I’m an avid reader. In fact, in a seven month time-frame I read dozens of novels constituting 30,000 pages. I’ve read everything Grisham, everything Clancy, everything Crichton, half-everything Koontz (doesn’t compare to above authors), and several Stephen King novels (I grow tired of them, though). Having not been inspired to read anymore King or Koontz, and not knowing where to look for new authors, I recently took to re-reading a couple of Clancy novels, namely Rainbow Six and Debt of Honor.

Debt of Honor always was my favorite Clancy novel. Below are a few reasons why.

Plot
Action-packed, let me tell ya. A gasoline-tank galvanization error leads to the Trade Reform Act—a measure which imposed Japan’s stringent inspection processes for imported cars on the cars they attempt to export to the U.S. Simply worded, it is a document which allows the United States to replicate Japan’s own trade laws, for the first time in three decades actually permitting “fair” trade. So as the boats line up on the docks, waiting to unload cars that in turn must be inspected with painstaking slowness, the Japanese economy begins to crumble. Something must be done, and Prime Minister Koga can’t seem to hold his coalition together…

In the meantime, a skilled hacker installs an “Easter Egg” on the six mainframes that run the New York Stock Exchange, while a Japanese zaibatsu, head of a conglomerate, buys out George Winston’s share in the Columbus (Financial) Group, and becomes the new CEO. These complex plans are intended, at a certain time, to destroy the American and European financial markets and allow Japan to buy up nearly all European stocks at low prices, such that when the market recovers, Europe belongs to Japan.

Meanwhile Japanese mineralogists find huge resource deposits in Siberia…

And the Indian Navy “exercises” in the Indian Ocean—dangerously near Sri Lanka…

And a series of American/Japanese war exercises go terribly wrong, leaving two aircraft carriers crippled and…even worse…well, read it and see. The Easter Egg hatches, and America is plunged headlong into a war with Japan. A war in which the fates of thousands of American citizens—and the future of Japanese imperialism—is held. A war whose resolution will incur a major debt. A debt of honor.

Analysis
Mr. Clancy does a fabulous job in all his novels. Jack Ryan, President Durling, Mr. Yamata, Clark and Chavez, George Winston, and the other major players are perfectly characterized. The plan of the Japanese is huge and intricate—but it would have to be in order to work. However, with any novel or movie of this genre, there has to be exaggeration. Enough so to make the story interesting, but not so much as to distract the reader with its unbelievability. Debt of Honor rides a little on the heavy side.

How many things can go right in a plan that has several dozen intricate facets? Yet at first most do. Everything comes together smoothly. And then a little more political will on one side than the other, a little bit of cunning, and a little bit of deception, as well as a lot of luck and random chance plays together to determine the tide of a war. It’s just a little much. Too much has to go right for the plan to work. Yet it does. I mean, come on, the police have caught serial killers before—killers who’ve left no evidence—just because a tail light happened to be out on their car and they happened to act a little suspicious…and the trunk was opened.… Even the best laid plans of mice and men…often fail due to silly circumstances. Dumb luck.

I would say that’s the only thing wrong with this novel—dumb luck. Eventually “luck” would have interfered to keep the catalysts of action from coming together. The unbelievability level isn’t distracting, but is enough to make the plot seem forced.




Recommended: Yes