Tom Clancy’s Clear and Present Danger, the fifth instalment in the Jack Ryan series, is a masterclass in political and military thriller writing. The novel plunges readers into the complex world of U.S. intelligence, drug cartels, and covert operations, showcasing Clancy’s meticulous attention to detail and deep understanding of military strategy.

This book is an excellent study of narrative structure, pacing, and the art of building tension. Clancy’s ability to weave together multiple plotlines while maintaining clarity and momentum is a valuable lesson for writers. The detailed portrayal of military tactics, government procedures, and geopolitical intricacies provides readers with a wealth of knowledge about real-world issues, making it an entertaining read and educational one. ( )

good story; good movie ( )

Een spannend en meeslepend verhaal, hier en daar wat chaotisch door het vele verspringen tussen verhaallijnen van verschillende personen. Maar dit boek van Clancy greep me wel het meest aan, vooral door de situatie rondom Greer. Die zorgde zelfs voor wat traantjes in de trein. ( )

FROM AMAZON: Colombian drug lords, bored with Uncle Sam's hectoring, assassinate the head of the FBI. The message is clear: Bug off!

At what point do these druggies threaten national security? When can a nation act against its enemies? These are questions Jack Ryan must answer because someone has quietly stepped over the line.

Does anyone know who the real enemy is? How much action is too much? Which lines have been crossed? Ryan and his "dark side", a shadowy field officer known only as Mr. Clark, are charged with finding out. They expect danger from without...but the danger from within may be the greatest of all!

I was hooked on Tom Clancy for many years. This book was so good that I didn't really notice Clancy's politics at all, unlike more recent books where it is hard to miss. There's no doubt that he was a good storyteller, no matter what you might think of his subject matter and politics. And of course, in his stories, it's always clear who are the good guys, and who are the bad guys. The bad guys are usually unrealistically bad, and the good guys are unrealistically good. I guess this makes it easier to accept some of the things that happen which would be questionable in real life.

This book has all the usual suspects of my favorites of his books, Jack Ryan, John Clark, and Domingo Chavez. Jack Ryan gets most of the recognition in these books, but I personally find John Clark much more interesting. ( )

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E Book Jan . Great read but a long read. A bit too much detail but otherwise I enjoyed it. ( )

Dit is een boek uit de Jack Ryan-serie, waarin we niet veel van Jack Ryan meemaken. In mijn ogen zijn de echte helden uit dit boek Clark en Chavez. Boek heeft een langzame start, maar dat is niet vervelend. Clancy besteed veel tijd om dingen en personen te beschrijven. In het verhaal proberen de VS om de import van drugs uit Colombia te bemoeilijken, en hiervoor gaan ze ver.
De mannen die hun leven wagen om dit uit te voeren worden in de steek gelaten door de mensen die zij vertrouwden. ( )

Really like his character. ( )

Jack Ryan AND John Clark playing major roles in the same Tom Clancy book. Very good premise and well executed. Up there with his finest works. ( )

The abridged audio version of this work clocks in at 3 hours. Thus (given the high rankings the actual book has received), the audio version probably doesn't do it justice. In any case, I found it too hard to follow due to the profusion of characters and the complex plot. I don't recommend it in this enormously- edited format. ( )

Pretty good continuation of the storyline in the Jack Ryan universe. ( )

On first reading:
This is the first Tom Clancy book I have read, and I absolutely loved it. It's a fantastic book. It does demand all your attention to follow all the characters introduced at different times of the book, but in the end you see how it all intertwines. Clancy is a stickler for detail, but instead of slowing down the events, it provides a good insight to them that allows you to really understand what's going on. I will definitely read more Clancy in the future.

On second reading:
Just as good as I remember. I really enjoyed this reread of a great book by a masterful storyteller. ( )

I finally got around to reading the book having seen the movie many times. The novel is good, classic Clancy, but my lasting thought was a new-found appreciation for the art of screenwriting. Compression is the most obvious technique you think of when it comes to putting a book on screen, but this is one of the best demonstrations of how playing with fundamental plot and character attributions can make for a movie that achieves greater emotional impact and clarity of character motivation and conflict than the source material.

The movie's not without its faults of course. It has some of my favourite "How Hollywood Thinks Tech Works" moments. Their attempts to dazzle the audience with high-tech computer mumbo-jumbo are especially laughable in retrospect (look for some woefully unconvincing "computer code" about 90 minutes in, not to mention hacking passwords by guessing birthdate transposition. 133t! ;-) ( )

I finally got around to reading the book having seen the movie many times. The novel is good, classic Clancy, but my lasting thought was a new-found appreciation for the art of screenwriting. Compression is the most obvious technique you think of when it comes to putting a book on screen, but this is one of the best demonstrations of how playing with fundamental plot and character attributions can make for a movie that achieves greater emotional impact and clarity of character motivation and conflict than the source material.

The movie's not without its faults of course. It has some of my favourite "How Hollywood Thinks Tech Works" moments. Their attempts to dazzle the audience with high-tech computer mumbo-jumbo are especially laughable in retrospect (look for some woefully unconvincing "computer code" about 90 minutes in, not to mention hacking passwords by guessing birthdate transposition. 133t! ;-) ( )

This was my first foray into the world of Tom Clancy (aside from seeing the film version of "The Hunt for Red October") and I thoroughly enjoyed the tale of high -tech military actions _targeted at damaging the dangerous Columbian drug cartel. Clancy knows his politics and doesn't shy away from exploring the ethical considerations of military action and political decision-making.

I understood when I picked up this book that I should be prepared for some dated technology, and aside from the obvious improvements in the militarization of digital and computer-based technologies (and perhaps also the use of drones), the story read very realistically and didn't suffer an ounce in its' excitement and intensity.

I had no real background of Clancy's Jack Ryan, nor the enigmatic John Clark. I found both to be a little two dimensional, but honestly didn't care very much either. The story was seeped in political intrigue and military tactics - and these elements provided enough jet fuel to propel the story. ( )

Read this book many years ago when I borrowed it from the library. A fellow BookCrosser was so nice to send it to me, so I could read it again.
Which I just did. And, I must say, that it's a shame that I saw the movie first. Usually reading a book starts my own 'in-head-movie'. What characters look like, places smell like, cities (forests, hiding places) look like .... all based on the descriptions given in the book.

For this book that 'in-head-movei'was ruined by the movie that I saw more than once, because Junior likes it so much.

Nevertheless I liked this book,with all its twists and turns, betrayal, jealousy, hunger for power, in which justice and honesty seem to disappear. A book to which a good movie was made :-) ( )

I stopped reading Clancy a long time ago. I did enjoy this and find it to be one of his better books. I liked the Clark character very much. I may have outgrown techno-thrillers or maybe they don't interest me as much since there is no longer a CCCP. I would still recommend this book if this type of thing is to your liking. ( )

A Tom Clancy book has many characters, all whose role is important in each of his books. I found that as the story Clear and Present Danger unfolds the many characters and their individual traits foreshadow the rest of the story. The history of the drug cartels and the details that are explained regarding the undercover operation is one of the most important parts of setting the stage. This part of the book shows how Tom Clancy chose his title. This particular story takes place in Columbia and America. In Colombia, a war is being waged against the drug cartel. This is a war that I agree with. Drugs are a huge problem in the US. I like how Clancy takes real problems, usually terrorist or drug related and mixes them with intelligence agencies in the US and in Britain as they attempt to overcome these many issues.
I like Clancy’s books. They explore the world providing pictures and perspectives of agents with a unique inside understanding that he creates. I like Clancy’s characterization. His description is vivid, and I feel like I was there with the characters in this book, in the jungle, feeling what they felt right along with them. I enjoy Clancy’s style of writing and how he takes realistic events and intertwines them into several different stories telling both sides of the tale.
I liked that in Clear and Present Danger there is plenty of action. Most of the activity occurs in some Columbian forest, as a specially trained unit of soldiers proceeds with a black operation. Their job is to take out the drug lords and stop their shipments before they can be moved out of Columbia. They also are to cause a struggle for power between the cartels. The operation is going fine. Fewer drugs make it into the US and the price to buy them has risen. When information is leaked and one of the US leaders in charge of the operation is eliminated on a trip to Columbia, the entire operation starts to fall apart. The soldiers then reveal their presence to the cartels, which start to fight back. When this happens, the President orders that the operation be shutdown. He stops all support going to the troops including evacuation, and then to make it harder a high ranking official makes a deal with one of the cartels to have the men eliminated. I would hope that this would never really happen to any of the men and women that keep us safe day in and day out.
Tom Clancy uses many of the same characters in each of his books. I felt that I could understand many of the major players in this book and where they were coming from. My favorite character was Ding, a Mexican-American who grew up in the Los Angeles area. He lived in an area that had rival gangs on both sides of him. This combined with his natural instincts is what helped keep him alive during this operation. Tom Clancy has a way of writing novels so that he implies something about a character but often reverses that implication in another character. Sometimes the main character is a gentle honest man, but his friend will lie and kill for a living.
When I read a Tom Clancy book I like to learn more about the characters and about the different problems that are found in the world. In Clear and Present Danger a realistic problem is portrayed. Answers and consequences to the daily issues that drugs bring are explored. This makes this particular book more fun to read. Not all of Clancy’s books end with a happily ever after, as in this story when only half of the soldiers come home. Clancy writes to always keep you on the edge of your seat as you work your way to the end of his story. I like to try to figure out how the book will end and then be surprised both when I am right and when I misjudge an ending.

Clear and Present Danger details a covert military special-ops mission with the goal of "impacting" the South American Drug trade. In true Clancy fashion, the technical details of the military technology, weapons and aircraft are brilliant, but do start to go stale after the first several hundred pages. The story starts out as quite a page turner and spends quite a bit of time with some of my favorite Clancy characters: Clark and Chavez. I am ambivalent to Jack Ryan, take him or leave him, love him or hate him, he is and always will be the "hero" at the end of the day. Overall this was a good story, though a bit long and drawn out. ( )

The author details each character in a way that you seem to know them. ( )

A rip-roaring techno-thriller at cross-purposes with itself. The early chapter tells the story of a Coast Guard patrol boat in Homeric style, only more long-winded. The novel achieves greatness when it details -- and boy oh boy does this novel love details! -- light infantry training and small-scale covert engagements.

In a nutshell: All the technology and machinery and weapons get highly detailed three-dimensional characterizations. All the humans are treated like cardboard cut-outs, either in sub-Tolkienish moral simplification (evil drug lords vs. heroic American gun-owning patriots) or Ayn Rand-in-miniature political soap-boxing (meaning all liberals are cowardly, back-stabbing effeminate wuss-buckets and all conservatives are all smart, be-muscled, flag-waving uber-patriots).

That being said, it is a well-written techno-thriller with its share of action, heroism, and stuff blowing up. ( )

Typical Clancy military technothriller, this time battling South American drug lords. ( )

I'll do the same review for all Clancy's novels because they're all pretty much the same. Very long, very detailed, and after a while, very repetitive. If you stop after just a few of his books you'd probably give them 4 or 5 stars, but beyond that they start to grate. Especially where Jack Ryan is involved. I mean, Clancy spends hundreds of pages getting his details just right, the settings perfect etc., then he has Ryan dodging more bullets than James Bond! I finally threw my hands up and surrendered when Ryan becomes President. I can't remember what piece of crap that was in.

I've given three stars as a compromise between my reactions when reading my first Clancy (brilliant) and last Clancy (doorstop). ( )