Clear and Present Danger
The US ambassador to Columbia has been murdered by drug lords. Enemy covert agents filter into the jungles of South America---and Central America is ready to explode. CIA man Jack Ryan is in the eye of a storm---and for the US the stakes have never been greater. Tom Clancy captured worldwide attention with The Hunt For Red October and Red Storm Rising. He set new standards for storytelling excellence in The Cardinal of the Kremlin. Now he unleashes his most harrowing thriller yet-<-in a story of international brinkmanship that is as up-to-the minute as today's headlines and as frightening as the truth that lies behind them... Publisher's Weekly When a U.S. president decides that drug smuggling has become a ``clear and present danger'' to national security, the response is a complex and covert military campaign against the ``Colombian Cartel.'' ``The dean of techno-thrillers demonstrates once again his mastery of the genre,'' stated PW . (Aug.) The New York Times Book Review - David Wise The issues raised are real ones, and a jump ahead of the headlines. Doesthe drug traffic threaten America's national security? And if so, is the Government justified in murdering the suppliers? Jack Ryan is troubled by these questions (although not too much), and so he and the rest of us should be. . .. For Clancy fans, it probably won't make the least bit of difference that his dialogue has not improved one whit. . . . And Mr. Clancy's readers won't be disappointed in the exhaustive list of gadgetry. . . . The plot moves slowly. . . . The patient reader is rewarded, however; the last hundred pages move with the speed of light. But the excitement comes too late. Mr. Clancy has produced a contradiction in terms: a ponderous thriller. It won't bother his devotees. Newsweek Moral ambiguity is normally John le Carre's territory, not Tom Clancy's.Explaining the complexities of modern weaponry, not the vagaries of the humanpsyche, is Clancy's forte. . . . Even so, 'Clear and Present Danger' shows real growth by the former insurance salesman-turned-novelist. . . . It doesn't really matter if his characters are two dimensional and his machines are too perfect. He whirls them through a half dozen converging subplots until they collide in a satisfyingly slam-bang finale. {This} is Clancy's best thriller since his first, 'Hunt for Red October.' It is also a surprisingly successful cautionary tale. Using force against the drug lords might be a good idea, especially since nothing else seems to work. But as Clancy shows, trying to do it secretly and without popular support is sure to backfire. Time {This book} is Clancy's most politically sophisticated and philosophically complex. (Beach readers, have no fear; this is not Sartre.). . . While theauthor has moved beyond the narrow genre of techno-thrillers, the novel stillexplains ordnance with the avidity that Judith Krantz devotes to designer labels. There are also a few mawkish passages. . . . Best-selling novelists are often bedeviled by potboiler reputations. . . . {Clancy} should not be dismissed as merely another book-biz commodity, the action-adventure counterpart to Danielle Steel or Sidney Sheldon. . . . To measure Clancy's output solely in terms of bookstore Q-Ratings and royalty statements would be to distort the moral seriousness that undergirds his fiction. Clancy believes passionately in professionalism, preserving order, patriotism and playing by the rules. Copyright 1983 The H.W. Wilson Company. All rights reserved.
