The Bear and the Dragon: INSPIRATION FOR THE THRILLING AMAZON PRIME SERIES JACK RYAN - Softcover

Clancy, Tom

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0140274065 ISBN 13: 9780140274066

Publisher: Penguin, 2001

Synopsis

Tom Clancy's new Jack Ryan thriller, Command Authority, is available to pre-order now.

A truly brilliant thriller by Tom Clancy, The Bear and the Dragon is a John Clark novel.

Newly elected in his own right, Jack Ryan has found that being President has gotten no easier: domestic pitfalls await him at every turn; the Asian economy is going down the tubes; and now, in Moscow, someone may have tried to take out the chairman of the SVR - the former KGB - with a rocket-propelled grenade. Things are unstable enough in Russia without high-level assassination, but even more disturbing may be the identities of the potential assassins. Were they political enemies, the Russian Mafia, disaffected former KGB? Or, Ryan wonders, is something far more dangerous at work here?

Ryan is right to wonder. For even while Russian investigators pursue the case, and some of his most trusted eyes and ears, including antiterrorism specialist John Clark, head to Moscow, forces in China are moving forward with a plan of truly audacious proportions. Tired of what they view as the presumption of the West, eager to fulfill their destiny, they are taking matters into their own hands. If they succeed, the world as we know it will never look the same. If they fail. . . the consequences may be unspeakable.

The Bear and the Dragon is Tom Clancy at his best - and there is none better. This is the third John Clark thriller, following Without Remorse and Rainbow Six.

Praise for Tom Clancy:
'A brilliantly constructed thriller' Daily Mail
'Truly riveting, a dazzling read' Sunday Express

Thirty years ago, Tom Clancy was a Maryland insurance broker with a passion for naval history. His first novel, The Hunt for Red October, catapulted on to the New York Times bestseller list after President Reagan pronounced it 'the perfect yarn'. Since then Clancy has established himself as an undisputed master at blending exceptional realism and authenticity, intricate plotting and razor-sharp suspense. He passed away in October 2013.

www.tomclancy.com
www.facebook.com/tomclancyauthor

About this title

Product Description:

The Bear And the Dragon

Review:

Power is delightful, and absolute power should be absolutely delightful--but not when you're the most powerful man on earth and the place is ticking like a time bomb. Jack Ryan, CIA warrior turned US president, is the man in the hot seat, and in this vast thriller he's up to his nostrils in crazed Asian warlords, Russian thugs, nukes that won't stay put, and authentic, up-to-the-nanosecond technology as complex as the characters' motives are simple. Quick, do you know how to reprogramme the software in an Aegis missile seekerhead? Well, if you're Jack Ryan, you'd better find someone who does, or an incoming ballistic may rain fallout on your parade. Bad for re-election prospects. "You know, I don't really like this job very much," Ryan complains to his aide Arnie van Damm, who replies, "Ain't supposed to be fun, Jack."

But you bet The Bear and the Dragon is fun--over 1,000 swift pages' worth. In the opening scene, a hand-launched RPG rocket nearly blows up Russia's intelligence chief in his armoured Mercedes, and Ryan's clever spooks report that the guy who got the rocket in his face instead was the hoodlum "Rasputin" Avseyenko, who used to run the KGB's "Sparrow School" of female prostitute spies. Soon after, two apparent assassins are found handcuffed together afloat in St. Petersburg's Neva River, their bloated faces resembling Pokémon toys.

The stakes go higher as the mystery deepens: oil and gold are discovered in huge quantities in Siberia, and the evil Chinese Minister Without Portfolio Zhang Han San gazes northward with lust. The laid-off elite of the Soviet Army figure in the brewing troubles, as do the new generation of Tiananmen Square dissidents, Zhang's wily, Danielle Steel-addicted executive secretary Lian Ming, and Chester Nomuri, a hip, Internet-porn-addicted CIA agent posing in China as a Japanese computer salesman. He e-mails his CIA boss, Mary Pat "the Cowgirl" Foley, that he intends to seduce Ming with Dream Angels perfume and scarlet Victoria's Secret lingerie ordered from the catalogue--strictly for God and country, of course. Soon Ming is calling him "Master Sausage" instead of "Comrade," but can anybody master Ming?

The plot is over the top, with devastating subplots erupting all over the globe and lurid characters scaring the wits out of each other every few pages, but Clancy finds time to insert hard-boiled little lessons on the vileness of Communism, the infuriating intrusions of the press on presidential power, the sexual perversions of Mao, the poor quality of Russian pistol silencers ("garbage, cans loaded with steel wool that self-destructed after less than ten shots"), the folly of cutting a man's throat with a knife ("they flop around and make noise when you do that"), and similar topics. Naturally, the book bristles like a battlefield with intriguingly intricate military hardware.

When you've got a Tom Clancy novel in hand, who needs action movies? --Tim Appelo

About this edition

• Publisher: Penguin
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0140274065
• ISBN 13: 9780140274066
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 1152