Locked On
Fiction
By Tom Clancy
Reviewed by M. Andersen
5 out of 5 stars
The newest of Tom Clancy’s excellent series; Locked On continues the story of Jack Ryan Jr. and the Campus, a shadowy private intelligence organization. JackRyan Sr. is running for president against incumbent Ed Kealty. Ryan and Kealty hate each other based on disagreements on policy and the fact that Kealty resigned his Vice Presidency just before the president was killed. Kealty pries deep into Ryan Sr.’s CIA past to try to find something to sabotage his campaign. Meanwhile, when Jack Ryan Jr. is helping to guard against terrorist threats around the world, he discovers a suspicious Pakistani general that looks remarkably like a terrorist supposedly killed several years before in a drone attack. At home, Kealty’s CIA investigation turned up evidence that John Clark, a longtime friend of Jack Ryan Sr. and member of Jack Ryan Jr.’s team, had done paramilitary work for somebody (The Campus) after being dismissed from the Special Activities division of CIA where he had worked for many years. A massive manhunt for Clark forces him to flee the country. Can Jack Jr. figure out what the mysterious general plans to do without him? Will this negative publicity ruin the Ryan campaign?
The thrilling plot of Locked On makes you want to keep on reading until you finish the book. Tom Clancy uses foreshadowing and draws the reader in, bringing in real world issues such as the legal implications of captured terrorists. Locked On is a great story that anyone with an interest in the U.S. government of foreign affairs will not want to miss.
