Background Info
on novels

Date first published	14 August 1996
ISBN Number	0 002 24578 7
Page Count	874 h/b
h/b= hardback : p/b= paperback

Storyline

The story takes over where Debt of Honour left off. The Aftermath of the aircraft crash into the Capitol Building in Washington.

Jack Ryan only moments earlier confirmed as caretaker Vice President now finds himself in the unwanted position of President. Rushed away from the scene of the disaster he finds that virtually the whole of the Government has been wiped out.

In Beijing and Tehran, various rulers see the chance to end the world influence of the United States and become World Powers themselves. Even in his own back yard the President finds that life is not all roses. As a minority group decide now would be a good time to end the suppression of the people by eliminating the President as well.

Besides physical threats to himself Ryan has to battle the bigger fight to confirm his authority, as political has-been Ed Kealty tries to usurp the Presidential post for himself.

Tehran, develop a biological weapon based on the Ebola virus, with the hope of decimating the American people, so that it can take advantage of the chaos to unite Iran, Iraq and Saudi Arabia, and bring about the United Islamic Republic.

Can Ryan cope with the political life, resolve the epidemic, also prevent the invasion of Saudi Arabia reveal the puppet master pulling the strings?

Review

I thoroughly enjoyed re-reading this book. It suffers less flaws than Rainbow Six, and in general does not spend as much time with pointless detail. The details regarding the virus development and its later release have obviously been well research and do not make for pleasant reading.

Ryans introduction to Executive life is at the start interesting, but does tend to wear a bit thin towards the end, however, it is only a small portion of the book, and you have so much other detail to take in that it is not so much of a problem. In the later books the pointless minute take over and effect the basic narrative.

The concept of crashing the jet liner into a public building has unfortunately come true, and bearing in mind that this was written some 4 years before the events show how perceptive Clancy can be.

The book is a nice mix of political juggling with a large military set piece along with some basic information on how American armoured divisions are trained.

The Mountain men whilst an interesting sideshow, could really have been left out of the book altogether, as it does nothing to enhance the threat to Ryan. This strand of the book would only have become important if it had been taken to its ultimate conclusion. Although this would have been rather pointless as a much better crafted threat had already been woven into the basic plotline. What worse a threat than to have a member of your own security detail be a traitor and assassin.

The battle sequence in the Arabian desert is pure Clancy, although I do wonder whether up against trained troops as the UIR troops were supposed to be whether it would be such an easy rollover. Hopefully this will never be put to the test. The second Gulf war did not pose any serious threat to US forces, and so can't be used for real comparison.

The constant pace and continued threat to Ryan, makes the book a highly enjoyable read, and is one of Clancy's top notch novels.

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