The Blue List

Title:                      The Blue List

Author:                Nigel West

West, Nigel (1989). The Blue List. London: Secker & Warburg, 1989

OCLC:    20016500

PR6073.E763 B58 1989

Date Updated:  June 28, 2015

This espionage story culminates in the war-time bunker built in the uncompleted tunnels of North End station, although this is incorrectly identified as Paddock, a separate bunker in Dollis Hill. It is a work of fiction.

Nigel West is a prolific writer on espionage, and his research is as complete as one could demand of any scholar. Nigel West is a pseudonym for Rupert Allason. As an historian, West has concentrated on security and intelligence issues and Nigel West’s controversial books have frequently made headlines. He was voted “The Experts’ Expert” by a panel of other spy writers in The Observer in November 1989. In 1984 The Sunday Times commented: “His information is so precise that many people believe he is the unofficial historian of the secret services. West’s sources are undoubtedly excellent. His books are peppered with deliberate clues to potential front-page stories.”

West has been a frequent speaker at intelligence seminars and has lectured at both the KGB headquarters in Dzerzhinsky Square, Moscow and at the CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, where he once addressed an audience that included the Soviet spy Aldrich Ames. He continues to lecture to members of the intelligence community at the Centre for Counterintelligence and Security Studies in Washington, DC.

His special contribution to the study of modern historical espionage has been in tracking down former agents and persuading them to tell their stories. He traced the wartime double agent GARBO, who was reported to have died in Africa in 1949. However, Allason found him in Venezuela, and they collaborated on the book Operation Garbo, published in 1985. He was also the first person to identify and interview the mistress of Admiral Canaris, the German intelligence chief who headed the Abwehr, and he was responsible for the exposure of Leo Long and Edward Scott as Soviet spies.

His titles include The Crown Jewels, based on files made available to him by the KGB archives in Moscow; VENONA, which disclosed the existence of a GRU spy-ring operating in London throughout the war, headed by Professor JBS Haldane and the Hon. Ivor Montagu; and The Third Secret, an account of the CIA’s intervention in Afghanistan. Mortal Crimes, published in September 2004, investigates the scale of soviet espionage in the Manhattan Project, the Anglo-American development of an atomic bomb.

In 2005 he edited The Guy Liddell Diaries, a daily journal of the wartime work of MI5’s Director of Counter-Espionage. He also published a study of the Comintern’s secret wireless traffic, MASK: MI5’s Penetration of the Communist Party of Great Britain, and the first of a series of counter-intelligence textbooks, Historical Dictionary of British Intelligence, Historical Dictionary of International Intelligence, and The Historical Dictionary of Cold War Counterintelligence. A recent publication(2012) is Historical Dictionary of Chinese Intelligence.

S, Portrait of a Spy

Title:                      S, Portrait of a Spy

Author:                Ian Adams

Adam, Ian (1982). S, Portrait of a Spy. New Haven: Ticknor & Fields

LCCN:    82000731

PR9199.3.A25 S19 1982

Date Updated:  June 18, 2015

“90% fact and 10% fiction” – suppposedly – is what espionage fans will get in this non-narrative novel about a Canadian triple agent. As we learn through an interview format: “S” was a Soviet mole high in the RCMP security services. He was discovered by the CIA, but they chose not to expose “S” to the Canadian authorities, preferring to use him to “pump any crap they wanted along to the Soviets.” The CIA comes off badly indeed in this book, especially in the torture department and in “colonizing” Canada – while a reporter, known herein as “The Author,” investigates “S” through his fellow workers, his superior, CIA agents, and his lover Krista Golner, a gorgeous linguist on contract to the federal government. (A fellow KGB agent, she is eventually knifed to death.) The book certainly doesn’t read like a novel. It exposes the charades that “S” perpetrated on the Security Services through the years – and the result is an somewhat documented, but juicily detailed, mosaic.

This is one of many books on the Department of Energy Hanford counterintelligence reading list. The entire list is as follows (with links when appropriate.) The entire list is found at Historical Dictionary of Cold War Counterintelligence

Angleton Era

Adam, Ian (1982). S, Portrait of a Spy

Buckley, William F., Jr. (2000). SPYTIME: The Undoing of James Jesus Angleton

Garbler, Florence Fitzsimmons (1994). CIA Wife: One Woman’s Life Inside the CIA.

Mangold, Tom (1991). Cold Warrior: James Jesus Angleton: The CIA’s Master Spy Hunter

Martin, David C. (1980) Wilderness of Mirrors

Wise, David (1992). Molehunt: The Secret Search for Traitors that Shattered the CIA

 

Pascali’s Island

Title:                      Pascali’s Island

Author:                Barry Unsworth

Unsworth, Barry (1980). Pascali’s Island. London :M. Joseph

LCCN:    85673399

Subjects

Turkey — History — 1878-1909 — Fiction. Greece — History — George I, 1863-1913 — Fiction.

Date Posted:      June 13, 2015

Pascali’s Island is written as a letter to the Excellency of Constantinople in 1908 by Basil Pascali, a paid informant on a small Greek island. Pascali has reported to the Ministry on the activities of those on the island for nearly twenty years, but as of late, has begun to believe his neighbors suspect his activities. When Pascali meets self-proclaimed archeologist Anthony Bowles, an Englishman new to the area, and as Bowles begins to win over the heart of Pascali’s unrequited love interest, Lydia Neuman, Pascali finds himself tracking Bowles’ movements in an effort to discover his true intentions. It is only when Pascali discovers Bowles’ true nature as a liar who deceives many for monetary gain that he begins to contemplate betraying Bowles. After learning of Bowles’ plan to remove a priceless artifact from the property of Pasha, the local governor, Pascali begins working with authorities to bring about the demise of Bowles. In the end however, it is not only Bowles who falls to failure, but when Lydia dies, Pascali too suffers from the double agent role he himself has played. Filled with intrigue, espionage, and schemes, Pascali’s Island is a timeless tale of love, treachery, and morality in the declining days of the Ottoman Empire.

Basil Pascali is a paid informant in 1908 for the Ottoman Empire, who resides on a small Greek island ripe with political intrigue and a wide variety of cultural influence. Pascali, a resident of the island for nearly twenty years, has become bored with his life as a spy, and has begun peppering his reports to the Sultan with characters and events of fiction. Recently, however, Pascali has become certain that the islanders know of his activities, and is filled with a sense of paranoia and a certainty of his impending death.

When Anthony Bowles, an English archeologist, arrives on the island, Pascali feels an immediate kinship with the man, but also distrusts him, particularly after finding several artifacts hidden in Bowles’ hotel room, including a revolver. Bowles requests Pascali’s services as a linguist to assist him in arranging a lease for local ruins from the corrupt leader of the island, Pasha, and his assistant Izzet. As Pascali assists Bowles, he becomes more certain Bowles is not what he appears to be, and as Bowles steals the heart of the woman Pascali loves, Lydia, Pascali’s mistrust rapidly deteriorates into betrayal. When combined with local characters of intrigue including a German commercial agent, Gesing, and an American fisherman, Smith, Pascali’s life becomes far more interesting than he bargained for.

When Pascali is convinced that Bowles is deceiving him, as well as deceiving Pasha and Izzet, he himself plays a role of duality, blackmailing the Englishman to keep his secret. However, with the discovery of a bronze status at the ruin site and with Bowles’ insistence that the Ottoman Empire, Pascali’s only light of hope, has fallen, Pascali betrays Bowles. By bringing in the multiple forces at work on the island, Pascali seeks to ensure the failure of Bowles and of his scheme. In the end, however, Pascali also loses as Pasha’s army shoots and kills Bowles and Lydia as well as four other men.

This novel, filled with political strife, social commentary, and a vast historical presence, tells the tale of five individuals whose greed, duality, violence, political stance, and deceit result in their own demise. Further, through Pascali’s vivid descriptions and through Bowles’ and Gesing’s discussions, the novel tells of the downfall of a vast Empire and its society, and the dangers of deceit.

Tom Clancy’s Op Center

Title:                      Tom Clancy’s Op Center

Author:                 Tom Clancy

Clancy, Tom (1995) and Steve Pieczenik. Tom Clancy’s Op Center. New York : Berkley Books

LCCN:    97817188

Subjects

• Crisis management in government–United States–Fiction.
• Secret service–United States–Fiction.

Notes

• Created by Tom Clancy and Steve Pieczenik

Date Posted:      June 10, 2015

Tom Clancy’s Op Center began as a single book and morphed into a series of 14 books, as of June, 2015. The books are based on Clancy’s bellicose view toward the world and his perception that the United States is constantly under imminent threat. He might have said, “I told you so,” when 9/11 occurred.

The op center books ounter the “threat” by a super-secret agency designed to meld intelligence with its “geek squad”, their computers and analysis algorithms, as well as a small but immediately deployable strike force. In the first series of 12 books the op center was established, carried out its mission, and was ultimately done away with by what Clancy would describe as a “weak” president. The series was revitalized by a 13^th book in 2014 and a 14^th in 2015.

Although familiarly called “Op-Center”, the actual name of the largely autonomous agency is the “National Crisis Management Center”. The charter of the NCMC, or Op-Center, is unlike any other in the history of the United States. They handle both domestic and international crises. In the first series, Director Paul Hood reports to the president himself, and what had started as “an information clearinghouse with SWAT capabilities” now has the singular capacity to monitor, initiate, and manage operations worldwide. The organization had its own paramilitary response team, called the Striker team, named by an Op-Center member who was a soccer fan, composed of members of the U.S. military special operations community. The series also mentioned similar organizations from England, whose response team was called Bengal, and Russia, with a team called Hammer. It is headquartered in a nondescript, two-story building located near the Naval Reserve flight line at Andrews Air Force Base that used to be a ready room, a staging area for crack flight crews. In the event of a nuclear attack, it would have been their job to evacuate key officials from Washington, D.C.

According to the 2014 reboot franchise, the NCMC was eventually disbanded after the Secretary of Defense and the Director of National Intelligence managed to convince the President of the United States to shut the organization down due to the effectiveness of the US Intelligence Community and Special Forces in the War on Terror (much to the disgust of Paul Hood and Mike Rogers). Years later however, terrorists blow up several NFL stadiums across the country and leave thousands dead or mutilated. It is determined in the resulting investigation that the inability of government agencies to prevent the attacks was due to a lack of information, as well as the inability to put the pieces together in time. In response, the President executes an emergency order that reboots Op-Center for the 21st Century. Retired Admiral Chase Williams is eventually named the new director and Op-Center’s new headquarters is located in the basement of the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency; as its response team, Op-Center utilizes soldiers from the Joint Special Operations Command.

List of Op-Center Novels

The books in the Tom Clancy’s Op-Center series:

#	Title	Publication date	Authors	Plot
1	Tom Clancy’s Op-Center	1995	Jeff Rovin	Op-Center deals with many anti-unification terrorists in Korea trying to provoke a new war with North Korea.
2	Mirror Image	1995		A hardline coalition in the Russian government plots against the new president of Russia, backed by the Russian equivalent of Op-Center.
3	Games of State	1996		A millionaire funds Neo-Nazi activity in Europe, while plotting to insert subliminal messages of hate into the mass media.
4	Acts of War	1996		Syrian, Kurdish terrorists plotting a political assassination take hostages from the Regional Op-Center: employees testing a prototype mobile surveillance post.
5	Balance of Power	1998	Jeff Rovin	The murder of an Op-Center representative (Martha Mackall) leads to a faction trying to provoke a Spanish Civil War.
6	State of Siege	1999	Jeff Rovin	Rogue soldiers seize the UN complex in New York and demand a hefty ransom for the release of their diplomatic hostages (including Hood’s daughter, Harleigh). Now it’s personal, and Hood has returned to Op-Center to save his daughter.
7	Divide and Conquer	2000	Jeff Rovin	Op-Center seeks the help of their Russian counterpart in tracking the legendary assassin, The Harpooner. Meanwhile, Paul Hood is called in when it appears the President might be undergoing a mental breakdown.
8	Line of Control	2001	Jeff Rovin	The Striker Team, cut off and without support, has to fend for their survival on the line of demarcation between India and Pakistan.
9	Mission of Honor	2002	Jeff Rovin	Op-Center has to work with the Vatican and Spanish Special Forces when an African rebel group takes hostages at several missions.
10	Sea of Fire	2003	Jeff Rovin	High traces of radiation found on a corpse, leads to a company selling nuclear waste to terrorists.
11	Call to Treason	2004	Jeff Rovin	When Mike Rodgers is fired due to budget cuts, he goes to work for a corrupt senator and gets embroiled in the vicious world of Washington politics.
12	War of Eagles	2005	Jeff Rovin	Op-Center is under new management as Paul Hood is reassigned to a Pennsylvania Ave. appointment. At the same time, bombings in Charleston, Durban, and Taiwan, may signify the outing of a feud within the Chinese government.
13	Out of the Ashes	2014	Dick Couch and George Galdorisi	When terrorists blow up NFL stadiums across the country, the President of the United States charters a new Op-Center for the 21st Century. Admiral Chase Williams is the new director, (Paul Hood at this time is diagnosed with ALS) and must also stop another plot involving a renegade Saudi prince from manipulating America into attacking Syria and launching a war against Iran.
14	Into the Fire	2015	Dick Couch and George Galdorisi	A high-ranking North Korean general is murdered and a U.S. Navy ship is attacked and grounded during a training exercise. Op-Center discovers a secret alliance between China and North Korea, and must quickly rescue the crew in time as well as stop a terrorist cell being unleashed on the American homeland in order to prevent World War III.

 

Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell

Title:                      Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell

Author:                David Michaels

Michaels, David (2004). Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell New York: Berkley Books

OCLC:    57196540

Subjects

• Intelligence officers–Fiction.

Notes

• Based on Ubi Soft’s bestselling game, “Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell”

Date Posted:      June 7, 2015

Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell is a 2004 novel told in the first person by author Raymond Benson, writing under the pseudonym David Michaels. The novel is based on the video game series “Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell”, the creation of which was endorsed by author Tom Clancy. The series chronicles the adventures and the stealth actions of the fictional character Sam Fisher.

After the book was published in 2004, Raymond Benson announced that he had written it, using the pseudonym David Michaels. Benson is best known for being the official author of the James Bond series of novels from 1997 to 2002. In 2005, a second book by Benson was released entitled Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Operation Barracuda. After the completion of that book, a new author was hired to continue the series under the same pseudonym.

Plot introduction

Sam Fisher, a special agent, or Splinter Cell, is called upon to investigate the deaths of other Splinter Cell agents. He finds ties to an arms smuggling ring, and their ties to a mysterious terrorist group known as “The Shadows”.

Plot summary

The plot of the novel takes place in 2004 and concerns an Iranian terrorist group called “The Shadows”. Led by Nasir Tarighian, it is the goal of Tarighian to use a weapon of mass destruction codenamed “The Babylon Phoenix” against the city of Baghdad as revenge for the actions taken by Iraq against Iran during the 1980s that resulted in the murder of his wife and children. While there really isn’t much benefit to the group today, Tarighian attempts to sell the scheme to his organization by claiming that it would also create further disorder in Iraq and in the Middle East, which would inevitably cause the people to turn against the West, namely the United States since Iraq is currently under their watch. Tarighian, a former “great warrior” during the Iran–Iraq War and often proclaimed hero in Iran, hoped that by doing this the Iranian people would rejoice and urge the Iranian government to invade and conquer Iraq after the U.S is forced out of the region. Most of the members of the Shadows disagree with the course of action, feeling that the result is extremely unlikely and that the scheme is nothing more than a 20 year-old vendetta by Tarighian to get back at Iraq for the death of his wife and children during the war. These members feel the same effect of destabilization in the region can be achieved by attacking either Tel Aviv or Jerusalem in Israel.

The novel also involves a terrorist arms dealing organization named “The Shop.” Headed by Andrei Zdrok, its aim is purely business: to make money by supplying arms to anyone with money regardless of race, ethnicity, or religion. The Shop is one of the few organizations in the world that is aware of the black-ops division of the NSA, named “Third Echelon”, which sends covert agents into the world called Splinter Cells to exercise the use of a “fifth freedom”: the freedom to do whatever is necessary to preserve national security and peace for the United States. The Shop, using their knowledge (the source of which is revealed in the sequel, Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Operation Barracuda to be a traitor within Third Echelon itself) and resources, has taken the liberty of assassinating Splinter Cells whenever possible thus to increase their profit margin by keeping the shipment of arms from falling into unwanted hands.

Sam Fisher is deployed by Third Echelon to the Middle East to uncover the truth about the murder of a Splinter Cell agent. There, he tracks down the source of a shipment of arms seized by the Iraqi police and infiltrates numerous locations relating to both the Shop and the Shadows, all the while unaware that the Shop has targeted him and his only daughter, Sarah.

Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell Series

1. Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell #1
2. Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell #2: Operation Barracuda
3. Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell #3: Checkmate
4. Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell #4: Fallout
5. Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell #5: Conviction
6. Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell #6: Endgame
7. Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell #7: Blacklist Aftermath

Against All Enemies

Title:                      Against All Enemies

Author:                Tom Clancy

Clancy, Tom (2011) with Peter Telep. Against All Enemies. New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons,

LCCN:    2011012458

PS3553.L245 A73 2011

Date Posted:      June 7, 2015

Subjects

• United States. Central Intelligence Agency–Fiction.
• Taliban–Fiction.
• Drug traffic–Mexico–Fiction.
• Drug traffic–Middle East–Fiction.
• Terrorism–Fiction.
• Mexico–Fiction.
• Middle East–Fiction.

Form/Genre

• Suspense fiction.

LCCN

• 2011012458

Dewey class no.

• 813/.54

Geographic area code

• n-mx— aw—–

Other system no.

• (OCoLC)ocn709666048

Type of material

• Book

Where to RequestRequest this Item

CALL NUMBER

PS3553.L245 A73 2011 FT MEADE

 

Threat Vector

Title:                      Threat Vector

Author:                Tom Clancy

Clancy, Tom (2012) with Mark Greaney. Threat Vector. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons

LCCN:    2012037741

PS3553.L245 T48 2012

Subjects

• Ryan, Jack, Sr. (Fictitious character)–Fiction.

Date Posted:      June 7, 2015

KIRKUS REVIEW

In which Jack Ryan, Junior and Senior, take on most of the bad guys in the world. Guess who wins.

Writing with international relations maven turned novelist Greaney, techno geek and political mayhem lover Clancy (The Hunt for Red October, 1984, etc.) drafts a legion of villains—al-Qaida operatives, rogue spooks, former Gadhafi agents and high-ups in the Chinese Communist Party—who are separately and together up to decidedly no good when it comes to the sovereign interests of the U.S., now led by former CIA agent Jack Ryan. His namesake son is a field agent, as adept as dad at identifying and eliminating threats, and the threats are ever so many. Junior and company have a clinically efficient way about them: “Target Four died, slumped on the floor by the toilet in the bathroom of the sports stadium, certain that this all must have been some terrible mistake.”

Even so, getting to the heaviest of the heavies, among them brilliant hackers who, from the safety of China, are working 24/7 to break into America’s computers, takes them a little more effort and planning. Most of those heavies are believable, though one of them, a certain Tong, has a sort of Odd Job quality to him: “Not much gave him pleasure, his brain had been virtually programmed by the state so that it did not respond to such banal stimuli as pleasure.” It’s a pleasure, banal or no, to watch the Ryans at work against such fierce competition, and Clancy and Greaney are at the top of their game. Interestingly, too, Clancy’s writing has shed some of its erstwhile woodenness, and though he still loves gadgetry and military hardware, his latest doesn’t read like a tech manual, which is all to the good.

Red Rabbit

Title:                      Red Rabbit

Author:                Tom Clancy

Clancy, Tom (2002). Red Rabbit. New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons

LCCN:    2002067958

PS3553.L245 R39 2002

Subjects

• John Paul II, Pope, 1920-2005–Assassination attempts–Fiction.
• Ryan, Jack, Sr. (Fictitious character)–Fiction.
• Attempted assassination–Fiction.
• Intelligence officers–Fiction.
• Americans–England–Fiction.
• Popes–Fiction.

Date Posted:      June 7, 2015

Review by John Sutherland[1]

Tom Clancy is not, by conventional literary-critical criteria, a great novelist. But he is, without question, the novelist with the biggest ideological clout currently active.

Jack Ryan, his cold war superhero (stockbroker, two-fisted marine, doctor of philosophy, CIA spook, president of the US), is battling on two fronts. Red Rabbit will, for a certainty, be the beach book of 2002.

One of the problems with Ryan is that, once he has made it to the White House in Executive Orders, there’s nowhere higher for him to go. Like Alexander, he pines for new worlds to conquer.

In the cinema, Clancy and his Hollywood delegates have rejuvenated their property by replacing grizzled Harrison Ford with smooth-faced Ben Affleck. The miraculously young Ryan saves the world from Armageddon—although Baltimore takes a painful hit from a terrorist dirty bomb in the process. The setting is the very near future.

Red Rabbit backtracks along Ryan’s CV to 1981. He has saved the heir to the British throne (in Patriot Games) from Irish assassins and been knighted. As he is an asset with useful connections, the CIA has seconded him for a year or two to Britain’s intelligence service.

Jack, together with surgeon wife Cathy and little daughter, becomes a player in the Great Game. (No need for a spoiler alert—everything that follows is divulged in the novel’s blurb.) The Reds, under the unscrupulous KGB chief Andropov (Brezhnev is a senile zombie), plan to assassinate the Polish Pope, who has threatened to throw his papal muscle behind Solidarity. Having done for the turbulent priest, Andropov will take over and put some Stalinist lead back in the Soviet pencil. Meanwhile, at the top board, a complex game of superpower chess is developing. The Americans are scheming to destabilize the Soviet Union—their plan is called “The Masque of the Red Death” (if you believe Clancy, glasnost and perestroika were smart weapons devised by Washington).

Why does the Evil Empire fall eight years later? Because it is atheistic (“Red Rabbit” is a defecting KGB operative who discovers God), because it has an unwieldy bureaucracy, and—above all—because its military machinery is naff. The AK47 is “a good weapon” for example, but not a patch on the M16 (SA80—forget it). The Russkis can’t make a sink-plug that works, let alone a stealth bomber.

Jack, heroic as ever (and a devout Catholic to boot), gets caught up saving John Paul II from the Bulgar assassin and, inevitably, is instrumental in saving the world for democracy, godliness, capitalism, and the American way.

Alas, Britain—his temporary domicile—is strictly second division. Cathy (who goes to work for the NHS) is appalled by the inefficiency of socialized medicine. Jack finds the country charming but always lurking at the back of his mind is the question, “Can you really trust the Brits?” Poor Tony.

It’s a feature of a sophisticated, ideologically driven country like America that its parts function in unison, without any formal instruction from above. Clancy, quite transparently, is preparing readers and filmgoers for war. The Iraq adventure, that is. In The Sum of All Fears, the American population is alerted to the imminent likelihood of a dastardly terrorist strike, and the urgent necessity to pre-empt it. In the original scenario, the terrorists were Arabs. The film was made before September 11, 2001, and the producers were prevailed upon, by lobbyists, not to demonize Islam. The villains were duly recast as European neo-Nazis. Same difference. Most of America thinks that Europe is comprised of anti-semitic liberal pacifists. In the fight to come, America stands alone.

Red Rabbit exudes a terrifying new confidence. The Vietnam syndrome is wholly purged. America can conquer by virtue of its simple faith in God, its “system” and its cutting-edge weapons technology. Praise the Lord and pass the smart bombs.

[1] Sutherland, John, The Guardian downloaded June 7, 2015. John Sutherland’s most recent book is Last Drink to LA (Faber).

Rainbow Six

Title:                      Rainbow Six

Author:                Tom Clancy

Clancy, Tom (1998). Rainbow Six. New York: Putnam

LCCN:    98022301

PS3553.L245 R35 1998

Subjects

• Terrorists–Fiction.
• Terrorism–Prevention–Fiction.

Date Posted:      June 7, 2015

Review from Publishers Weekly

Executive Orders, which thrust Jack Ryan into the Oval Office, raised the bar for its immensely popular author. This first Clancy hardcover since then, though a ripping read, matches its predecessor neither in complexity nor intensity nor even, at 752 pages, length, despite a strong premise and some world-class action sequences. Instead of everyman Ryan, its lead is the more shadowed John Clark, the ex-Navy SEAL vigilante of Without Remorse who has appeared in several Ryan adventures. Clark now heads Rainbow Six, an international special-ops anti-terrorist strike force—and, despite the novelty of the conceit, that’s a problem, as the profusion of protagonists, though sharply drawn (including, most notably, “Ding” Chavez, Clark’s longtime protégé), deprives the book of the sort of strong central character that has given Clancy’s previous novels such heart.

The story opens vigorously if arbitrarily, with an attempted airline hijacking foiled by Clark and Chavez, who happen to be on the plane. After that action sequence, the duo and others train at Rainbow Headquarters outside London, then leap into the fray against terrorists who have seized a bank in Bern, Switzerland. And so the pattern of the narrative is set: action sequence, interlude, action sequence, interlude, etc., giving it the structure and pace of a computer game. A major subplot involving bioterrorism that evolves into an overarching plotline syncopates that pattern, though Clancy’s choice of environmentalists as his prime villains will strike some readers as odd. All of Clancy’s fans, however, will revel in the writer’s continued mastery at action writing; Rainbow’s engagements, which occupy the bulk of the novel, are immensely suspenseful, breathtaking combos of expertly detailed combat and primal emotion. While not Clancy’s best, then, his 10th hardcover will catapult to the top of bestseller lists.

 

Without Remorse

Title:                      Without Remorse

Author:                Tom Clancy.

Clancy, Tom (1993). Without Remorse. New York: Putnam

LCCN:    93013940

PS3553.L245 W57 1993

Subjects

• Clark, John (Fictitious character)
• Prisoners of war—Fiction.
• Vietnam—Fiction.

Date Posted:      June 7, 2015

KIRKUS REVIEW

Superultramegatechnothriller bestseller Clancy drops the technobits for a story about a beached SEAL who—with nothing but low-tech knives and home-modified artillery—takes on the drug traders of Baltimore and the North Vietnamese Army at the same time. During the first Nixon term, recently widowed Vietnam vet and underwater-demolition expert John Kelly picks up a pretty pedestrian named Pam on his way to the diesel-powered yacht where he’s been licking his wounds since the accidental death of his pregnant wife. Pam, a prostitute, is on the lam from her sadistic pimp Henry, an ambitious and rising drug-dealer. Even as Kelly is feeding a grateful Pam, Henry’s henchmen are just down the Chesapeake Bay feeding an associate to the crabs.

Out fishing the next day, Pam and Kelly have a cute-meet with physicians Sam and Sarah Rosen, who kindly clean up Pam’s sexually transmitted diseases and drug addiction after Kelly fixes their corroded screws. Meanwhile, in North Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh’s fiends have locked up 20 downed and reportedly dead American flyers in a secret prison to be interrogated by a Soviet colonel about American air strategy. The US government knows about the prisoners but is willing to sacrifice them for the good of the Paris peace talks.

Back in Baltimore, Kelly takes the rebuilt Pam back to her old haunts so he can punish her wrongdoers, but they themselves are the victims. Pam dies a cruel death, and Kelly takes a shotgun blast in the neck. Weeks later, a brokenhearted Kelly resolves to wipe out the drug-dealing dirt who did in his sweetheart, accepting at the same time a commission to rescue the flyers. He’ll have to hurry. Henry has linked up with the mob, and it won’t be long before the pilots outlive their usefulness. Among the countless complications: a pair of dope-smoking Ivy League draft evaders, and some commendably persistent detectives from the Baltimore police force. Twice as long as the two rather creaky storylines can bear, but the millions of midlevel, desk-bound, action-loving bureaucrats whose adventurous wishes Clancy so faithfully fulfills are unlikely to complain.