Tag: #Thriller

Posted in #BookTours

Dead or Alive (Jack Ryan Book 10) 

Posted on by Reluctant Retiree

Don’t Miss the Original Series Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan Starring John Krasinski!

Tom Clancy delivers a #1 New York Times bestselling Jack Ryan novel that will remind readers why he is the acknowledged master of international intrigue and nonstop military action.

It is The Campus. Secretly created under the administration of President Jack Ryan, its sole purpose is to eliminate terrorists and those who protect them. Officially, it has no connection to the American government—a necessity in a time when those in power consider themselves above such arcane ideals as loyalty, justice, and right or wrong.

Now covert intelligence expert Jack Ryan Jr. and his compatriots at The Campus—joined by black ops warriors John Clark and “Ding” Chavez—have come up against their greatest foe: a sadistic killer known as the Emir. Mastermind of countless horrific attacks, the Emir has eluded capture by every law enforcement agency in the world. But his greatest devastation is yet to be unleashed as he plans a monumental strike at the heart of America.

On the trail of the Emir, Jack Ryan Jr. will find himself following in his legendary father’s footsteps on a manhunt that will take him and his allies across the globe, into the shadowy arenas of political gamesmanship, and back onto U.S. soil in a race to prevent the possible fall of the West….

Editorial Reviews

Review

Praise for Dead or Alive

“Heart-stopping action…entertaining and eminently topical.”—The Washington Post

“The best characters from all of Clancy’s previous novels are on the case….For fans of the genre, Dead or Alive is likely to provide a long weekend’s pleasure.”—Los Angeles Times

“Clancy is back at the top of his game…In-depth research, continuous suspense, and scores of fascinating characters.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

More Praise for Tom Clancy

“He constantly taps the current world situation for its imminent dangers and spins them into an engrossing tale.”—The New York Times Book Review

“A brilliant describer of events.”—The Washington Post

“No one can equal his talent for making military electronics and engineering intelligible and exciting…He remains the best!”—Houston Chronicle

Posted in #BookTours

Red Rabbit (Jack Ryan Book 9)

Posted on by Reluctant Retiree

Don’t Miss the Original Series Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan Starring John Krasinski!

Tom Clancy reveals the details of Jack Ryan’s first days with the CIA in this #1 New York Times bestseller.

It’s the early 1980s—and historian, teacher, and recent ex-Marine Jack Ryan is now a CIA officer on loan to the British SIS. On his very first day, an extraordinary document crosses his desk. Because of government repression in Poland, the new Pope, John Paul II, has threatened to resign his papacy.
 
In Moscow, another man is contemplating the very same document. Yuriy Andropov, the chairman of the KGB, does not like what he reads, does not like what it means for him or for his nation. All it takes is one man to cause everything he has worked for to crumble. All it takes is one man to stop him. The Pope is very powerful, but he is also mortal….

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Clancy returns to Jack Ryan’s first days in the CIA, when the fate of the free world hung in the balance as Ryan discovered a heinous plot to assassinate the Pope. Clancy is so big that this new novel merits a special limited edition (ISBN 0-399-14914-7. $150).
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

Praise for Red Rabbit

“An impressive achievement.”—The Washington Post

“Demonstrate[s] what Tom Clancy does best.”—Fort Worth Star-Telegram
 
“An entertaining tale of well-matched wits and high-tech gadgetry.”—The Tallahassee Democrat

More Praise for Tom Clancy

“He constantly taps the current world situation for its imminent dangers and spins them into an engrossing tale.”—The New York Times Book Review

“A brilliant describer of events.”—The Washington Post

“No one can equal his talent for making military electronics and engineering intelligible and exciting…He remains the best!”—Houston Chronicle

Posted in #BookTours

The Bear and the Dragon (Jack Ryan Book 8)

Posted on by Reluctant Retiree

Don’t Miss the Original Series Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan Starring John Krasinski!

President Jack Ryan faces a world crisis unlike any he has ever known in Tom Clancy’s extraordinary #1 New York Times bestseller.

A high-level assassination attempt in Russia has the newly elected Ryan sending his most trusted eyes and ears—including antiterrorism specialist John Clark—to Moscow, for he fears the worst is yet to come. And he’s right. The attempt has left the already unstable Russia vulnerable to ambitious forces in China eager to fulfill their destiny—and change the face of the world as we know it…

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Power is delightful, and absolute power should be absolutely delightful–but not when you’re the most powerful man on earth and the place is ticking like a time bomb. Jack Ryan, CIA warrior turned U.S. president, is the man in the hot seat, and in this vast thriller he’s up to his nostrils in crazed Asian warlords, Russian thugs, nukes that won’t stay put, and authentic, up-to-the-nanosecond technology as complex as the characters’ motives are simple. Quick, do you know how to reprogram the software in an Aegis missile seekerhead? Well, if you’re Jack Ryan, you’d better find someone who does, or an incoming ballistic may rain fallout on your parade. Bad for reelection prospects. “You know, I don’t really like this job very much,” Ryan complains to his aide Arnie van Damm, who replies, “Ain’t supposed to be fun, Jack.”

But you bet The Bear and the Dragon is fun–over 1,000 swift pages’ worth. In the opening scene, a hand-launched RPG rocket nearly blows up Russia’s intelligence chief in his armored Mercedes, and Ryan’s clever spooks report that the guy who got the rocket in his face instead was the hoodlum “Rasputin” Avseyenko, who used to run the KGB’s “Sparrow School” of female prostitute spies. Soon after, two apparent assassins are found handcuffed together afloat in St. Petersburg’s Neva River, their bloated faces resembling Pokémon toys.

The stakes go higher as the mystery deepens: oil and gold are discovered in huge quantities in Siberia, and the evil Chinese Minister Without Portfolio Zhang Han San gazes northward with lust. The laid-off elite of the Soviet Army figure in the brewing troubles, as do the new generation of Tiananmen Square dissidents, Zhang’s wily, Danielle Steel-addicted executive secretary Lian Ming, and Chester Nomuri, a hip, Internet-porn-addicted CIA agent posing in China as a Japanese computer salesman. He e-mails his CIA boss, Mary Pat “the Cowgirl” Foley, that he intends to seduce Ming with Dream Angels perfume and scarlet Victoria’s Secret lingerie ordered from the catalog–strictly for God and country, of course. Soon Ming is calling him “Master Sausage” instead of “Comrade,” but can anybody master Ming?

The plot is over the top, with devastating subplots erupting all over the globe and lurid characters scaring the wits out of each other every few pages, but Clancy finds time to insert hard-boiled little lessons on the vileness of Communism, the infuriating intrusions of the press on presidential power, the sexual perversions of Mao, the poor quality of Russian pistol silencers (“garbage, cans loaded with steel wool that self-destructed after less than ten shots”), the folly of cutting a man’s throat with a knife (“they flop around and make noise when you do that”), and similar topics. Naturally, the book bristles like a battlefield with intriguingly intricate military hardware.

When you’ve got a Tom Clancy novel in hand, who needs action movies? –Tim Appelo

From Booklist

After hibernating for a couple of years, Clancy the novelist returns with a Jack Ryan story that has him contending with you-know-who and you-know-who. Bonnie Smothers
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Posted in #Classics

Executive Orders (Jack Ryan Book 7)

Posted on by Reluctant Retiree

Don’t Miss the Original Series Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan Starring John Krasinski!

The President is dead. Now, the weight of the world falls on Jack Ryan’s shoulders in this extraordinary #1 New York Times bestseller from Tom Clancy.

At the climax of Debt of Honor, the most devastating terrorist act in the history of the world left the President, the Joint Chiefs, the Supreme Court, and nearly all of Congress dead. Only Jack Ryan, confirmed Vice President mere minutes before, survived to take the reins of a shaken and leaderless country. Now he must rebuild a government, comfort a grieving nation, and become a true leader. Meanwhile, he is surrounded by enemies—both inside the White House and around the world—all of them plotting to destroy an untested President. And bring an already wounded country to its knees….


Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Tom Clancy goes to the White House in this thriller of political terror and global disaster. The American political situation takes a disturbing turn as the President, Congress, and Supreme Court are obliterated when a Japanese terrorist lands a 747 on the Capitol. Meanwhile the Iranians are unleashing an Ebola virus threat on the country. Jack Ryan, CIA agent, is cast in the middle of this maelstrom. Because of a recent sex scandal, Ryan was appointed vice president, a slot he doesn’t hold for long when he lands in the Chief Executive’s chair. He goes after the Iranians and then tries to piece together the country and his life the only way he knows how–with a fury that we’ve grown accustomed to in Clancy’s intricate, detailed, and accurate stories of warfare and intrigue.

From Library Journal

Jack Ryan, Clancy’s amazing upwardly mobile series hero, must put together a government from the wreckage left at the end of Debt of Honor (Putnam, 1994). While Jack, who assumed the U.S. presidency after the shocking deaths of the president and many congresspeople, attends to affairs of state, selecting a new Cabinet and arranging for special Congressional elections, enemies far and near continue to create nefarious plots against the United States. Political enemies prove themselves equally relentless, attacking the very legitimacy of Ryan’s presidential role. While Clancy is, as always, chillingly up-to-date, he telegraphs too many plotlines here. Worse, Ryan has become something of a whiner, complaining at length about the miseries of living a political life. At almost 900 pages, the book includes too much minutiae and dwells overlong on Ryan’s earlier adventures. However, with a two-million-copy first printing, Ryan’s presence?at least for now?is assured in most public libraries.?Elsa Pendleton, Boeing Information Services, Inc., Ridgecrest, Cal.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Posted in #Classics

Debt of Honor (Jack Ryan Book 6)

Posted on by Reluctant Retiree

Don’t Miss the Original Series Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan Starring John Krasinski!

THE #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING JACK RYAN NOVEL

“A harrowing tale…Clancy keeps you riveted with political intrigue and military maneuvering [and] sends you rushing headlong to the book’s stunning conclusion.”—USA Today

Bestselling author Tom Clancy takes a bold, incisive look at what our nation’s leaders are calling “the new world order.” The time and place: a world at peace, where yesterday’s enemies are tomorrow’s allies. The players: Jack Ryan as the new U.S. President’s National Security Advisor, and his CIA colleagues, John Clark and Domingo Chavez. The crisis: a shocking chain of events in which the wages of peace are as fully complex—and devastating—as those of war.
 
“[Debt of Honor] traces the financial, political, military, and personal machinations that drive America into the next major global war…A SHOCKER.”—Entertainment Weekly


Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Razio Yamata is one of Japan’s most influential industrialists, and part of a relatively small group of authority who wield tremendous authority in the Pacific Rim’s economic powerhouse. He has devised a plan to cripple the American greatness, humble the U.S. military, and elevate Japan to a position of dominance on the world stage. Yamata’s motivation lies in his desire to pay off a Debt of Honor to his parents and to the country he feels is responsible for their deaths: America. All he needs is a catalyst to set his plan in motion. When the faulty gas tank on one Tennessee family’s car leads to their fiery death, an opportunistic U.S. congressman uses the occasion to rush a new trade law through the system. The law is designed to squeeze Japan economically. Instead, it provides Yamata with the leverage he needs to put his plan into action. As Yamata’s plan begins to unfold, it becomes clear to the world that someone is launching a fully integrated operation against the United States. There’s only one man to find out who the culprit is: Jack Ryan, the new president’s National Security Advisor.

From School Library Journal

YA?Teens patient enough to allow the multiple plot strands to develop will be treated to nonstop action in this novel of political intrigue. The fiery deaths of five Americans, caused by faulty gas tanks in two new, wildly popular Japanese cars, result in the breakdown of trade relations between the two countries. Jack Ryan, National Security Advisor, is a key player in this and the concurrent complications?the collapse of the stock market and the Japanese military takeover of the Marianas. The details that make the story seem real also provide insight into the Japanese and American business/political cultures and bring into sharp focus the danger of a downsized military. Clancy gives government students a front-seat view of world politics, English students an excellent lesson in point of view, and general readers a thought-provoking and entertaining ride.?Barbara Hawkins, Oakton High School, Fairfax, VA
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.