Author, Tom Clancy; Reader, Stephen Hoye
The “Get the hell off of my plane” president Jack Ryan’s son, Jack Jr., has appeared in the pantheon of Tom Clancy heroes—then Clancy wrote this book that is not about him, really.
Clancy can be quite a kidder. You know those
In the interests of disclosure, I once ran into Clancy on the Internet—and asked his advice about a screenplay another gal and I were writing on Fred T. Jane, the naval artist who started Jane’s Fighting Ships and that whole publishing dynasty. Ironically, Clancy sent us a ton of downloads from Jane’s about dreadnoughts—and we countered many of his crinks with our research. He signed off, saying, “Well, I never said ladies couldn’t write about warships.”
I got sort of sick of Clancy novels in print when great gobs of Jane’s seemed to have regurgitated into them. Now, though, I listen—and found the blabby discursiveness more agreeable. And at least in this one, he avoids an icky romance, and God forbid, flirty talk, which is not the forte of any male techno-novelists that I know of.
As for the plot, you’ve heard of 9/11, right? And how shadowy, Internet-wielding bad guys are ceaselessly scheming to wipe out American women and children? In this version, a think-tanky place run by a former senator hires a set of twins, one an Afghanistan-toughened Marine and the other a bend-justice FBI agent to scoot around
Oh—and their cousin, Jack Ryan, Jr, is also an analyst at the same quasi-think tanky place. He sorts through terrorist missives and targets evil doers.
Eventually, of course, the three cousins tag up and Jack even has a little adventure of his own in the terrorist discouragement department.
The reader, Stephen Hoye, is a little nasal and can get sing-songy, but generally does a listenable, patient job of unfurling the story. The
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