buffoonery's Full Review: Tom Clancy - Patriot Games
Tom Clancy's third novel is technically the second in the Jack Ryan series. (Although "The Hunt for Red October" was written first, the first chronological novel is "Without Remorse", which was the seventh written by Clancy, followed in order by this one. Confused now?). In an Horatio Alger story for adults, Clancy's alter ego realizes the heroic fantasies of many an American male, here rescuing the Prince and Princess of Wales from a terrorist attack launched by really radical (as opposed to merely radical) elements of the IRA. (I leave out the word murderous, because that term is redundant in describing the IRA.) The terrorists, however, take umbrage at the frustration of their enterprise, and plan certain violent countermeasures.
Along with "Hunt for Red October", I think "Patriot Games" among the best of Clancy's novels. The slightly absurd premise aside, the remainder of the novel proceeds logically and with a good deal of suspense. At 540 pages of reasonably large print, you'll actually read every page, unlike some of the later novels in which Clancy's editors lost control over him and let his books grow like Topsy.
A few notes about Clancy's style, which I have previously described as "workmanlike": Clancy gets you from point A to point B to point C, but that's about it. He's no John LeCarre, who is a wonderful stylist, but on the other hand Clancy knows right from wrong and the ambivalent LeCarre was never quite able to decide whether he was working for the good guys. (He was.) On the other hand, Clancy is a far better writer than a lot of hacks who turned their hand to this genre after Clancy demonstrated how profitable it could be. (Those hacks include the people who are responsible for the woefully written Op Center books).
Clancy's writing would be immeasurably improved, however, if he would stop using that horrid word "babe" in addressing his wife. His stylistic sins also intensify with the passage of time.
Back to the story, this is a first-class techno-thriller, not quite at the level of Forsyth's superb "Day of the Jackal", but a great read nonetheless. Aside from the action and espionage scenes, Clancy has a good grip on the terrorist mind. And one scene stands out in particular, when the FBI agent walks into the Boston bar that is surreptitiously raising IRA gun money. There were a lot of Irish gin mills on the South Side of Chicago doing the same thing while I was growing up.
Five stars for genre fans, four for every body else. Even if you don't read this stuff as a matter of habit, it's top notch airport reading so it's worth the five or six bucks to pick it up in paperback if you have to kill a lot of time.
The movie is a generally faithful interpretation of the novel, except that the novel's ending is far superior to Hollywood tripe they tacked on to the flick. NB: the head bad guy is Sean Bean, who is great here and absolutely superlative in the Sharpe videos.
Here is a complete listing of my Jack Ryan reviews:
From England to Ireland to America, an explosive wave of violence sweeps CIA analyst Jack Ryan and his family into the deadliest game of our time: int...More at Buy.com Marketplaces
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