The President is Missing; A Novel

New York: Little, Brown & Company and Alfred A. Knopf, 2018. First Edition [Stated], First Printing [Stated]. Hardcover. Very good/Very good. David Burnett (author photograph). [8], 513, [7] pages. Signed by both authors on a book associated bookplate affixed on fep. The President Is Missing is a political thriller novel by former U.S. President Bill Clinton and novelist James Patterson published in June 2018. It is Clinton's first novel. Clinton and Patterson also teamed up to write a standalone novel with all new characters, The President's Daughter, released in June 2021. The book topped The New York Times Best Seller list by the June 24 edition. The book's first week sales were the highest in the adult fiction genre since the 2015 release of Go Set a Watchman and the highest in fiction since the November 2017 release of Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Getaway. The book again topped the Best Seller list for the July 1 edition, the July 8 edition, and then again for the July 15 edition. William Jefferson Clinton (né Blythe III; born August 19, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 42nd president of the United States from 1993 to 2001. Clinton was selected as Time's "Man of the Year" in 1992, James Brendan Patterson (born March 22, 1947) is an American author. Among his works are the Alex Cross, Michael Bennett, Women's Murder Club, Maximum Ride, Daniel X, NYPD Red, Witch & Wizard, Private and Middle School series, as well as many stand-alone thrillers, non-fiction, and romance novels. He was the first person to sell 1 million e-books. In November 2015, Patterson received the Literarian Award from the National Book Foundation. The President Is Missing confronts a threat so huge that it jeopardizes not just Pennsylvania Avenue and Wall Street, but all of America. Uncertainty and fear grip the nation. There are whispers of cyberterror and espionage and a traitor in the Cabinet. Even the President himself becomes a suspect, and then he disappears from public view . . . Set over the course of three days, The President Is Missing sheds a stunning light upon the inner workings and vulnerabilities of our nation. Filled with information that only a former Commander-in-Chief could know, this is the most authentic, terrifying novel to come along in many years. The book begins with U.S. President Jonathan Lincoln Duncan preparing to defend himself against the charge of negotiating with a terrorist. It has been discovered that the president made a phone call to Suliman Cindoruk, the leader of the cyberterrorist group Sons of Jihad, and that he thwarted an attack on Cindoruk's life. Duncan's daughter Lily, who is studying in Paris, receives a coded message from a young Eastern European woman named Nina. Lily tells her father about the strange person and the message, and she is requested to come back home immediately. Determined to know the source of the leak, the president invites Nina to the White House. She tells the president that in order to get the full story, he must meet with her partner at Nationals Park on Friday. Duncan meets the partner, named Augie. As Augie and the president leave the stadium, an assassin contracted by Suliman Cindoruk shoots and kills Nina. The Secret Service intervenes and extracts Duncan and Augie. The president's convoy heads to Virginia, but they are ambushed again. Two Secret Service agents are killed, but the President is unharmed and drives off with Augie. He arrives at a safe house, where he learns that Nina and Augie created and distributed a highly destructive computer virus called "Dark Ages" for Cindoruk, but they warned the US when they realized what it would do. The virus is scheduled to take effect in a few hours. It is an attack that would completely destroy the data on every internet-connected device in the US, leaving the country vulnerable to outside attack and forcing the government to retreat from its foreign policy objectives. Duncan reveals that the US military has quickly built a rudimentary international network to maintain defensive abilities in the event of the Dark Ages virus launching. The cybersecurity team, with Duncan's help, discover a way of rendering the virus ineffective, so they test it on a server at the Pentagon. As they return to the White House, Duncan reveals that assembling his team to guess the password was a ruse to discover the leaker. He had already obtained the password from Nina's text messages and entered it himself. The president confronts his chief of staff and tells her that he has evidence that she leaked "Dark Ages", and she tipped off Suliman as well. Duncan learns that Suliman had been sponsored by Russia and a faction in the House of Saud, both of whom wanted to weaken the superpower status of the US so they could expand their territory without interference. The president's popularity soars.