Krishna
Jack Ryan is back, this time recruited by the President to be his Chief Security Advisor. His wife Cathy has a patient who, it turns out, was raped by a Senator who is now the Vice President.
The crack CIA team is introduced by showing a warlord is captured in a “friendly African country” and handed over to the government.
Quaint references to SCSI as the “latest technology” (book was written in 1994) will bring smiles to the lips of geeks. And a GB of storage is spoken off with admiration! This is a common hazard among authors, as technology changes with such blinding speed that a year old story has weird connotations when you read again. In fantasy stories, it seems to be OK to deal with lances and swords and horses, but in a modern story, this dates the story.
One of the evil persons is an Indian admiral Chandrakatta. This is an invented Indian name by the author; sounds plausible with the Chandra prefix unless you happen to know Indian names well. In his story, the Indians come out well, as brilliant army strategists. But still they are evil since they chose to side with the wrong side.
It is fun to read Tom Clancy explain how a housing bubble works, with his pithy analogies and efficient statements and since Tom does top class research on everything, true as well.
Now for the story. A very successful Japanese businessman is convinced that Japan is being systematically oppressed by US and plots revenge. When a faulty exhaust is involved in a fiery accident that kills a US army officer, the President orders all car imports stopped, which severely impacts Japan and angers this man to an extreme. This is the straw that breaks the camel’s back of patience for him.
Also the VP is being accused of rape and it is being kept under wraps until the next Presidential election is concluded.
Not only does Clancy explain the financial stuff but he also explains a crash pretty well. Amazing explanation for a guy who writes spy thrillers. His inimitable style is there.
To continue with the story : Three things go wrong together for US. There is Japan who declares war suddenly, the VP’s peccadillos get exposed suddenly with a national papers, and on top of that, an ‘easter egg’ in a secret program hatches wiping out financial records of investment trading!
Jack Ryan is a Secretary of Defence and is far removed from the action on the ground such as the ones he was involved in Red Rabbit but then you have Clark and Chavez, you have Chet who is Japanese-American spying in Japan, lovely scenes that explain why people love Tom Clancy’s stories. But there is a lot of fluff and the story flags a lot, descriptions of planes and tanks and weaponry that can be too much.
How they recover from the financial disaster is very interesting!
The US covert actions against Japan is classic Clancy. Book takes off then.
The way they thwart the aggression and the ending of the book are all brilliant. Well done, Clancy. Too bad it took so long to warm up.
Let us say a 6/10
– – Krishna