Dead or Alive: Tom Clancy

So, this is Tom Clancy's latest large novel (950 pages!). This was the last book that I finished - last Sunday morning. As you can see from the cover, this was written by Clancy "with Grant Blackwood". Rumor is that Clancy didn't do much of the writing, but Blackwood did most of it. (I don't know how true that is.)

The book brings back a lot of the historic Clancy characters: Jack Ryan, John Clark, Chavez, Jack Jr., the Caruso boys from Teeth of the Tiger, and even Mary Pat Foley plays a bit part. If you've read any of Clancy's previous novels, you should recognize nearly all these folks. This book takes on international terrorism, with the team from The Campus (first introduced in Teeth of the Tiger). They are tracking and seeking to find someone named "The Emir" who is supposedly the mastermind behind the 9/11 attacks.

I've loved all of the Clancy novels that he's written himself (didn't really care much for most of his spin-off series). This one is a little different because of the co-writing, I think. There's not as much historical discussion about the background of certain things (think Sum of All Fears discussion of the nuclear weapons and such). There's a lot that goes unexplained in this one. I won't ruin it by revealing some of the things. And, there's almost too much going on - too many characters - time spent on people that don't really get involved in the end. If you've read past Clancy books, you know he always starts out with several different characters all over the world, that don't really seem to tie together. However, at the end of the book, all of those characters get tied back together and you finally figure out why he's been talking about this person. In Dead or Alive, there's several characters that are discussed, but really play no role in the end, and you're left wondering why he discussed them. (Sadly, Mary Pat Foley is one of these characters!)

Anyway, I don't mean to diss the whole book too much. There was plenty to like - just having those characters back made you a little happy inside (this is his first book with these characters in 10 years). All in all, a good fun read - just a few things that could have been improved upon.

Apparently Clancy has a new book coming out this fall - also co-written with someone else (but not Blackwood). We'll see what characters he uses, and if the new co-author can stick with the historical Tom Clancy a bit more.

:)

(I am currently reading a new book, which I'll post about when I finish. However, in the meantime, I'll try and post about some of the other books I've read so far this year!)