Dead or Alive

Clancy is back with a Jack Ryan novel years after his previous one. Ryan actually plays only a minor part in this book, with the primary narrative focus being on John Clark, Ding Chavez, and Jack Ryan, Jr. The threat abroad is still nukes and wacko Muslims, and the threat at home is still politicians who don’t understand the value of a strong CIA and strong military. So yeah, it’s basically the same note Clancy has been playing for years now.

The book runs to 950 pages, but the margins and line spacing are larger than his older novels, so it’s not quite the same length as, say, The Sum of All Fears. Multiple characters are introduced and woven together in classic Clancy style, and the book would probably work better as a stand-alone novel than as a follow-up to a classic series.

As a sidenote, the proofreading was apparently sloppy; I caught four typos in my quick read of the book.

Not a bad read; better than most of what is out in this genre today, but not up to the level you’d expect from classic Clancy.