryker is doing what he can to keep his family alive in the Tennessee Zone. When that fragile safety is taken away, he is forced into a dangerous alliance with what remains of government.
Backdrop
by CG Cooper
2017
This Corps Justice side story leans into espionage, hidden agendas, and the dangerous gap between the public story and the real one. What matters most is happening behind the scenes.
Breakout
by CG Cooper
2017
Alex Knight is thrown into a high-pressure fight built around confinement, pursuit, and survival. It is a lean thriller that runs on momentum and hard choices.
Sins Of The Father
by CG Cooper
2017
A buried political sin comes roaring back, and Cal Stokes is caught in the fallout. Old blood and old ambition make a brutal combination in this Corps Justice entry.
Tested
by CG Cooper
2017
Daniel Briggs faces another brutal trial, and this time the fight is as much about identity as survival. For a man already hanging by a thread, every decision cuts deeper.
The Last Builder
by CG Cooper
2017
A standalone thriller about pressure, survival, and a central figure other people desperately need or fear. The tension comes from what can still be built when everything else is breaking down.
What Lies Hidden
by CG Cooper
2017
After a college student falls to her death, a CIA plant on campus starts uncovering something far more dangerous. This thriller mixes espionage, higher education, and a quietly spreading extremist threat.
A Darker Path
by CG Cooper
2018
Truth and lies blur as Cal Stokes heads into one of the murkier corners of the Corps Justice world. The mission is dangerous enough, but the deeper problem is knowing whom to believe.
A Life Worth Taking
by CG Cooper
2018
Ex-Navy SEAL Tom Greer lives two lives, airline pilot by day, ruthless killer by choice. As his targets and his past start closing in, the question becomes whether his code can survive him.
The Nicene Cipher
by CG Cooper
2018
Ridley Shane is sent to help the pope unravel a conspiracy built around a hidden religious document. If the truth gets out, it could shake the Christian world to its foundation.
To Live
by CG Cooper
2018
A standalone centered on survival, grief, and the hard work of deciding what still matters. Cooper keeps the stakes personal, then lets the pressure tighten from there.
Higgins
by CG Cooper
2019
Al Higgins is a gifted interrogator pulled into the CIA's long game as new threats begin to take shape. It is a quieter thriller than Cooper's military books, but no less tense.
The Warden's Son
by CG Cooper
2019
One summer in 1987 changes ten-year-old Jimmy Allen forever when the son of a prison warden befriends an inmate. It is a coming-of-age story with danger, memory, and real emotional bite.
Blood of My Kin
by CG Cooper
2020
Tom Greer's violent private code leads him deeper into family history and blood ties he cannot outrun. The action is sharp, but the real damage is personal.
Matters of State
by CG Cooper
2020
From Paris to Moscow, powerful players in Russia and America set their sights on Cal Stokes and the Jefferson Group. The team is in over its head long before it knows who is moving the board.
The Man From Belarus
by CG Cooper
2020
A hidden sin from the past opens a dangerous new trail, and the fallout reaches far beyond one man. Cal Stokes has to untangle old secrets before they become fresh bloodshed.
The First
by CG Cooper
2021
Set around Lone Peak Ranch in southern Montana, this story links wounded veterans across different eras. It blends suspense, history, and the stubborn hope that damaged lives can still be rebuilt.
The Next Dawn
by CG Cooper
2021
A standalone thriller about endurance, loss, and the search for hope after everything changes. Cooper keeps the focus tight on survival, family, and what people become when the old rules are gone.
Payback
by CG Cooper
2022
Old enemies and unfinished business collide in a mission shaped by revenge. Cal Stokes has handled plenty of danger before, but this time the past wants something back.
The Second
by CG Cooper
2022
Former Navy SEAL DJ Bannon arrives in Lone Peak carrying old wounds and finds fresh trouble waiting for him. In this series, healing and danger always seem to travel together.
Black Mist
by CG Cooper
2023
A new threat drags Cal Stokes and his team back into the shadows, where bad intelligence and hidden loyalties can kill fast. The mission is big, but the trust issues may be even deadlier.
Where should I start?
If you want the core Cooper experience: Back to War → Council of Patriots → Prime Asset
If you want the darker Daniel Briggs branch: Adrift → Fallen → Broken → Tested
If you want a morally gray vigilante thriller: A Life Worth Taking → Blood of My Kin
If you want small-town suspense with a veteran heart: The First → The Second
If you want younger-reader adventure: Awakening → Legacy → Genesis
Author bio
CG Cooper writes the kind of thrillers that move fast, hit hard, and stay close to the people carrying the weight. He grew up in a Navy family and has said those years were shaped by constant movement, military life, and a steady diet of Dungeons and Dragons. That mix still shows in his books. They are grounded in service and loyalty, but they also leave room for imagination, myth, and the strange ways a past life keeps following people around.
He knows the world he writes about.
After earning a degree in foreign affairs from the University of Virginia, Cooper was commissioned into the United States Marine Corps and served six years as an infantry officer. His final duty station brought him to the Nashville area, and that part of Tennessee became home after his time in uniform ended. That matters because so much of his fiction feels lived in. Even when the plots stretch from Washington to Moscow or move into Vatican secrets and covert operations, the characters still talk and think like people who have dirt on their boots.
Nashville stuck.
His writing career began with Back to War, a side project that grew out of a desire to reconnect with his Marine years. That novel introduced Cal Stokes and opened the door to the larger Corps Justice universe, which has since expanded into multiple connected series. What started as one book turned into a long-running body of work about veterans, operators, spies, and wounded people trying to do one decent thing in a crooked situation.
A lot of readers first come to Cooper through Back to War and stay for the team around Cal Stokes. Others end up gravitating to darker branches of the same world, especially Adrift, which follows the haunted sniper Daniel Briggs, or A Life Worth Taking, which introduces Tom Greer, an ex-Navy SEAL turned airline pilot who is not nearly as ordinary as he looks. He has also shown a different side in books like The First, with its Montana setting and veteran-centered suspense, and Awakening, the first Benjamin Dragon novel, where he shifts into younger-reader adventure without losing his interest in pressure, loyalty, and hard choices.
He does not stay in one lane for long.
Even so, there are through-lines. Cooper keeps coming back to brotherhood, faith, violence, second chances, and the cost of carrying old damage into a new life. His heroes are often former military men, but not polished action figures. They are bruised, stubborn, loyal people who make mistakes, keep going, and usually have to decide what justice looks like when the official version is not enough.
His success has been substantial, but it is easiest to talk about it in plain facts. He is a USA Today and Amazon bestselling author, his books have been downloaded more than two million times, and Chain of Command won the 2020 James Webb Award from the Marine Corps Heritage Foundation. Those details fit the work. Cooper writes fiction that clearly connects with readers who want momentum, emotional stakes, and characters who earn each other the hard way.
These days he lives just south of Nashville with his wife, three children, and their German shorthaired pointer, Liberty. He has also said he answers reader emails himself, which feels in character. His books may deal in shadow wars and conspiracies, but the voice behind them comes across as direct, practical, and deeply interested in the people at the center of the blast.
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