The Teeth of the Tiger

Here again is a writing that causes the average reader to think what was fiction or possibly realty. There’s so much the average American does not or need to know.

The first mention of where the bad guy teams are going says Virginia, Iowa, Colorado and California. The later it states Virginia, Iowa, Colorado and Utah.

Ok

Action! Suspense! Real People! Horrifying, believable situations with potential for destroying the world! These are the things that Clancy became known for with his early books in the Jack Ryan series, from The Hunt for Red October to Executive Orders. Unfortunately, since then, new books in the series have lost one or more of those fine elements, leaving me wondering if the same man wrote the current work and those earlier ones. This one starts well, introducing some much needed new characters, Jack Ryan's twin nephews Dominic and Brian Caruso, a Marine and an FBI agent, and his son Jack Jr. The situation is post 9/11, Jack Sr. is now the 'retired' President, and terrorism is the natural and quite believable focus of this work. Clancy's initial description of the collusion between a South American drug cartel and Islamic terrorists is precise and fits well with the real world. The mindset of the terrorists who are chosen to actually carry out the 'message' that no place in America is safe from them is well portrayed. By this point I was all set for another great thriller, wondering if Jack Jr. and his cousins can figure out the threat and deploy counter-measures in time - but it didn't happen. Instead we are treated to a near impossible coincidence of the nephews just happening to be at the right place at the right time, an intelligence analysis by Jack Jr. that drives from one marginal ID of a player in the terrorist plot all the way to the second-level king-pin - again with too much coincidence to be believable, and a 'solution' where everything goes exactly as planned, with no suspense at all. Jack Jr. and the twins are reasonably portrayed, though not in the depth we have come to expect of Clancy, and they all do more soul-searching about the morality of killing obvious threats to society than I thought was healthy. It is also perhaps too much of a stretch that these three relatives would all come together as part of this counter-terrorist group, and that there is no media observance of Jack Jr.'s actions. His top-level villains are not so well defined, having too much vagueness about their background and how they came to their current way of thinking to make them into real people for me. Along the way, Clancy makes points about the ability of the various intelligence agencies to crack most of the available encryption codes for e-mail via a combination of back-door programming entries and some brute force computing power. This is something I'm not at all sure is close to the reality - if it is then why are these agencies consistently supporting legislation to limit encryption algorithms and want to have a requirement for government-held secondary keys (not to mention the right to unlimited wiretaps and access to ISP's user data). But it is clear that Clancy is saying that the only way to defeat terrorism is to have such abilities, regardless of what such items would do to the right to privacy. In fact, with his 'solution' to terrorism, Clancy seems to be advocating the complete abrogation of the rule of law, that an individual's judgement of another's fitness for elimination is enough, without recourse to the courts. This book is slightly better than the last, Red Rabbit, mainly due to breath of fresh air of his new characters, but suffers from the same major fault, that all the planned actions go exactly as planned, there are no mistakes, no random happenstances that upset the plans, and thus removing any suspense. --- Reviewed by Patrick Shepherd (hyperpat)

I really enjoyed this book after accidentally reading the next one before this one. Anyway, this is for me the last of the Jack Ryan written by Tom Clancy and I will miss them. I can’t decide whether to pick up Jack Jr and the new author, I have loved the way Clancy tells his stories for years and this is no exception.

A fast read that you can hardly put down. Was little unrealistic on some of the European assignment action, but still good.

This was a very good read. Lots of twists that brought you to the conclusion. Just the beginning of numerous novels.

As every good storyteller can tell you, it's sometimes good to shake things up a bit, particularly in a long-established franchise as Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan series. Since 1984, Clancy's readers have followed John Patrick Ryan's ascent from Annapolis history professor to President of the United States, focusing particularly on Ryan's fast rise within the ranks of the Central Intelligence Agency. From his stint as CIA liaison officer in London to a short and contentious stint as CIA Deputy Director, Clancy's most famous character saw both the good and the dark side of the "black world" of the intelligence-gathering business. But in order to keep Ryan believable and keep his fans interested, Clancy has shaken things up in the "Ryan-verse" several times. In 1991's The Sum of All Fears Clancy placed Ryan in a no-win scenario in which part of a terrorist plot does work -- even though the ultimate goal is not achieved -- and ends his career at CIA. He also diverted readers' attentions in Without Remorse and Rainbow Six to John Clark, a major (but secondary) player in most of the Jack Ryan novels. Finally, in a three-novel arc (Debt of Honor, Executive Orders, and The Bear and the Dragon), John Patrick Ryan becomes the nation's Chief Executive. Now, in The Teeth of the Tiger, Clancy stirs things up again by handing off the franchise to the "next generation" by making John Patrick Ryan, Jr. one of America's newest clandestine agents. It's the early 21st Century. President Ryan is now retired and working on his memoirs. His wife Cathy is still a surgeon, and their oldest daughter Sally is attending medical school. In the White House, Edward Kealty (a man whose path to power was once seemingly halted by sexual scandal and his resignation from the Vice Presidency) is now occupant of the Oval Office, having been placed there by his predecessor's assassination. In this time of transition, the war on terror goes on, and new departments and agencies have been created to fight it. One of these secret agencies is "The Campus," run jointly by the military and intelligence communities. Here, under the cover of a legitimate business outfit known as Hendley Associates, analysts pore over data while field operatives carry out dangerous missions against targeted terrorists. One of the new analysts is the young, talented, but untried Jack Ryan, Jr. His cousins Dominic and Brian Caruso, twins who have been serving their country well, join young Ryan in The Campus. Dominic, the FBI agent, has just finished one of his first and most harrowing cases, while Brian, a Marine captain, has recently completed a tour of duty in Afghanistan. While Ryan possesses his father's sharp intellect and analytical skill, his cousins have the investigative and combat skills necessary for field assignments. And when a Muslim terrorist group joins forces with a Colombian drug cartel to inflict grievous damage upon their common American enemy, these three young rookies will pit their courage and skills against this new and nefarious confederacy of evil. Fast paced and crisply written, Clancy's latest novel dares to take chances by changing the familiar Ryan-verse in unexpected ways. The introduction of a new generation of protagonists allows the author to avoid the President-Ryan-faces-another-international-crisis while showing readers the fates of familiar characters from previous novels, even though not all the developments are happy ones. All in all, however, The Teeth of the Tiger is still an entertaining work, despite its brevity (by Clancy standards) and cliffhanger ending.

The book itself was "couldn't put it down" and good flight companion. It got a bit sporatic and wanted to read more about twins, and having Jack Jr. doing more than analetical work was bit too much. All in all, very good book, and can't wait for the next.

Muito bom

The book was new Lucky to get it at such a low price that too in hardcover Thank you

Je suis parmi les fanas de Tom Clancy et ce depuis le début. J'avoue avoir été un peu déçu par cette dernière production car elle manque de fond à moins qu'elle ne corresponde qu'au 1er tome d'une longue série. C'est un peu "longuet" et dilutif. Ce qui m'a le plus surpris est de voir la fascination que le monde islamiste peut exercer sur un auteur représentatif d'un certain milieu américain. J'avoue avoir appris pas mal sur certains modes de fonctionnement de ce monde dans les livres de Tom Clancy. Je vous souhaite quand même bonne lecture .

This book is a bit short, and pretty simple to read, which is okay since it's introducing a lot of future recurring characters. There are no characters from previous Ryan books, except Jack Jr., and that's why it's good to keep it simple. It's very easy to read.