October 21, 2019
The senior Jack Ryan, who’s the U.S. president, takes center stage in Cameron’s solid third entry in Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan franchise (after 2018’s Tom Clancy: Oath of Office), which also features Jack Ryan Jr., who now works for the Campus, a secret agency. Geoff Noonan, a brilliant software engineer at a computer games company, has come up with artificial intelligence software known as Calliope that promises to revolutionize the AI industry. Chinese agents in Indonesia murder Noonan and steal the software. There, an American priest, Fr. Pat West, is witness to Noonan’s death. West, a former CIA agent, is taken prisoner, but he manages to send an email about what’s happening to his old friend, President Jack Ryan. When Jack finds West has been seized, he shows what a very angry man can do with unlimited resources, even when he’s not allowed to throw a punch. All the regular members of the Campus gang perform to their usual standards, and the plot unreels smoothly as it always does with Cameron at the helm. Readers will look forward to the further adventures of Ryan father and son. Agent: Jennifer Rudolph Walsh, WME.