Techno-Archaeological Thriller · Historical Fiction

John W.
Taggart

Three series · Twelve books · One architecture

Ancient evidence. Hidden patterns. The truth buried twelve thousand years ago — and the people willing to kill to keep it that way.

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News & Updates

Available Now March 2026

The Recurrence Protocol is available on Amazon

The debut novel in The Protocol Series is now available in paperback and Kindle. Book 1 of a four-book series following NASA astronomer Daniel Mercer.

Series 2026

The Connected Universe — 12 books mapped

Three interconnected series spanning 2019 to 2031. Three protagonists who never meet. One architecture that only becomes visible to the reader who completes all three.

Coming Soon 2026

The Storm's Alibi — in development

A historical novel set during the 1900 Galveston hurricane. Galveston, September 8. The deadliest natural disaster in American history. The perfect alibi.

Readers on The Recurrence Protocol

What They're Saying

"

A debut that reads like a career's worth of craft — the kind of thriller that makes you distrust every history textbook you've ever read.

Early Reader
"

Taggart does what the best writers in this genre do: he makes the science feel inevitable and the history feel dangerous. I finished it in two sittings.

Early Reader
"

The Recurrence Protocol sits in the tradition of Brown and Rollins but with a colder, more grounded intelligence. The architecture is unlike anything I've read in the genre.

Early Reader

The Connected Universe

Twelve Books. Three Series.
One Architecture.

Three protagonists who never meet — except in the reader, who holds all three simultaneously. Each series is independently complete as a thriller. Together they describe something that took twelve thousand years to finish. The full architecture becomes visible only to the reader who completes all three series.

The Protocol Series

4 Books · 2026–2031 Daniel Mercer · NASA Astronomer
Book 1
The Recurrence Protocol
2026
Book 2
The Alignment Protocol
2027
Book 3
The Origin Protocol
2029
Book 4
The Terminal Protocol
2030–2031

The Directive Series

4 Books · 2027–2029 Aimee Mercer · Investigative Journalist
Book 1
The Wardenclyffe Directive
2027
Book 2
The HAARP Directive
2027
Book 3
The Philadelphia Directive
2028
Book 4
The NDA Directive
2029

The Sequence Series

4 Books · 2028–2030 Wren Fontaine · Geophysicist
Book 1
The Draco Sequence
2028
Book 2
The Schumann Sequence
2029
Book 3
The Laschamps Sequence
2029
Book 4
The Node Sequence
2030

Eva's Heir Series

5 Books · In Development Spy Thriller
Five-Book Series · In Development
Buenos Aires. London. Eighty years of buried history and the two heirs left to decide what to do with it.
Coming

Standalone Novels

Historical Fiction · 2026
The Storm's Alibi

Galveston, September 1900. The deadliest hurricane in American history. The perfect alibi. A story of what catastrophe conceals — and what it cannot.

Book Page →

The Author

John W. Taggart

There's a particular kind of unease that comes from realizing the past isn't settled — that the ground beneath accepted history is softer than it looks. That unease is where John W. Taggart's fiction begins.

Writing at the intersection of archaeology, science, and suspense, John builds thrillers that treat the historical record not as background but as evidence — layered, contested, and occasionally dangerous. His debut novel, The Recurrence Protocol, is the first book in a twelve-novel connected universe spanning three series. Three protagonists. Three science registers. One architecture that only becomes fully visible to the reader who completes all three.

He lives on Tiki Island on the Texas Gulf Coast, within sight of the waters that consumed Galveston on September 8, 1900 — the same waters at the heart of his first standalone novel, The Storm's Alibi.