John C. Adams Turns Plato’s Republic Into a Modern-Day Thriller Novel, The Third Phase

After decades in investment banking, John C. Adams is taking on a very different kind of challenge: turning one of philosophy’s most famous works into a modern-day thriller novel. In The Third Phase, Adams draws inspiration from Plato’s Republic and Augustine’s Confessions, wrapping philosophical and spiritual questions inside a globe-spanning story filled with spies, assassins, kidnappings, tank battles and disrupted constitutional conventions. The idea came from his three grown daughters, who encouraged him to approach Plato the same way he once approached big ideas as a youth pastor — translating them into stories that younger audiences could understand. “Do what you used to do in the youth group, Dad,” he recalls them telling him. At the center of the novel is a world-famous soccer player from Bolivia who joins a multicultural team determined to use his influence — and technology — to change the way society works. Their efforts quickly put them at odds with powerful political and institutional forces. But Adams says the action is only one layer of the story. The book explores political polarization and the influence of lobbying, while digging deeper into the philosophical tension between Platonism and nihilism. Its most important theme, he says, is ultimately spiritual. “My book is really Augustine’s answers to Plato’s questions,” Adams explains. “It’s a glimpse of how the world could be and a view of the kind of people we need to be in our heart and soul to bring that world about.”The Third Phase is available on Amazon, as an audiobook and through most bookstores. Readers can also visit TheThirdPhaseNovel.com to download a free 130-page companion guide featuring book-club questions and a deeper look at the novel’s symbolism and its connections to Plato and Augustine.