Red Rabbit [Mass Market Paperback]

But Red Rabbit will be a major, major let down for Clancy's legions of fans. Whether or not you liked the somewhat racist and hyper-sexual "Bear and Dragon", you'll find that in this book Jack Ryan is quite different than anyone you've seen before. He is whining, foul-mouthed, not particularly security conscious (400 pages are devoted to covering up an ultra-top-secret defection, and then Ryan blithely gossips about it to a bunch of junior CIA guys??), and endlessly repetitive. Because this novel had to fit in between Patriot Games and Red October, and yet hadn't been referenced in any of the other books, the result is a relatively unimportant (in the Clancy universe) episode, which has the effect of marking time in the lives of the usual characters.

Much as I love the series (even with Clancy's politics-on-his-sleeve, plug-his-friends, black-and-white jingoism) I'm afraid that something went far astray here. Maybe he has run out of steam with Jack, or he's written himself into a corner, or he just did this for the money. But the result is something that should be avoided by all new readers and most casual readers. The die hard fans will, of course, need to read this one for completeness' sake, but anyone else will unquestionably wonder what all the fuss is about.

In the future, I think that most of Clancy's fans would hope that he either comes up with some plausible future stuff after Bear and Dragon, or gives us some more Rainbow adventures, or perhaps gives us some Mr. Clark black operations in the years between Remorse and October. He might even, if necessary, jettison the whole lot and write about something else entirely. But I'm really afraid that one more sleeper like this one has the potential to completely ruin the franchise.

Jamming a story in between Patriot Games and Red October was a lousy idea to start with. We already knew Ryan's history, and by definition there couldn't be anything substantive in the book.

Besides that, we all knew the Pope had been shot. There were virtually no interesting subplots, just lots of sleepy dialogue that didn't go anywhere. There were more false starts in this book than in any previous novel. Not a single interesting plot twist or thing-gone-wrong.

Jack Ryan is such a terrific character - can't we find out what happens to him NEXT? Did we have to go back in time with a poorly conceived, disappointly executed, flat-out BORING story?

If you're a real Clancy fan, be prepared for disappointment. No questions this is his worst book ever.

This book gets away from the trap that Clancy had fallen into - these long-winded dialogues and descent into puerile humor that characterized Bear and the Dragon. This is not to say that Red Rabbit doesn't drag - it does. but it also gets to the troika that actually defeated Communism: the Gipper and the Iron Lady in the West - and Lech Walesa's Solidarity in the East - a topic that had been lacking previously in Clancy stories.

I'll leave this here with the following compliment. I bought "Red Rabbit" at 2PM yesterday. Couldn't put it down for any more than an hour or two and it is now complete at 3:30 in the following morning. 4 stars!