The President's Daughter: A Thriller

The President’s Daughter (2021) is a political thriller co-authored by James Patterson and Bill Clinton. As the 42nd president of the United States, Clinton provides insight into the world of the presidency and international crises, while Patterson is a globally best-selling author known for his numerous thriller series. The novel, a #1 New York Times bestseller, is a standalone follow-up to their first collaboration, The President Is Missing. 

Set against a backdrop of contemporary geopolitical tensions in post-Muammar Gaddafi Libya and involving China’s global influence, The President’s Daughter follows former US President Matthew Keating. When a terrorist kidnaps his daughter to exact revenge for a military raid Keating authorized, the former Navy SEAL must launch a private, unsanctioned rescue mission. The novel explores themes including The Personal Consequences of Political Acts, The Self-Perpetuating Cycle of Vengeance, and Legal Authority as an Obstacle to Decisive Action.

This guide refers to the 2022 Little, Brown and Company trade paperback edition.

Content Warning: The source material and guide feature depictions of death, graphic violence, racism, and cursing.

Plot Summary

The novel opens with Navy Chief Nick Zeppos of the elite combat unit SEAL Team Six leading a raid in the Nafusa Mountains of Libya to kill the notorious terrorist Asim Al-Asheed. The mission receives a personal call of support from President Matthew Keating, a former SEAL, who references a fellow SEAL, Boyd Tanner, whom Al-Asheed crucified. Unbeknownst to the Americans, a senior Chinese Ministry of State security officer, Jiang Lijun, whose father was killed in a US bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade in 1999, learns of the raid and covertly tips off Al-Asheed’s forces. The SEALs initially raid the wrong compound due to a mapping error. When they reach the correct location, the main building explodes from a booby trap, killing Al-Asheed’s wife and three daughters. Two SEALs are killed and three wounded, while Al-Asheed escapes.

In the White House Situation Room, President Keating, Vice President Pamela Barnes, and the national security team monitor the failed raid. Against the advice of his staff, Keating insists on taking full public responsibility for the civilian deaths. He delivers a televised address apologizing for the incident and offering financial compensation to the victims’ families. This act of contrition is viewed as a political mistake by Vice President Barnes and her ambitious husband, Richard, who see an opportunity to undermine Keating. Meanwhile, Al-Asheed, now in hiding, learns of his family’s death and vows revenge against Keating, specifically targeting his teenage daughter, Melanie, whom everyone calls Mel.

The political fallout from the raid damages Keating’s standing, and he is eventually defeated for his party’s nomination by Vice President Barnes, who goes on to win the presidency. On Inauguration Day, Keating, his wife Samantha, and Mel leave the White House. Samantha, an archaeologist, accepts a professorship at Boston University, while Keating and Mel move to a secluded lakeside home in New Hampshire.

The narrative jumps forward two years into Keating’s post-presidency life. Keating settles into a quiet routine, protected by a small Secret Service detail led by Special Agent in Charge David Stahl. Mel, now 19 and no longer eligible for Secret Service protection, is a student at Dartmouth College. She plans a hiking trip on Mount Rollins with her boyfriend, Tim Kenyon. Al-Asheed and his cousin Faraj, a former film student with skills in special effects, use a drone and publicly available information from Dartmouth’s website to track Mel. They intercept the couple on the trail, kidnap Mel, and murder Tim with a single gunshot to the head.

Local hikers discover Tim’s body, and a massive law enforcement search begins. Just before learning of the kidnapping, Keating receives an unofficial warning from Deputy National Security Advisor Sarah Palumbo about a credible terrorist threat against him. He is immediately secured in his home’s safe room. Al-Asheed releases a video to Al Jazeera showing Mel alive and holding a current newspaper. He demands the release of three prisoners, a $100 million bitcoin ransom, and a presidential pardon. In the Oval Office, President Barnes resolves to follow US policy and refuses to negotiate. A tip from a local police officer leads the FBI Hostage Rescue Team (HRT) to a house in New Hampshire. The raid proves to be a diversion, as the house is occupied by college students who were lured there. Samantha deduces that Mel was likely smuggled out of the area by a floatplane, evading the police barrier.

With the ransom deadline passed, Al-Asheed releases a second, graphic video showing Mel’s apparent beheading with a saber. The world, including Keating and Samantha, believes she is dead. A disgraced forensic scientist, Rodney Pace, contacts Agent Stahl with proof that the execution video is a deepfake. Soon after, a Dartmouth geology professor, Trent Youngblood, confirms Keating’s suspicion that the rock formation in the video is from Libya’s Nafusa Mountains, not New Hampshire. Realizing that Mel is alive, Keating resolves to rescue her himself.

Keating assembles a small, off-the-books team: Agent Stahl; Navy SEALs Nick Zeppos and Alejandro Lopez; and NSA operative Claire Boone, who was a high school friend of Mel’s. Keating gathers intelligence from his contacts, including the retired head of Mossad, Danny Cohen, and a former Saudi intelligence official, Ahmad Bin Nayef. He secures covert military transport from the Secretary of the Air Force, Kimberly Bouchard. When President Barnes learns of the unauthorized mission and grounds the plane, Samantha goes to the White House and extorts the president into letting the flight depart.

While being transported to Al-Asheed’s secret compound in Libya, Mel escapes. She is found by a local Amazigh family who offer aid, but she is betrayed by their cousin, Abu, who sells her back to Faraj. Meanwhile, Keating’s team arrives in Tunisia and receives conflicting coordinates for Mel’s location from Mossad and Saudi intelligence. Keating deduces the correct location after identifying a girl in a new proof-of-life video as a body double, which proves the video’s location is a decoy and leads him to choose the alternative coordinates.

The team flies into Libya by Black Hawk helicopter and launches a coordinated assault on the compound. During the raid, Mel escapes her cell a second time and is intercepted by Jiang Lijun, who has been sent by China to retrieve her. As Mel resists, Claire shoots and wounds Jiang. Keating searches for Mel and is ambushed by Al-Asheed. They engage in a brutal hand-to-hand fight until a sudden blow incapacitates Al-Asheed, giving Keating the opportunity to shoot and kill him. As the team extracts by helicopter, Faraj, who was mortally wounded by Al-Asheed for plotting with Jiang, emerges and fires on the group. Agent Stahl is killed while shielding Mel from the gunfire.

The team returns to the United States with Mel. Jiang is taken into US custody and is subsequently poisoned by his superior at the Chinese Mission in New York to appease the US for his failure. At a press conference in Bangor, Maine, the Keating family is reunited. Keating’s chief of staff, Madeline Perry, confesses that she tried to sabotage the mission by alerting the White House out of fear for his safety. He removes her as chief of staff but appoints her to run a new veterans’ foundation named in honor of Boyd Tanner and David Stahl. President Barnes is forced to publicly praise Keating’s success. Following the extortion threat from Samantha, she forces her husband to resign as chief of staff. The story closes with Barnes in the White House, rereading the note Keating left her in the Resolute Desk on Inauguration Day, in which he vowed to face her again in four years, setting the stage for a future political battle.