As President of the United States, Jack Ryan has faced many challenges, but none have been as personal as this and never has he been this helpless in the face of evil in the latest entry in Tom Clancy's #1 New York Times bestselling series. Father Pat West, S.J. was a buddy of the young Jack Ryan when they were both undergraduates at Boston College. Father West left a comfortable job in the philosophy department at Georgetown to work with the poor in Indonesia. Now he's been arrested and accused of blasphemy against Islam. President Ryan is desperate to rescue his old friend, but he can't move officially against the Indonesians. Instead he relies on the Campus team to find out who is framing the priest. There's one other twist to the story. President Ryan discovers a text on his private cell phone from the priest warning about a coming attack against America... Editorial Reviews 10/21/2019 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. (Nov.) - Publishers Weekly 2019-10-14 Jack Ryan is a hands-on president in Cameron's latest Tom Clancy techno-thriller (Oath of Office, 2018, etc.). Developers have built artificial intelligence into a computer application called Calliope. Nearly sentient and thought of as female, she's "no ordinary gaming software" and can take over any connected electronic device and perform any mission asked of her. But don't call her just a virus. Calliope is a predator, "fairly bursting at the seams as she sought new challenges." Of course the Chinese military lusts after her like Dr. Strangelove lusted after nukes, so their spies are "all over the damn place." Meanwhile, Sen. Michelle Chadwick, who harbors a "visceral hatred of all things Jack Ryan," is shown a video of herself in the sack with a Chinese agent (oops!) and is persuaded to get close to Ryan. That's a bit awkward, but she agrees to approach the president with an olive branch and then politically destroy him. The Chinese plot spreads a wide net, entrapping Father Pat West, an ex-CIA agent and friend of Ryan's, who's thrown in jail in Indonesia. The poor guy is falsely accused of proselytizing Muslims and faces an uncertain future, and Ryan wants to go to Indonesia and personally get him released. First lady and ophthalmologist Dr. Cathy Ryan plays an important role by assisting on a little girl's eye surgery. And somewhere out in the field Jack Junior does his bit, making this a Ryan family affair. Of course the story is fun, as the Clancy yarns always are, but some backstories feel like filler necessary to reach 500 pages. Cameron's writing channels the great man's style to a T, but one day maybe Calliope will get the mission to take over the series and continue it forever. Imagine three generations--hell, four--of Ryans in the White House. This one's as good as all the others and those to come. Read and enjoy, Clancy fans. 'Til next time. - Kirkus Reviews