Patriot Games

This was a reread of a book I read when it first came out, and several times since then. It starts with a bang as Jack, on a working vacation in London with his family, witnesses a kidnapping attempt on the royal family. His instinctive reaction stopped the attack and put him in the bullseye of revenge.

One of the things I enjoy most every time I read this book is the deft mixture of action, darkness, and humor. The opening attack sucks me into the story immediately, on the edge of my seat as Jack rushes into action. Clancy's descriptions are vivid enough that I can picture the events as they happen. The confusion at the scene felt realistic, and I could feel Jack's worry that he'd end up "stuck like a pig" when the good guys showed up. show more I always laugh at the scenes in the hospital as Jack deals with the doctors (including his wife) and other medical personnel. The scenes with various law enforcement personnel show Jack what he inadvertently got involved in and reveal his razor-sharp mind as he processes what he learns. The scenes with multiple members of the royal family are good, but my favorite is when he helps the prince work through his feelings about what happened. Though not particularly realistic, it is still a great scene.

As the book continues we get the viewpoints of both the bad guys and the good guys. Jack and his family return home, secure in the knowledge that the bad guy is in jail and terrorists have never attacked on American soil. But the tension ramps up as the bad guy escapes and assorted good guys get a bad feeling about what might happen. Jack is lured into the CIA's sphere as he tries to get a handle on the group behind the attack. Their fears are realized when Jack's wife and daughter are nearly killed in an attack, and only luck prevents Jack from being attacked too. I ached for Jack as he dealt with his feelings of guilt and fear by getting more involved in the case. Jack goes through a lot of self-examination as he tries to reconcile his need for justice with the anger and desire for revenge that he also feels.

The tension continues to build as the book follows the terrorists as they make plans for their next attack. The attention to detail was intriguing and as were the insights into the various players' motivations. At the same time we see the good guys as they try to assemble the pieces of the puzzle in time to stop whatever is planned.

The final confrontation was a nail-biter. It started easy, with the royal visit and some amusing banter between Jack, Robby, and the prince. The chaos of the attack was described so vividly that I felt as though I was there. The escape by boat was exciting, and their arrival at the Academy was tense but also had a few lighter moments. The pursuit of the last of the bad guys had me on the edge of my seat until it was all over. Jack faced a crossroads in his life, and it was interesting to see how he handled it. I loved the ending.

One of my favorite lines is as the Superintendent asks Robby who is aboard the ship: "Chief Znamirowski and the duty boat section, Captain Peters and some Marines, Doctor Ryan, and, uh, Captain Wales, sir, of the Royal Navy" "Is that where he is?..." show less

The first I ever heard of Patriots Games was the movie from my brother. Upon seeing the movie, I knew immediatly that I had to read the book. The first few pages of the book yielded multiple reasons to read on. From my previous books, one can infer that I enjoy Action Novels. After the main character, Jack Ryan, foils a PIRA (Provisional Irish Republican Army) assassination attempt on the Prince of Wales and his family, PIRA finds a new target, the man who ruined their best assassination attempt on the prince.

Tom Clancy has outdone himself this time. Patriot Games is a fast-paced book, keeping the dialogueand suspense incredibly smooth the whole time. Some pages give you easy insight so as not to frustrate the reader, while others show more combine the perfect amount of excitement and wonder, leaving the answer just out of reach. When everything comes together in the end, it's breathtaking, watching the action that has been building throughout the whole book finally unfold. However, there are some big gaps in the action that are necessary for explanatory purposes, but slow down the pace completely. All things accounted for, Patriot Games has been one of the more pleasurable books I've ever read, Shooting four and-a-half stars out of five. show less

I first read Patriot Games 35 years ago, after being blown away by Hunt for Red October. I eagerly consumed each subsequent Tom Clancy novel until he pretty much ran out of things to write about, though, like Larry McMurtry, it didn’t stop him from churning out substandard offerings.

Having pretty much run through my reading list, I elected to go back and reread the early Clancy novels, to see if they were as good as I remembered. I skipped Hunt for Red October, because I’ve seen the movie a dozen times and began with Red Storm Rising. I followed up with Patriot Games, despite having also seen the movie several times.

Many of Clancy’s novels focus on military engagement and explanation of complex military equipment. This is show more certainly one of his greatest strengths. He is very knowledgeable and well trained in this area. This is not one of those works.

The storyline of Patriot Games revolves around an Irish terrorist group, a more aggressive branch of the IRA. Jack Ryan, a Navy veteran and Annapolis professor stumbles upon and foils a plot to kidnap the Prince of Wales, his wife and child. In doing so, he earns the enmity of the terrorists.

As mentioned above, Clancy shines in his description of action. This novel certainly has some of that. However, this is far more dialogue driven than Hunt for Red October or Red Storm Rising, and the simple fact is, much of the dialogue is just bad, at times silly. I remember back in the ‘80s calling friends “turkeys”, but hearing the term used repeatedly by Marines and others when speaking to each other certainly does not age well.

Clancy tells a good story, sets the scene and describes action almost without peer. The more interpersonal, dialogue driven activity that takes place, the more his work suffers. show less

I saw the movie years ago, and I suppose that's why it took me so long to get around to reading the book--wanting to be able to take the book as it is, rather than remember the movie too clearly--but I really enjoyed this and wish I'd gotten around to it sooner. Yes, the technology is now a bit dated, but if you can pull yourself into the time of the book and enjoy it for what it is, it's a fantastic, character-driven escape filled with great characters and suspense.

I'd certainly recommend it, and I look forward to reading more of the series sooner than later.

While in London on holiday with his wife and young daughter, Jack Ryan manages to foil a terrorist attack on the Prince of Wales and his family. Killing one of the attackers and subduing another does not endear Jack to the terrorists and he and his family become a potential target. Having dome some work previously with the CIA, which was well received, Jack requests to research the group that may be after him. As they are eager to recruit him on a full-time basis the CIA acquiesce to Jack’s wishes to see if he can find anything worthwhile in the scant information that they have accumulated so far.

On the back of watching the recent TV series I remembered that I still had this book on my tbr shelves. I’d also enjoyed the movie show more adaptation of this story and as it had been some time since I’d read other works in the series I thought I’d dip my toe back in the water. Right from the outset this is a thrilling, action-packed, roller coaster of a story. Of course there are some quiet moments along the way for the reader to catch their breath but the 600+ pages actually flew by. As the world has moved on from when the IRA was the major terrorist concern the book has now become a little dated but it doesn’t detract from the action or story, show less

I really liked Hunt for Red October, so I was looking forward to this. The beginning didn't disappoint, and was very engaging. The middle was very slow. (I hit my "this feels like pure filler" point during Ryan's plane ride home. It was very long and very descriptive -which I generally have no problem with from Tom Clancy- but had nothing to do with pushing the plot along.) And the end left something to be desired. Jack Ryan loses the intelligence and impulsive, occasional streaks of heroism he had going for him, and becomes a foolish guy who's nearly super-human.

I have started to read this book mainly because after I played a couple of games that take Tom Clancy's name, I became interested to know what sort of stories he told in his books. After doing a bit of research on the main themes, the focus on the Cold War, secret services and military themes sounded very promising. I mean, if dozens of games and movies based on Tom Clancy's books were released, one would suppose that they did have something to catch your interest, no?
Unfortunately, I think that I expected too much from his older book and Patriot Games ended up not captivating me very much. Maybe I was expecting something more thrilling and a better elaborated plot, but it really, really, felt like watching cliché action movies with show more several moments of tedious nothingness. I mean, literally, during more than half of the book, absolutely NOTHING happens. And it really saddened me, because the first, say, 20 pages of the book were absolutely awesome, with a lot of action. It was naive of me to think that this rhythm was going to be kept through the more than 500 pages of the book. Of course, Patriot Games does have its share of frenetic action, but the interval between them is so long that the investigation parts didn't really hold my interest for too long. After a while, I started to think that the good parts of the book were actually the romantic scenes between Jack and Cathy.
There are tons of characters in the book and I find it amazing that pretty much all of them have a military background. Okay, Jack was once a Mariner, it should be kinda obvious that most of his contacts had a common background. But if you look carefully, there is not a single character in the book (besides the women) who doesn't have a military background, and the "coincidences" really bothered me.
The same goes for the multiple-view narrative. Clancy wanted to show both sides of the coin, but in the end, the villains were essentially evil people while all the other characters were support-good guys who praised Jack Ryan for his brave efforts in every single page. It was either this or Jack stating that "no, I'm nothing. You're the one who's awesome".

I still want to give a second chance for other Tom Clancy's books. Maybe it's just the fact that this is one of the first books he ever wrote. I want to believe that his writing skills improved as time went by. show less