Book: The Teeth of the Tiger by Tom Clancy

[Krishna]

** Original post on July 3 2015 **

David Greengold, head of Mossad in Italy is murdered in the washroom on what should have been a routine clue pickup trip. Meanwhile a set of brothers are recruited by CIA. Now that Jack Ryan, the hero of almost all of Tom Clancy’s earlier works,  has become President and retired, there is nothing more they can do with him so Tom Clancy brings in his son, Jack Ryan Jr into the story in this book. His comments on the (then) President (presumably George W) are interesting. Even a fully right wing novelist hates him?

Nice touch. Ed Kealty, who was dismissed from Vice Presidency for womanizing and raping in a previous book, is now the President.

Another thing, this book was written in 2003 and Tom predicts that it is Germany who will be dominant in the Euro zone and not France – About 9 years prior to when it actually happened exactly as he predicted! Not bad for a thriller writer…

The Caruso brothers’ training is very interesting. They are invited to join an ultra elite and ultra secret government agency. The agency’s mission is to execute “bad guys” who cannot be prosecuted by law. Their agency does not exist anywhere in records, they will be not in uniform and will be infiltrators in a country they are not welcome in. On top of that, if they are caught, the government will disown them and deny all knowledge about them or their existence.

Meanwhile a group of jihadists headed by Mustafa gets themselves smuggled into the US with the help of Mexican underworld collaborators with the aim of creating mayhem in the country.

Jack Ryan Jr is on their trail through his financial wizardry – shades of his dad. He is on to a shady deal in financial transactions of one suspect, who has been devilishly clever but has made one misstep.

The jihadist assault team arrives in America and is ready to wreak havoc in the malls of middle America. By chance the Caruso brothers happen to be in one mall. They subdue attackers and kill them, not without loss of life and are stunned to hear of coordinated attacks everywhere.

The first target of their master-plan is Uda, who is a shady financier of the attacks. They pop him with a drug needle disguised as a pen, right in front of a tail put there by British Intelligence! The tail had no clue that there was any foul play involved. Fascinating descriptions

The second ‘job’ is to get an Arab living in Germany, right after the first one. They do it and find that a third is already lined up. Jack is sent to join them, as the bosses feel that they need a backup brain to ensure that the wrong one is not whacked by mistake.

In the end Jack takes the initiative to get the biggest of them all so far, when things go accidentally wrong for the brothers.

A typical, enjoyable Tom Clancy but nowhere near the Red Rabbit level perhaps. Would say a 6/10

– – Krishna