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Fiction. Suspense. Thriller. HTML: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. Itâ??s the early 1980sâ??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 mort… (more)
User reviews
This book is Tom Clancy’s latest novel to date, and is set very early in the Jack Ryan timeline, shortly after the events in Patriot Games. Before reading the book I read a number of reviews on Amazon.co.uk, each giving very different opinions, some of which I share. The book was an enjoyable thriller, with a distinct lack of the huge swathes of technical material that always annoyed me about some of Clancy’s books. However there were a number of bad points to this book. Although Jack Ryan was ostensibly the main character he wasn’t in it a lot of the time. There was no one major character to follow, which isn’t neccesarily a bad thing, but in this case it jumped from character to character a little too much. Clancy really did take every opportunity to tell the reader how great America was, and how backward and inferior Britain was, which got a little annoying at times – there were even some factual inaccuracies about Britain! Overall an enjoyable enough thriller, but not all that memorable. If you’re a Clancy fan then definitely read it, otherwise, try one of his earlier books- they’re so much better.
As we follow the reasoning used by the KGB to remove the Pope from office. Clancy gets us involved in the KGB planning. While at the same time showing us what the CIA is doing in Moscow and what Jack Ryan is doing in London. And how they will all fit into place in the overall story. What we do not see is the execution of the KGBs side to the story. I would have like to see more of that developed since Clancy went to the effort of showing us everyone elses thoughts during the rest of the book. If he had done that I would have given this book 4.5 star rating.
I like the detail Clancy puts into his story. It helps you understanding how the agency work and some of the obstacles involved. Not his best book. But I am very pleased to have read it.
Clancy has always been a favorite of mine until recently when his books became too formula. His heroes have progressed too far to be believable. In this book, Clancy returns to their past, weaving them into the actual history of the assassination attempt on Pope John Paul II. The heroes nearly save the day, but still manage to pull out a victory for motherhood and apple pie. Sometimes you can't change history. Clancy tried hard though.
And, seriously, if you've already read "The Cardinal
It's not a horrible book, but it is on the slow side, and the bad editing makes it even harder to trudge through.
And then Jack forgot all about the rest of his work, because one of his first assignments was to help debrief a high-level Soviet defector, and the defector told an amazing tale: Top Soviet officials, including Yuri Andropov, were planning to assassinate the Pope, John Paul II.
Could it be true? As the days and weeks go by, Ryan must battle, first to try to confirm the plot, and then to prevent it, but this is a brave new world, and nothing he has done up to now has prepared him for the lethal game of cat-and-mouse that is the Soviet Union versus the United States. In the end, it will be not just the Pope's life but the stability of the Western world that is at stake. . . and it may already be too late for a novice CIA analyst to do anything about it.
Read April 2004