Jack Arbor Books in Order

Jack Arbor grew up in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and he has carried a longtime interest in Cold War history into his fiction. Before publishing novels, he built a career in technology, a job he still balances with the work of writing thrillers at night and on weekends.

His route into fiction came through the questions that kept pulling at him: what happens when old political systems, family secrets, and personal loyalties collide?

That interest became the Max Austin novels. Arbor began the series with The Russian Assassin in 2016, introducing Max as a former KGB assassin who has tried to disappear into a quieter life in Paris. A family crisis and an act of terrorism pull him back into danger, then into a larger struggle with the consequences of his past.

The series grew well beyond its original three-book plan.

In The Pursuit, Max is still trying to protect his family while digging into a conspiracy linked to Soviet history. The Attack puts him at the center of an international manhunt after a London bombing. Later books, including The Hunt, The Abyss, and Endgame, keep the pressure on as Max faces enemies, intelligence agencies, and secrets surrounding his father and the powerful forces targeting his family.

Arbor's books are built around connected character arcs, so Max's story works best in order. The action moves through cities and borderlands across Europe, Russia, and the United States, but the emotional center stays close to home: Max wants to keep the people he loves safe while figuring out whether someone with his history can ever truly leave it behind. Cat & Mouse, a novella set before the main series, offers another look at Max's earlier life in Paris.

He has also widened that fictional world with new protagonists. The Japanese Assassin begins the Kira Nomura Thriller series, following a young woman who wakes wounded, without memories, and discovers she has the skills of a trained killer. Ghosts of Mendoza launches the Joe Pound adventures, centered on a former Army Ranger struggling to fit into civilian life in Los Angeles.

The connective tissue is clear: international stakes, people with complicated pasts, and characters who have to make hard calls before time runs out.

Outside the novels, Arbor works as a technology executive. He lives near Aspen, Colorado, with his wife, Jill, and the two enjoy hiking and trail running in the Roaring Fork Valley. He has also written about his fondness for sake and jazz, plus the coffee he and Jill miss from the East Coast.

That mix of day job, mountain life, and late-night writing suits the way he approaches his stories. The books move fast, but they make room for the baggage characters carry with them.