Red Rabbit (Tom Clancy)
by Tom Clancy
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Book Summary Information
Author: Tom ClancyEdition: Mass Market Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2003-07-29
ISBN: 0425191184
Number of pages: 656
Publisher: Berkley
Product features:
- ISBN13: 9780425191187
- Condition: New
- Notes: BRAND NEW FROM PUBLISHER! 100% Satisfaction Guarantee. Tracking provided on most orders. Buy with Confidence! Millions of books sold!
Book Reviews of Red Rabbit (Tom Clancy)
Book Review: A Clancy Thriller Spoiled By One Thing: No Thrills
Summary: 4 Stars
There are a number of harsh reviews for this book, in which we return to an earlier Jack Ryan, set between the events of "Patriot Games" and "The Hunt for Red October". Written long after the end of the Cold War, this book ruthlessly takes advantage of the reams of information from the old Soviet union that are now available, spinning a fictious tale of a Soviet defector who becomes aware of a KGB plot to assissinate Pope John Paul II. The good news for Clancy fans? This book is better than the current grade it recieves on this site, and it is far superior writing than the editorial mishmash which was "The Bear and The Dragon." The bad news is that there is a basis for those grades: This is a techno thriller without thrils.
Jack Ryan is a new analyst with the CIA working in a new program with British Intelligence in London. New CIA station chief Ed Foley and his agent wife Mary Pat are just arrived in Moscow. A Polish Pope is not pleased with the repression in Poland, suggesting to the Polish government that he might return to be with his people in their hour of need, a message quickly forwarded to Moscow, and which KGB chief Yuri Andropov finds to be too much of a threat for the the first Polish Pope to be allowed to live. And in KGB HQ there is a man who discovers he has a conscience which won't allow him to stand idly by during the murder of an innocent man. A defection leads to a climactic encounter for Jack Ryan in St. Peter's Square (FYI: Retconning at work, as "The Sum of All Fears" made clear that Ryan had never been to Rome).
Therein lies the problem: We know no harm comes to Jack Ryan, we know the Pope gets shot and we know he lives. The book is well written, there's a lot of interesting observations about the Cold War, but readers have come to Clancy for techno thrills and all this foreknowledge provides no true thrills.
Tom Clancy's Cold War novels remain an important part of the historical landscape of that time period, playing an important part in convincing the world, and the Soviet Union, of the American superiority which would be so well displayed in the 1st and 2nd Iraq Wars. "Red Rabbit" helps those books by fleshing out historical knowledge which wasn't available when Clancy started writing. My grading on this book is perhaps overgenerous, due to the unjustified low-rating of this novel: an appropriate rating would be between 3-4 stars. If this was a novel based on a fictitious setting, it would grade much higher. But the foreknowledge that exists is too much to overcome.
Historical Note: There remains no conclusive evidence that the Soviet Union was behind the attempted assissination. One public theory that first accused that there was Soviet involvement even suggested that the KGB wsn't behind it, but rather, the Soviet military. Like Clancy, that's an angle I have a hard time swallowing, that the KGB would've been innocent of any such involvement. Despite that, this is a work of fiction; the full story of this shooting might never be knowm.
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