Patriot Games [Hardcover]

On a working vacation in London with wife Caroline (Cathy) and daughter Olivia (better known as Sally), Ryan is the accidental tourist-turned-rescuer when he literally runs into a brutal terrorist attack on the Prince and Princess of Wales and their baby. Without stopping to even think about it, Jack, a former Marine second lieutenant and now a professor at the Naval Academy in Annapolis, kills one terrorist and wounds another. Ryan is wounded in the brief shootout, but he survives and earns the gratitude (and an honorary knighthood) of the Royal Family.

Unbeknownst to Ryan, he also gets the attention of two very different groups. In Langley, VA, CIA Deputy Director, Intelligence (DDI) James Greer is impressed by Ryan's bravery and resourcefulness. He already knows Ryan is good CIA-analyst material; Jack has done some outside consulting for the Agency. Now Greer wants to recruit Ryan to work full-time at CIA.

The other group whose attention is on Ryan is less savory. It is the Ulster Liberation Army, a far-left extremist faction which has broken away from the Irish Republican Army. While sharing the IRA's desire to rid Ireland of British troops and break away from the United Kingdom, the ULA also wants an Irish Marxist state to rule the Emerald Isle. Thwarted in their bold attack on the Royals and thirsting for revenge against Ryan, ULA leader Kevin O'Donnell and his cohorts free the terrorist Ryan wounded and caused to be tried, convicted and punished, Sean Miller.

This novel not only deals with the shadow-world of terrorism and the agencies that combat this global scourge, but it also delves into the concepts of right versus wrong, honor, and the role of the family in society. Clancy, himself an Irish-American, has little sympathy for the violent means that Irish "freedom fighters" (and pro-British counterparts) have been using in Northern Ireland since 1969. He contrasts the stability of the Ryan family (and the fictionalized Royals) to the moral vacuum of the lone wolves and traitors who make up the ULA. The theme of the book is summed up by a quote by Edmund Burke: "When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one by one, and unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle."

As in the 1992 film adaptation, Patriot Games sets up a cat-and-mouse game as Miller and O'Donnell plot revenge against Ryan and to finish the mission the "meddling Yank" foiled. The storyline of the novel is obviously more complicated, and Clancy here uses a technique he will later use throughout the rest of the Ryan novels. He will introduce characters such as FBI Agents Dan Murray and Bill Shaw, who will be more prominent in later works such as Clear and Present Danger, The Sum of All Fears, and Debt of Honor. The ending, too, is more cerebral and less explosive than that of Philip Noyce's film version, with plot strands that will not be resolved so easily.

However before he went overboard Clancy struck gold with this one. Addictive, sometimes a bit boring but with a killer ending (literally!). Better than the movie. I own all of Clancy's books - this is still my favorite.