First of all, Jack Stewart is an author I truly enjoy reading, so when I heard he was stepping into the Ryanverse, I was chomping at the bit to get my hands on it. The good news? Stewart understands exactly what makes a Jack Ryan Jr. story work.
Oh, Jack Jr! You somehow have a talent for being in the right place at the wrong time, or maybe the wrong place at the right time, because trouble seems to have your name written all over it.
The story begins with what appears to be a straightforward investigation for Jack Jr. A ship captain is trying to file a $150 million insurance claim after radioactive material goes missing, and Jack is there in his “white job” investigating the insurance angle. But Jack’s other life, his “black job” working with The Campus, is where things get much darker. The Campus operates even further off the books than the CIA, and when those two worlds collide, things get complicated fast.
The discovery of the Soviet-era underwater installation known as Siren changes everything. Carla Bennett and her crew discover it through advanced AI sonar technology, and what they find is terrifying: an abandoned Soviet underwater base designed around a tsunami-generating weapon using nuclear warheads powerful enough to create devastation on an unimaginable scale.
Can we talk about Carla Bennett? A returning character from Line of Demarcation, she is whip-smart, capable, and an absolute badass. I loved seeing her brought back into this story because she is exactly the kind of character who belongs in this world. (and she said Jack is pretty).
One of my favorite parts of this book was learning about the technology involved in underwater operations. The SRDRs, ROVs, dive equipment, and the challenges of operating in that environment were fascinating. Stewart clearly knows his subject, but more importantly, he knows how to make the reader care about the details. I found myself completely absorbed in a world I knew very little about.
There were moments when I genuinely felt claustrophobic. Jack’s underwater scenes, especially when he is trapped upside down in a volcanic crack (IYKYK), had me questioning every life choice that ever led me to enjoy books about people voluntarily going into places where humans were never meant to be.
Pressure Depth is exactly what I want from a military thriller: intelligent, detailed, high-stakes, and filled with characters who feel like they belong.
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