Tom Clancy: Shadow of the Dragon

At the start of Cameron’s strong fourth entry in Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan franchise (after 2019’s Tom Clancy: Code of Honor), a sonar buoy in the Arctic Ocean relays to a scientist aboard a research vessel what sounds to her like “Banging metal. Screams. Human screams.” After this attention-getter, the scene shifts to Ho Chi Minh City, where John Clark, the director of operations of the secret organization known as the Campus, is training his director of transportation in the finer points of spycraft. Elsewhere, the rest of the Campus team, including Jack Ryan Jr., is investigating an industrial espionage case that connects to a Chinese attack on an offshore drilling rig. Meanwhile, a top Chinese scientist, Liu Wangshu, who has invented groundbreaking developments in submarine technology, has gone missing, and no one—Chinese or American—knows where he is. Various plots and subplots, along with the usual stories about weapons, geography, and history, plus a few romantic entanglements, keep the pages turning. This is classic Clancy—only new and improved. Agent: Jennifer Rudolph Walsh, WME. (Nov.)