Rating: 
Summary: Disturbingly inaccurate
Review: I like Tom Clancy and despite its many shortcomings noted by others I could have liked Red Rabbit too. But the incredible factual inaccuracies made me vince.His geography at times mixes East and West. He makes his Rabbit travel from Moscow to Budapest via Sophia and Belgrade and changes railroad tracks as they cross into Hungary. His geography and details of Budapest is a mixture of small irrelevant - but correct - details and sheer misinformation. A simple look at any tourist map would have shown him how wrong he is. How a writer of Clancy's reputation can efford not to have qualified reviewers - for a pittance - is beyond me. A disappointment that will leave me questioning all details in his books.
Rating: 
Summary: A bonus for Clancy fans; hard to put down
Review: Having seen other reviews, I've been wondering if we all read the same book -- I guess different people expect different things. I honestly had a hard time putting this one down, from the beginning. (Some of Clancy's other novels take a while to really get moving.) Anyway, a lot of the action takes place inside of people's heads, but it doesn't mean this book is not fast-paced.
If you know Clancy's previous novels, you will enjoy the extra time spent with the Folleys, who in my opinion have been underused in the past. Jack, true to form, shows up at the crucial times, but is often in the background. Lots of interesting details on life in the Soviet Union and the KGB, including some pretty obscure facts.
Bottom line, if you are a Clancy fan, this is your bonus time with your favorite characters in a solid, uncomplicated plot. If you are not a fan, I still think it would make for a pretty good read.
Rating: 
Summary: Tom Clancy: Red Rabbit
Review: The good news is: the book as such is not as bad as EXECUTIVE ORDERS and its two successors. TC tries to get back to his flowing narrative style with its solid basement of abundant and precise details from the shelves of history, politics, inside knowledge, and emotions. The bad news is: RED RABBIT shows a solid lack of content - the story of the whole book would have made only a fifth of the total package when TC was at his best. Therefore, and this is the sad news, TC puts some of his most famous assets, PATRIOT GAMES and THE CARDINAL OF THE KREMLIN, on a garage sale. Without remorse he cannibalizes these two great stories to substitute RED RABBIT. But even so the simplicity and complete absence of any operational finesse of this latest (yet backdated) novel cannot be compensated. To the contrary, and this is a nightmare come true, the so lovingly and delicately developed main characters of TC's previous prime work like Jack and Cathy are significantly damaged by the unsophisticated and unreflective people they are portrait as in RED RABBIT. In the earlier novels they earned our sympathy by being wealthy but nevertheless down-to-earth guys, who truly had a touch for each other, for their kids and for life itself. Now, they carry their false modesty--enveloped in self-repeating superficial conversations--like an erroneous light through the intellectual darkness of the book. Therefore RED RABBIT is, for the true fan of Tom Clancy, his worst book of all due to its potential ability to reach out into the past and destroy the grand and wonderful characters, schemes, and pictures the TC reading community had come to worship from THE HUNT FOR RED OCTOBER to DEBT OF HONOR. This clear and present danger is amplified by the fact that the story of RED RABBIT is even not a plot. It's a mere chain link of coincidences each of them with a likelihood equalizing the chances of hitting the lottery jackpot once a week for a year. Lastly, the factional research and presentation - both virtues TC had been acclaimed to be mastering as state-of-the-art - are below bottom line as well. In RED RABBIT he makes traveling from one side of the Iron Curtain to the other to look easier during the times of the Cold War than between the "Schengen" countries of today's European Union. However, the worst factional mistake is made when three Russian bodies are replaced by three British/American corpses and the KGB employed forensic pathologist fails to notice the exchange due to the fact that he is dealing with severely burned victims of a fire. For the intellect of TC fans a more than rude affront as even illiterates know from the ever present TV news that you just have to look into the mouth of a corpse to ID it: the difference of English/American and Russian dental work may most likely be perceived even by those non-physicians, who tend to brush their teeth now and then. In summary, it would be nice if I could erase RED RABBIT from my mind. I would even pay the price of the book for the possibility not to have read it - just to keep my memories of the early good stuff of Tom Clancy untouched. The book RED RABBIT is such a sad embarrassment to all TC fans that PenguinPutnam should start to pay TC for not writing in the future.
Rating:
Summary: Clancy Inc.
Review: I have read every Clancy book religiously, many of them several times. He is not my favorite author, but I have really enjoyed his books, so at a minimum, I am a fan. Red Rabbit is not Clancy at his best. The book reads like a boot from Tom Clancy, Inc., from a corporate machine, designed to stamp out a Clany product, a widget, every certain number of months. This is easily Clancy's most tepid work since he last took his series out of order, and focused on a young John Clark, the making of John Clark, in the summer of 1993, in Without Remorse. Its not just the usual Clancy unimaginative prose. No, we all know, fans and haters, that Mr. Clancy does not have a gift with words, every book is wooden. But nevertheless, his books have been able to inspire a certain respect, few fans could not admire Jack Ryan, defending honor and his family in Patriot Games, or the first introduction to Chavez in the jungles of Central America. This book does not inspire that hope for a character. Perhaps its failing is that we know the ending before we start. The Pope lives. The book seems to suffer from a lack of suspense in that respect. Maybe Mr. Clancy is just running out of ideas. An author can only have so many works inside them. Most likely, the focus on Op-Center, the non-fiction works, and other general Tom Clancy, Inc. duties have made the well run dry. I sincerely hope Mr. Clancy takes some time off, and develops a good story for his next book. His fans may be loyal, as I am, but two in a row will hurt.
Rating:
Summary: Tom Clancy tries a different route with Jack Ryan
Review: This book is more of developing the Jack Ryan character even further for Clancy, if that was possible with all the books and movies on him. This book focuses on the CIA's involvement with a defector from the USSR and his information on an assassination attempt on the, then, new Pope John Paul II. Jack Ryan is working with Mi6 when the defector wants out. Jack is then put in a position of taking a few field missions that he doesn't really want to take. If this book will ever be made into a movie, and most likely it will be the next Clancy to be made into a movie, it will create a nice segeway from The Sum of All Fears for Ben Afleck since in that book/movie Jack Ryan wasn't all into field missions.
Personally I would recommend this book to Clancy fans obviously, but this is an interesting read for people into real spy novels. This book is full of intrique and suspense, this almost harkens back to Clancy's The Cardnial of the Kremlin.
The only reason I gave it 4 stars instead of 5 is because I thought the ending was very unfufilling however I will let you decide that for yourself after you read it.
Rating:
Summary: Top 10 Things That Makes Red Rabbit a Lousy Book
Review: 10. None of the intrigue or fine attention to technical detail than Clancy's earlier book had.
9. Filled with long-winded passages of characters shallowing ruminating on nothing of particular interest.
8. All the guys call their spouses "babe" - it seems like Clancy's world is run by ex porn stars.
7. Profanity abounds in the dialog, but in a sledgehammery amatuerish fashion, not to make a point or build emphasis.
6. Dull - pages and pages go on with nothing happening.
5. Lots of characters are addicted to smoking, which is referred to as a "vice" up there with drinking.
4. Lousy dialog
3. Repetitive - because the damn thing is so big, Clancy often makes the same exact point twice (e.g. a minor character background the Nanny is described twice, Ed Foley twice thinks that there can't be hidden cameras in his apartment because Soviet tech is five years behind, etc)
2. Ultimately the plot is not that interesting
1. Seems stuck in the Cold War era and can't get it. My advice: skip this doggie.
Rating:
Summary: Don't Do It
Review: Clancy has lost it. Don't know what else to say...
Rating:
Summary: Not his best effort
Review: Tom Clancy must have either tried to take us back to the cold war and resurrect Jack Ryan's character to his pre-executive position days, or he dusted off a book he began a long time ago and sent it in without completing his effort. I was very disappointed, and felt as though I had a bad copy that was missing the final chapter. While some portions of this book was entertaining, I could not figure out if I was reading a romance or spy novel. Clancy tries to make a story around the 1981 Pope assassination attempt. Clancy normally researches his efforts and while I realize this is fiction, there are some huge mistakes. The biggest being the timing of the attempt. Ryan tries to get tid bits of information and scores on the Orioles-Phillies World Series. This series took place in October of 1983, the assassination attempt was May of 1981. While this may seem petty, it is indicative of the poor effort throughout.
Rating:
Summary: BEYOND AWFUL!
Review: I have just driven from Chicago to Atlanta, listening to Red Rabbit on CD. Despite the fact that it was instantly clear that this was a simply dreadful book...In an insane fit of sadism I finished the whole thing. I had read the first five Clancy novels when they were published, and in a fit of nostalgia I purchased this CD for my trip. My brother wanted to throw the disks out the window, but I kept them. I think I will give them to him as a gag gift this Christmas! The thought of having read an UNabridged version makes me tremble. I see no need to elaborate and justify my comments, as there are 445 other reviews here, If you scroll through them you will find 9/10 reviews hostile. It is time to put Clancy back in the Crypt...
Rating:
Summary: Not Clancy's best effort
Review: The book was not the worst I've read, but as a fan of Tom Clancy, I was vastly disappointed. What dissapointed me the most was the way he ended the book. It seems as if Clancy was 3/4 of the way into the story when his publisher suddenly called and told him he had 24 hours to finish and submit. I've never read such a hurried up, disappointing ending in any book, let alone a Tom Clancy book. I wouldn't recommend this book unless you are a die-hard Tom Clancy fan, as I *was*, and just have to read every one of his books.
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