Books'n'Bytes

The Review

Tom Clancy: Commander-in-Chief

by Mark Greaney

Tom Clancy: Commander-in-Chief

Buy this book

Books N Bytes participates in affiliate programs including Amazon Associates and Bookshop.org. We may earn a commission when you purchase through our links at no extra cost to you.

Tom Clancy: Commander-in-Chief is the Mark Greaney 2015 Ryanverse continuation novel, with President Jack Ryan and the established Campus operatives working against a Russian black-operations campaign that has been gradually destabilizing several NATO-adjacent regional politics. The book was published after Clancy's 2013 death and is functionally a Greaney solo novel in the franchise, with Clancy's name on the cover as branding.

Greaney's strength in Commander-in-Chief is the propulsive multi-thread structure he had been perfecting across the collaboration. The Moscow, Sevastopol, and Washington sections all carry the kind of tactical detail the Clancy form requires. Jack Ryan Jr., Dom Caruso, and John Clark each get appropriate page time. Fans of Brad Thor's Athena Project novels or of Daniel Silva's Gabriel Allon series will recognize the post-Putin political-thriller register operating at its commercial peak.

The book is long. The political analysis underneath is sharper than the cover positioning suggests.

Four stars. A confident late-period Ryanverse continuation. The Tom Clancy: Commander-in-Chief Mark Greaney novel works as an entry to the Jack Ryan continuation series. New readers to Greaney's solo work should start with The Gray Man series.

Related reads

If you liked Tom Clancy: Commander-in-Chief

Locked On

Locked On

by Mark Greaney

Locked On by Mark Greaney review. The 3rd Greaney-co-authored Jack Ryan thriller with Tom Clancy. The Campus and Jack Ryan Sr. against a Pakistani-nuclear plot.

The Lincoln Lawyer

The Lincoln Lawyer

by Michael Connelly

The Lincoln Lawyer by Michael Connelly 2005 review. Mickey Haller, a Los Angeles defense attorney who works out of the back of a Lincoln Town Car, takes a case that pulls him into something larger. The novel that launched a series and a film franchise.

Big Little Lies

Big Little Lies

by Liane Moriarty

Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty 2014 review. Three mothers at an Australian elementary school converge on a kindergarten Trivia Night where someone will die. The contemporary domestic-suspense novel that defined the late-2010s book-club shelf.

In the Woods

In the Woods

by Tana French

In the Woods by Tana French 2007 review. Dublin Murder Squad detective Rob Ryan is assigned to a child murder in the same woods where his two best friends disappeared twenty years earlier. The Edgar winner that launched the strongest contemporary literary-crime series.

Tell No One

Tell No One

by Harlan Coben

Tell No One by Harlan Coben 2001 review. A pediatrician receives an email containing a video clip of his murdered wife, eight years after her death. The single best Coben standalone and the one that defined the contemporary domestic-thriller register.

Cold Steel Rain

Cold Steel Rain

by Kenneth Abel

The first Danny Chaisson novel. Kenneth Abel writing New Orleans politics and corruption with a New Orleans-specific moral exhaustion you cannot fake.

More by this author

Read more from Mark Greaney